Naturally COLORED PASTA! Yes, with ingredients from the garden, but not only…from the seaside as well.

“Simple is not Easy”, this sentence flies on my mind every day since the first time I heard it. Making fresh homemade Pasta is definitely simple, but there are many variables to remind and respect. Each has its say about making pasta from scratch; when I was studying at the Italian Chef Academy, in Florence, some teachers recommended adding salt, others used a mix made of white flour and semolina, and others added milk if it was too dry and oil to keep it elastic.

Making Fresh Colored Pasta from scratch

Well, I learned to make Pasta when I was a child, looking at my grandmother whit great amazement, enraptured by her experience; that’s to tell you that I didn’t get confused when I discovered, at school, that making the perfect Pasta is not a science, it isn’t something to study but…as everything simple…you have to find your way by doing and doing again.

This is exactly what I try to teach to my guests and descents during our Private Cookery Courses in Tuscany, the cooking class is maybe the first occasion to learn by doing, then you need to practice at home.

Maybe it’ll be necessary to add oil, milk, salt, and semolina, maybe not because you obtained a perfect dough just with basic ingredients: Whole Eggs and 00 Flour. Anyway, all you need it’s kneading until obtaining a smooth and elastic ball of dough. You can use an electric tool, but making it by hand will help you a lot to develop gluten, that’s a crucial variable in making a smooth pasta; then you can roll it with a rolling pin, anyway I often use a  rolling machine and it’s definitely easier and even better if you’re not a skilled pasta maker.  Here’s my recipe for making fresh pasta from scratch. I know it’s difficult to find 00 flour out of Italy, anyway I tested the all-purpose one and it’s ok, you can definitely use it; but please, don’t use flour with yeast inside or anything else.

Pasta Coloring Basics

In the last few years more and more people ask me how to make “colored” pasta, you know that “colored” is not “flavored”; it deals with a fresh and natural way to make pasta, adding some ingredients to the eggs giving to the dough a particular color.

ORANGE PASTA: Tomato Paste; click here for the recipe

GREEN PASTA: Mashed Spinach

BLACK PASTA: Squid Ink (below recipe)

PINK PASTA: Mashed Beetroot

BROWN PASTA: Cocoa powder; click here for the recipe

Cooking Classes in Tuscany

I then finally decided to introduce the possibility to make “colored” pasta during our Cookery Course in Tuscany, with my company CuocheinVacanza. Yes, because is not at all difficult, there’s just one more step to follow, nothing else; everyone can make it and each “color” has its suitable sauces.

Our most requested cooking classes are about “Tortelli Maremmani” (huge ravioli) or “Tortellini” (small ravioli), well, I’m glad to inform you that you can obtain an amazing stuffed colored pasta as well; just remind to fill it with the right ingredients.

Let’s start with the recipe for Black Pasta, that’s fantastic with sea fruits, mussels, and all the ingredients recalling the taste of the “sea”.

Here are some recipes to find some Risotto Sauces suitable for black Tagliatelle as well!

Prawns Risotto

Squid Risotto

Risotto Baby cuttlefish and pumpkin

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L'articolo #Tuscany, “colored” Pasta Cookery Course: black Tagliatelle! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

A Tuscan sauce usually is something on the season, made with simple and fresh ingredients.

Fresh pasta represents the essence of my job and the bond with my grandmother. I know it could be silly to explain “the food” as something of great value or an important message, but food is my life and I try to communicate love through food as well. Yes, with my family, friends, but also with my students and customers on holiday in Tuscany.

Almost all of you know that we “Cuoche in Vacanza” (Italian for Cooks on Holiday) are all mad for Fresh Pasta; well, we obviously are mad for every Tuscan sauce for pasta, as well.

So, with our itinerant cooking school around Tuscany, we try to teach how to make fresh pasta in all the possible ways.

In my opinion PASTA is the most versatile dish:

• First of all, enjoying your time, you can make both fresh eggs pasta or no eggs fresh pasta
• Furthermore, there are a lot of fillings for fresh pasta; meat-based, fish, veggies… anyway here in Tuscany we prefer pasta filled with ricotta cheese. Then you can add to the ricotta what you prefer
• well, what is fantastic with fresh pasta is the chance to “color” depending on ingredients that you use with the eggs and flour. Click the link for the many ways to color FRESH PASTA
• Finally, you’ll never finish experimenting to season your pasta dish, because the sauces are endless. Here in this post, you can find the recipe of a very tasteful Tuscan sauce, made with mussels from Livorno and asparagus from San Giuliano Terme.

Well, this time we were called by a group of tourists from Norway to teach them a Tuscan menu:

• Bruschetta
• Ravioli Maremmani and Tagliatelle (black)
• Fresh Veggies Seasonal Sauce

• Tuscan Sauce with mussels and fresh asparagus (recipe down here)

What you’re seeing in the picture are all the vegetables in season here in Tuscany: cherry tomatoes, leeks, basil, asparagus, and the amazing courgette flowers.

Well, don’t be surprised, in Italy we often cook courgette flowers in many ways and I can guarantee you that they are delicious.

• fried: in a blatter, stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, or with ricotta cheese and olives
• steamed stuffed with fish and egg
• cut in stripes and cooked in a pan (just 5 minutes) to season all kinds of pasta with a Tuscan sauce. Want to see a sauce with courgette flowers? GNOCCHI SAUCE HERE

Our customers and students from Norway were such “hard workers”!

They set a long table outside of the beautiful “Podere Zobi”  (we call “podere” every country villa here in Tuscany) with a fantastic view over the hills.

Sun was really shining and the table was open air, so it was not easy to run the cooking class. But when you’re doing something that makes you feel good, you forget any nuisance.

So we went forward making fresh pasta outside and cooking a gorgeous Tuscan sauce in the beautiful kitchen inside.

The result?

The Tuscan sauce with asparagus and mussels was delicious and everyone asked for an extra portion. It’s a very good sauce for “black” (squid-ink) pasta.

Finally, down here you can read the recipe and I’m sure that you’ll appreciate this dish both for its flavor and the easy way to make it.

You know the Cuoche in Vacanza said: #SimplebutExquisite

Well, here’s another tasteful sauce: red mullet, rucola and piccadilly tomatoes

Anyway, I’ve some questions for you:

Have you ever tasted asparagus with mussels? Where?

So, do you know that here in Tuscany (in Spring) you can find “wild asparagus”?

As “Cuoche in Vacanza (Chefs on holiday) we organize walks in the Tuscan country to pick up and cook wild herbs. CLICK HERE to know more.

L'articolo Fresh pasta before your eyes! Tuscan sauce: mussels and asparagus proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Squid Ink Tagliatelle is one of the most delicious gourmet and unusual ingredients.

So tie your apron strings and invite your family or friends, you can be sure you’re doing a very good impression.

All the people in our company “Cuoche in Vacanza (Cooks for your Vacations)” are addicted to fresh handmade pasta. It’s the protagonist in Private Cooking Classes directly at your holiday home in Tuscany, and in Private Dinners as well.

How could it be different? Our job is with tourists and travelers from all over the world and people like to spend time with fun, first of all on holiday.

Anyway if you have no time for making both pasta and sauce, No problem:

• you can buy squid ink tagliatelle HERE …and the sauce is very quick!

My granny often made “colored” pasta, according to the different ingredients directly added to the pasta dough. When I was a child and she made Squid Ink Tagliatelle I was fascinated by eating something so “common” in Italian Cuisine, but so different at the same time.

Everyone can make fresh pasta, with only 2 ingredients: eggs and flour!

About Squid Ink (if you’re going to make fresh pasta):

1. you can use the fresh one (directly from the main ink sac of fresh squid)
2. you can purchase it (sachet or jar)

They’re both good for colouring pasta. During our cooking classes in Tuscany we use the purchased one, of course.

Want to know how to make Squid Ink Tagliatelle? Click HERE for the Recipe

As I posted a few time ago, you can make different colors of homemade pasta, depending on the ingredients that you add to the pasta dough. For example, you can have fantastic Ravioli Orange Coloured simply adding tomato paste (click HERE for the recipe)

In Italy, we eat pasta every day (most of all dried pasta). Well, for us Italians, colored pasta (obviously with natural and fresh ingredients) it’s a way not to get bored while eating the most famous Italian food: PASTA!

That’s why a few time ago I decided to add to our cooking classes menu a new kind of cooking course: “colored pasta cooking class“.

Our cooking classes are all hands-on and almost all are suitable for children, so what’s better than replicate the “magic” from my granny?

Nowadays I can say that “colored pasta cooking class” is one of the most successful course; making fresh handmade “colored” pasta (as Squid Ink Tagliatelle for example) is really funny and our customers often make it again once at their home and send me the pictures of their dishes.

So what sauce for Squid Ink Tagliatelle?

• Every kind of fish or sea fruit sauce.

I love fresh and seasonal ingredients, so I opted for this sauce: red mullet with fresh rucola and fresh (yes, they’re not cooked) tomatoes. I tasted this sauce for the first time in a really good restaurant in Lucca, I was delighted and immediately made the sauce at home for my family and friends.

All my customers and students in Private Dinners and Cooking Classes in Tuscany know my love for Piccadilly Tomatoes. This kind of tomato has its origins in Sicily and they’re very sweet and juicy and the most suitable for our very appreciated Tuscan Bruschetta.

Well, I think they’re the best for this sauce, any way you can use cherry tomatoes (maybe more easy to find) as well. what you’re going to read it’s in my opinion the best sauce for Squid Ink Tagliatelle, but as I told you, do not hesitate to try any kind of fish (or sea fruit) sauce.

Any questions or suggestions? Do you like this article? Please share it with your friends. Leave a comment and I’ll answer you immediately!

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L'articolo Squid Ink Tagliatelle with red mullet, fresh rucola and piccadilly tomatoes proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Itinerant Cooking School means that: “We come to wherever you’re staying in Tuscany for Private Cooking Classes and Dinners“.

Pappardelle with Salmon and Tuscan Fish

This is our job for 8 years. We’re mad about fresh egg pasta (stuffed and not): we teach how to make it in our private cookery courses and we make fresh pasta before your eyes if you call us for a private lunch/dinner at your home as well.

Our company is Cuoche in Vacanza (Italian for Cooks on Holiday): we’re a group of women who cook everywhere in Tuscany.

Nonna Rossy is a fantastic Tuscan woman who started working for our Itinerant Cooking School many years ago.

She is my mother in law and her main features are tirelessness and great skills in cooking Tuscan food and ingredients.

Here’s a recipe that she made few days ago in a private dinner for a Russian family who came from Mosca in Tuscany on vacation.

Since they were curious to eat a fresh pasta dish with fish sauce, they didn’t like going to the restaurant and looked for a Personal Cook in Tuscany to prepare it.

They already knew that ours is an Itinerant Cooking School and asked for a Group Cooking Class as well, 2 days after their Private Dinner.

The dish they asked for is a fresh pasta dish with Salmon and fish from the Tyrrhenian Sea (that one in Tuscany) as well. In fact we’ve a lots of fish here in tuscany, in Summer and Winter as well. It would have been a shame not to include Tuscan fresh fish as an ingredient.

The recipe below calls for:  Salmon, Sea Bass, Sea Bream, Baby squid…with a sprinkling of lumpfish eggs on the top.

In this reguard I tried to replace the lumpfish eggs with “BOTTARGA” (from mullet) and the result is amazing.

Do you know what Bottarga is? It’s an Italian gourmet ingredient, a delicacy: a small loaf made with eggs of mullet (or tuna) that you can cut in thiny slices or grate to put on the top of many italian dishes. It’s very tasteful (as you can imagine) and it gives an extra touch to each dish.

Maybe you name it: roe mullet…but I’m not sure.

When you call for a fresh pasta with sauce I immediately think to Tagliatelle and this is the kind of pasta that Rossy prepared for our guests from Russia.

We often teach how making tagliatelle, tagliolini or Tortelli (stuffed pasta) at our Itinerant Cooking School

You can obviously prepare this fantastic dish with dried pasta that you can buy in a box or bag. No problem: every pasta sauce is good with almost any kind of pasta. If you decide to buy dried pasta I anyway suggest you to use “long” pasta: spaghetti, vermicelli, linguine…I think that you can find: De Cecco, Barilla and Garofalo pasta abroad and they’re very good.

Instead, if you like making your own fresh egg pasta, click on the following link for ITALIAN FRESH EGG PASTA RECIPE

Click on the following links for some Amazing Italian Pasta Sauces

CARBONARA

PESTO SAUCE

GORGONZOLA CREAM SAUCE

MEATBALLS SAUCE FOR SPAGHETTI

RAGU (BOLOGNESE) SAUCE

What’s your fav pasta sauce?

Would like us Cuoche in Vacanza writing one recipe for you here in this blog? Please tell us and leave a comment.

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L'articolo Itinerant cooking school and personal cook at your holiday home: nonna Rossy’s tagliatelle with fish sauce proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.