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

Salva

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Italian Carnival fried dough guys! It’s finally time for. 

As Carnival is coming here in Tuscany you can not give up these “sweets” related to the tradition. During these days their perfume pervades every house … especially those with children or with the greedy ones.

The scent of icing sugar is here at my house as well.

Tuscany is famous for fried dough, the same that we call “panzerotti” or “pasta fritta”. You can eat this typical dough during our Private dinners or Cooking Classes in Tuscany and I’ve to say that everyone appreciates the flavor of this typical food.

Furthermore for a Private Chef in Tuscany is taken for granted preparing the dough by scratch. In fact, I always start kneading, as arrived at the villas or holiday homes where live our customers while on vacation.

Well, Carnival fried dough is completely different. First of all, because it’s something sweet, furthermore it’s so crispy and thin that it seems melting in your mouth.

We’re talking about an old Tuscan food: CENCI! My recipe is a small reinterpretation of that of the greatest Tuscan recipes writer: Pellegrino Artusi. Maybe it’s a recipe 200 years old.

What’s a typical Carnival food in your country?

Would you like to share the recipe here in the comments?

Facebook live class video

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Italian Aperitivo: Gougeres (French cheese puffs)

Running Cooking Classes in Tuscany often means toasting with an aperitif in your hands, together with your students.

Sometimes we toast throughout Tuscany due to my work as a traveling chef, other times we toast directly in the kitchen of the “Cuoche in Vacanza” Cooking School and B&B near Lucca.

Well, for sure we had a great Italian Aperitivo last week. It was the starter for a buffet of about 30 people. The closing of a master’s degree at the University of Genoa was celebrated.

So, the Italian Aperitivo: Gougeres is very fashionable in recent times. I have learned these french cheese puffs directly from my stepmother who is from Dijon in Burgundy where they originate. For the buffet that I prepared, I decided to accompany them with an excellent smoked salmon.

Well, in Italy, we put the Gougeres over a charcuterie board with delicious cold cuts and also precisely with the smoked salmon.

Follow the steps one by one and you will have one of the most delicious things in the world.

Buon Appetito!

GOUGERES (french cheese puffs)

INGREDIENTS

5 oz (150 gr) flour

5 oz (150 gr) groviera or emmenthal or maasdam cheese

2 oz (60 gr) butter 

1 cup  (250 ml) water

1 pinch nutmeg 

to taste salt, pepper

4 whole eggs

1 yolk for brushing

METHOD

Boil water + butter

Add the flour in one stroke and whisk well

Pour 1 egg till incorporated … proceed with one egg at a time till they’re finished.

Add 3⁄4 of the groviera and the nutmeg and mix again

Switch on the oven 392°F (200°C)

Grease a baking tray with butter (you can also use baking paper)

Spoon the pasta on the tray (help yourself with a teaspoon to expel the dough from the spoon in one move)

Spread the remaining cheese on the top

Brush (if you like) the yolk on the top before baking

Bake at 392 °F (200 °C) for 30 minutes (fan)

Important Recommendations

Before switching off the oven, check the gougeres are well baked on the bottom and touch the top that should be hard (not elastic).

Turn off the oven and let them dry and cool inside the oven, with the oven door slightly open

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Cooking classes all year round!    It’s autumn and our cooking classes in Tuscany don’t stop. When preparing dishes with fresh and seasonal ingredients, you can cook all year round without any problems.

Our menus change, our culinary proposals change. But if you want to take a cooking course you have 2 possibilities:
1) WE come to wherever you’re staying in Tuscany.
2) YOU come to our Dolce Vita in Tuscany, brick’n mortar cooking school near Lucca

During Autumn and Wintertime, I often run cooking classes that have porcini as protagonists. It has been like this for many years. After 3 hours of class, we’re very happy to serve you at the table, while enjoying the fruits of your labor. Sipping a nice glass of Tuscan wine, of course.
Cheers then!
And here is the recipe

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Pasta mix, an imaginative dish!

Does anyone of you know what is the MISTICANZA DI PASTA? Maybe some of you who have Italian relatives know that in Italy if different types of pasta are leftover, you decide to cook them all together.

 

Even during my cooking classes in Tuscany, I love teaching to make differe

nt shapes of pasta. It is so satisfying to taste some types of pasta that “welcome” the sauce in a different way.

As they say: today at lunch we make “misticanza di pasta!”…past

a mix.

Click to view slideshow.

Never to the restaurant

This type of dish is one that you will never, ever find in a restaurant here in Italy. Like minestrone or roast chicken with potatoes, you will only enjoy it if you have the opportunity to eat at a family table.

To tell you the truth at my Bed and Breakfast and Cooking School Dolce Vita in Tuscany , customers often ask me for the pasta mix: it’s how to feel at home, in the family.

So, since here in Tuscany Autumn is excellent for mullet and cuttlefish, I decided to prepare:

MISTICANZA DI PASTA AL SUGO DI TRIGLIA

(pasta mix with mullet sauce)

This pasta sauce is exquisite and you can do it with the pasta that you prefer, whether it is mixed or not. Excellent for bavette (otherwise called linguine) … here is the recipe my friends.

You know that I’m at your disposal for any questions.

You can also click on the link of my blog for many Italian/Tuscan homemade recipes.

INGREDIENTS

5 OR 6 Fillets of mullet

500 gr (2 oz) cherry tomatoes

1 clove garlic

4 basil leaves

salt

pepper

extra virgin olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

Prepare the tomato sauce: cut the cherry tomatoes in half. Pour the oil into a pan with the clove of garlic and, when it is hot, pour the cherry tomatoes and salt. Lively flame.

After about 5 minutes, place the mullet fillets on the sauce and cook them for about 3 minutes per side. Medium flame.

With the help of a wooden spoon, break the fillets once tender and mix well.

Add the basil, cook another 2 minutes and turn off the heat.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water and season with this delicious sauce, tossing it in a pan for 5 seconds.

Serve immediately in a deep dish, do not add grated Parmesan.

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Simple is not easy

Many keep asking me for the recipe. I am very happy to share it with you. Allow me to remind you that everything I prepare is simple, but the ingredients must be of the highest quality.  

This appetizer is so nice to see and recalls the colors of the Italian flag: that’s why the name.

Maybe I’ll do soon a Facebook Streaming and we’ll prepare this together. Let me know if you like the idea. You know last year I did a lot of free Facebook Streamings from my Dolce Vita in Tuscany B&B and Cooking School; I’ll restart them soon guys. 

Always Simple and Healthy dishes from Italy!

Well, while I am here I also dust off my grandmother’s sentence: SIMPLE DOES NOT MEAN EASY.

Enjoy your meal guys!  English for: BUON APPETITO RAGAZZI!

Click to view slideshow.

Italian flag appetizer in a glass

INGREDIENTS (about 15 PEOPLE)

1 pound fresh mozzarella fiordilatte
1 cup heavy cream
30-35 cherry tomatoes
small basil leaves to decorate
4 tbsp brown sugar
to taste salt and pepper
to taste extra virgin oil
9 oz salted Taralli

METHOD

cut the tomatoes in half. Place them with the moist side up on a sheet of parchment paper. Sprinkle a little salt, then the sugar, and a drizzle of oil.
Bake them at 180 °C, 356 °F for about 20 minutes, fan. Anyway, until they are slightly browned at the base and a little dried out.
Whip the cream
Blend the mozzarella in a robot until you get a cream. Season with salt and pepper.
Incorporate the whipped cream into the mozzarella cream to obtain a mousse
Coarsely chop the taralli until crumbs
Season the crumbs of taralli with extra virgin olive oil

TO ASSEMBLE

On each small glass for appetizer place:
a layer of taralli crumbs
the mousse (if desired with the sac a poche), which fills the glass,
sprinkle with a few crumbs of taralli
add 2 or 3 pieces of confit cherry tomatoes
decorate with basil leaves
season with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Enjoy your meal!

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Focaccia Pugliese online cooking class is my last live stream. In fact, I’m making many Italian and Tuscan recipes directly from the kitchen of my Cooking School and B&B in Tuscany.

Someone prefers Watching a Video

Well, as a chef, I can say that many people prefer watching a video, then stop each step and follow the procedure. Furthermore, in this way, you can easily understand the “right way” to handle an ingredient. So, watching a video means that you can notice many suggestions and tricks that you are not able to understand just reading a recipe. At which level of the oven to bake, for example, and how long. Well, often this is not written in a recipe, but watching a video you can’t forget it. So you know how much is important, right?

Some others prefer reading and print the recipe

On the other hand, some others prefer to read and print the recipes. They want to bring a paper with them, maybe near the stove, without thinking of watching too far from where they’re cooking.

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By popular demand, here’s our last: HANDMADE ORECCHIETTE LIVE ON STREAM CLASS. I run these FREE LIVE ON STREAM CLASSES directly from My Cooking School near Lucca, in Tuscany.

You’ll learn how to make the dough, how to shape orecchiette…and in addiction: an amazing pasta sauce.

The typical sauce for Orecchiette: Broccoli Sauce!

It comes directly from Puglia (South Italy) and by watching the video, you’ll also learn a precious tip to make this sauce to ist best.

Just a suggestion: before watching buy these ingredients, so you can make this with me directly. Furthermore don’t forget that I jump on the HANDMADE ORECCHIETTE LIVE ON STREAM CLASS, even when the broadcast is done. That’s why I can ask all your questions, always.

Buon Appetito and enjoy this Free HANDMADE ORECCHIETTE LIVE ON STREAM CLASS for you!

INGREDIENTS (2 people):

200gr; 1 cup: Semolina Flour

100gr; 1/2 cup: water

to taste salt

1 tbsp extra virgin oil

THE SAUCE:

500gr, 1 pound: Broccoli

1 garlic clove

4 anchovy fillets

1 fresh red chili pepper (or some flakes)

4 tbsp extra virgin oil

2 tbsp Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano Cheese

TOOLS:

Dough cutter

1 Knife with a rounded tip (dinner knife): IMPORTANT

Pot for water

Spider strainer

Pan

I hope to meet you one day here in this magic place: the DOLCE VITA B&B and APARTMENT

Interesting Recipes with Broccoli: Penne ai Broccoli and Sun-dried Tomatoes, Broccoli, Shrimps and Turmeric, broccoli and veggies pies

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Stay at home is imperative these days when the coronavirus impervious in the world in a dramatic way.

Here in Italy, we are very affected by this terrible virus and we are forced to stay at home and therefore also not to see our loved ones especially elderly people.

But outside it is Spring and where I live (in the countryside between Pisa and Lucca) it is almost a crime not to be able to enjoy the pure fresh air and the scent of the fields just flowered.

No-egg version

Fortunately, I have a small garden and I find many Violets that have just been born and so together with my daughter, we decided to pick them and to be able to make them candied.

My violets are precisely those of Parma, the most famous in Italy. A perfumer friend of mine gave me some seeds many years ago.

During the cooking classes that I run here in Tuscany, I do not let my students eat raw eggs because of the risk of salmonella.

That’s why I chose to make a totally egg-free version versus the old way to make candied violets.

Herb gathering Cooking Class

Anyway, when we feed with flowers, we’ve to be sure that flowers are absolutely edible flowers! Therefore not poisonous therefore non-toxic. A list of edible flowers here on Wikipedia.

Well together with a herbalist friend of mine we run in Tuscany an amazing herb gathering course. We take walks in the countryside and we catch all the edible species of flowers and plants that we meet on our path.

During this course, we teach what are edible species and which ones toxic and poisonous instead, in our area. This is a beautiful course because at the end of the walk we cook the collected herbs together and then we eat them all together in a beautiful stone house surrounded by olive trees.

Spring is one of the best seasons for the Herb collection course. Unfortunately, because of covid-19, this year there will not be this course and no other type of course. You know, the imperative is: “stay at home”.

Stay at Home, but have fun!

However never give up! Well, any activity that can distract you from bad thoughts will entertain you even if you are stuck in the house.

Rest assured that making candied violets will have a lot of fun whether you are alone or with someone who can help you.

Furthermore apart from the fun, making candied violets is like a form of meditation. They are gestures that reassure you and that bring you back to a calmness that we need very much in this period.

The results are also very satisfying. Candied violets are beautiful as well as very good.

Once candied, you can store your violets for some days in a tin box, interspersed with sheets of parchment paper. And every time you open that box you will smell an incredible perfume.

Once took them out of the box you can use them to decorate beautiful biscuits or a cake for a friend‘s birthday.

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The Cooking Class in Lucca was the penultimate of the season. The last one was in fact directly at our Cooking School in Lucca countryside: Dolce Vita b&b and cooking.

They called me in the Lucca countryside for a cooking class, they were from Sweden and they liked to prepare a dish based on mackerel that it also had Mediterranean perfumes.

Well, what is better than presenting this dish to them? It includes and exalts both their desires.

Why the mackerel?

You won’t believe it but mackerel is a truly delicious fish!

Everyone knows how healthy this fish is, everyone knows that it is rich in omega-3 but few know that it really tastes tasty especially if cooked in the best way.

Mackerel is a fish first of all that it is not endangered. In fact, it is a blue fish belonging to poor cuisine and just for these reasons, it is worth buying and cooking it.

Just think that Slow Food (good, fair, clean food Association) says that eating endangered fish is like committing a crime.

So just to clear up our conscience we know that by eating mackerel we can also contribute to the improvement and protection of the environment.

Mackerel is a fish with a very strong flavor because it contains a lot of fats even if these fats are positive fats. 

Tips from the cooking class in Lucca

Therefore, for those like me who cook by profession and run cooking classes by profession, it is absolutely necessary to find a new way to cook mackerel. Sometimes there’s, in fact, an excess of strong flavor. This is what I tried to make for my cooking class in Lucca.

Well, the absolutely best way that I have experimented is exactly what we’re going to make now. 2 simples steps that you have not to forget: 

1. marinate at least 1-hour
2. cook in the pan (the whole mackerel, or mackerel fillet…but don’t use the oven)

Using oranges really turned out to be the most successful way. In fact oranges, thanks to their acidity and their scent really give the mackerel meat an exceptional flavor, difficult to explain.

Then with my customers from the cooking class in Lucca, we marinated the mackerel and followed all the right steps to have a perfect one.

Well, I must say that it was truly a great success. None of them thought they would taste such a fish in this form!

So I immediately included this great recipe in the menu of our private dinners as well.

You must absolutely try this dish because it will surprise you with the flavor that comes out.

What we learned from the cooking class in Lucca

Another very positive side of cooking this fish in this way is that the meat of mackerel is not absolutely stringy hard as sometimes happens when you cook it too much. In fact, thanks to the marinade and cooking in the pan, instead of the oven, it retains its softness and juiciness.

I forgot to tell you that mackerel with orange is really enhanced in terms of flavor if it is accompanied by a fresh salad with fennel, sweet chili, and citrus.

In short, in this way, it will be like bringing a slice of Italy to your tables.

Therefore Buon Appetito and enjoy this great recipe!

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