Italian Cooking Part 4

It was my final day at my cooking class today. We made a wonderful thick leek soup with bruschetta and a crusty top. While that baked, we made a delicious mushroom risotto - stirring, stirring for 20 minutes then letting it rest with butter and parmesan.

Both dishes were absolutely delicious, and things I can do without a pasta maker. To buy a pasta machine here is around $80 - I had one at home that I only paid about $20, so I will bring that next time I return.

The next classes in part 2 are for main courses: beef, pork, chicken and seafood. I’m going to give it a few weeks’ break before I return as the investment of 1100 pesos is considerable. The course is certainly worth it, as well as learning something new, all the ingredients are paid for and you get to bring home plenty of food. I still have lasagne in the freezer and will also have to freeze some gnocchi. I’ve hardly had to cook at home since I started the course.

I have to return to the Italian centre one day next week to collect my official diploma. And then I need to repeat as many of the recipes as I can so that I remember the technique. Adriana gave us the recipes for everything we cooked, and at the end of each class we had to sit down and write out the instructions ourselves, in our own language. She says that helps us to remember them better than being given them all complete. I’d love to do the ravioli again but suspect it will be very very hard work rolling out the dough without the machine; I don‘t even have a rolling pin.  And there are a couple of places here where you can buy fresh pasta so I may just do that and make the sauce myself.