I do not know how to explain it, but yesterday I cooked this dish and I still think to it, its perfumes, the crunchiness of the bread, the baked gruyere flavor… well, I can not wait to taste it again. Another surprise from this soup: it’s loved “very very much” by my girls, it’s the guarantee that if a dish is a delicious one, that is for everyone!

Furthermore, as you can see from the picture, this onion soup still continues to be appreciated after many years: Ginevra is now 16 years old, but in the first picture Ginevra was 10 only 10!

The onion soup, the original French one, needs golden onions.

Ingredients:

Onions 550 gr (1Lb) usually: 2 red, 2 gold, 3 shallots, 1 white, 1 leek)

Chop the onions veeeeeeery thin and pour in a pan with 50g butter and 4 or 5 tablespoons of oil.

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L'articolo San Giuliano Terme. The Best Onions Soup proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Venus rice, really fresh, maybe the most fragrant rice.

The first time…

Can’t forget the first time that I fell in love with venus rice. My friend Simona introduced me to this fascinating and flavored ingredient. I’m writing here a very fast recipe full of Italian fresh veggies flavors!

Sciué Sciué

It’s one of those recipes that here in Italy we call “sciuè sciuè”, Italian for “very quick”. Once arrived at home after my beloved job throughout Tuscany, I watched my kitchen and my fridge (like the Donald Duck one!) and I realized I had just fresh and seasonal veggies and some venus rice.

I like to experiment with new dishes and make fusion cuisine.

Well, what’s better than sundried tomatoes from Puglia  to give the real Italian taste of Summer to a far East dish?

So guys here’s the recipe, success is guaranteed and flavor as well.

Taste it and you’ll understand why I fell in love with venus rice!

Do you prefer venus rice with shrimps or fish, or did you try to make it with fresh veggies, like me?

What’s your best recipe for venus rice?

L'articolo When I felt in love with Venus Rice proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

The best lemon bars are not Italian, I know.

I’m not sure if the original recipe comes from the UK or the USA, but I’m afraid is definitely not Italian.

Anyway here in Tuscany, from my garden, I have a fabulous lemon tree that gives juicy lemons and I couldn’t try this sweet treat.

Furthermore, a friend of mine from Napoli told me that she bakes the best lemon bars with lemons from Sorrento and you can imagine how fantastic they come up.

Since I’m a Cooking Classes instructor and a Private Chef in Tuscany, I love quality ingredients, local produce, and, first of all, seasonal fruit and veggies. I’m a Slow Food manager as well and I wish a world where the food is “fair, clean and good”.

That’s why with my company “Cuoche in Vacanza” (Italian for Chefs for your holiday), we pay the utmost attention to preparing the whole meal by scratch. Directly at our customer’s holiday home.

Well, we have lemons all year long here in Italy and I wished to bake the best lemon bars as I saw these fantastic fruits in my garden.

The recipe that I’m going to write you down here is perfect and well balanced in sugar and sour flavor. Is not so easy to obtain this, but you can take it for granted. We made the best lemon bars many times and now I can be sure about the right amount of ingredients and baking times.

Last time, for a Private Dinner in Lucca we baked the best lemon bars for a family coming from Guam.

They asked for these bars just because they love Italian lemons, Italian lemon custard, and, obviously, Limoncello and Arancello!

I love my job and I try to pass down to others all the secrets learned from my granny first and Chef Academy later.

Well, here you can find all the right steps and amount of ingredients. I’m sure you can’t be wrong. They’ll be the best lemon bars you could make!

I love bars! Which taste are the bars you prefer?

Do you prefer preparing the crust by scratch or using cookie crumbles? Why?

I’m at your disposal for any question, just write a comment and I’ll answer you asap!

L'articolo Say hello to Spring and bake the best lemon bars proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

The best cat’s tongue cookies blend perfectly with Zabaione and today I really wish a warm cup of this sauce where dunking this delicacy.

I’m leaving you quickly the recipe for Zabaione Sauce, meanwhile drink a glass of Vov that’s perfect for these winter days.

It’s cloudy here in Tuscany and a bit cold as well. I need to stay at home in my comfort zone and waiting to heal completely from the flu.

Well, what’s better than making a mess in my kitchen?
I don’t think that exists a person who doesn’t love cat’s tongue cookies, anyway I myself often find something wrong while tasting them.

What is it? It’s because of the consistency!

Yes, because the best cat’s tongue cookies are delicious if they’re crunchy in each part of the cookie, not only in the edges. I read right a few hours ago, about these cookies: “crispy in the edges and soft in the middle”. Well, this is completely wrong.

Cat’s tongue cookies must be friable. And it’s not elementary to make crumbly this cookie.

That’s why many people say that cat’s tongue cookies are “difficult to make”. In fact, they’re insidious:

• few ingredients
• easy steps
• short time cooking

What can be wrong?

Well, I already answered you: the consistency.

The best cat’s tongue cookies are

• crunchy
• friable
• the flavor is slightly toasted on the edges

Bad cat’s tongue cookies are

• chewy
• soft
• the strong taste of egg

Secrets to making the best cat’s tongues cookies:

1. Heat the oven pan (90°C; 194°F)  where you’re going to pipe the mixture. This avoids immediately shock the surface creating a barrier that makes it difficult to cook the middle of the cookie.
2. Once you turned off the oven let them cool well. Break one cookie, if it’s not completely crunchy, put it in the oven again for 5 minutes and test one more time.

With these 2 ways, I can assure you the best cat’s tongue cookies you’ll ever eat.

Since during Summer I run Cooking Classes and Private Dinners in Tuscany, I’m very curious about different ways to face cooking and baking.

Have you a different trick to obtain the best cat’s tongue cookies?

Maybe did you try them with a particular flavor?

What are your difficulties in making these cookies?

Please, leave a comment, I’ll be happy to answer all your questions, that’s my job!

L'articolo The best cat’s tongue cookies are crunchy! Here’s the secret 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.

Cooking on the rooftops of Florence? Done!

When Mary Lynne wrote me an email asking for a Private Cooking Class in Florence downtown I couldn’t imagine that we would have run it over the roofs.

Furthermore, there were 120 stairs to arrive at the attic where she and her family were on holiday.

We go to Florence many times a year, usually for a trip to the Market “Centrale” followed by a cooking class with shopping is done; CLICK HERE to see our experience in Florence Market.

Our Cooking School is ITINERANT.

We go all around Tuscany to run Cooking Classes and Private Dinners directly to the holiday homes of our customers. Our job is very physical (load-unload the car, to drive a lot of hours a day…).

That’s why I was very scared by all these stairs to arrive to the apartment: once you have been injured the job season is over.

However, Mary Lynne immediately reassured me: “My 4 “children” are young adults in their 20’s and are willing to help you carry everything up and down the stairs. My mouth is watering already!”

We couldn’t ask for the better treatment…let’s go to Florence for a Private cooking class, cooking on the rooftops

One of the best things about my job as a cooking classes coach and private dinners chef is the possibility to meet new people coming from all around the world. Each one has his own background, but they all have an insane love for Tuscany and genuine-fresh food.

Every cooking class or private dinner is often an adventure:

new people, new roads to drive, new villages or landscapes to visit, new holiday homes and villas.

Oxana (my assistant) and I were very thrilled to live this new adventure and very curious to watch the view once that you’re cooking on the rooftops.

So, after 120 stairs we finally arrived at the apartment: can’t imagine the view; it seemed to touch Santa Maria’s cathedral!

We could really say: cooking on the rooftops of Florence

The amazing family that hosted us came from Texas: 4 sons and an incredible, smiling, and sweet mother.

I’ve to declare all my love for Texans! Many customers and students from over there and all full of joy for life, love for simple but important things, the desire of having fun together.

They chose the classic Italian menu:

starter, first-course fresh handmade pasta based, main course meat-based and typical dessert.

And so: Bruschetta to start, fresh handmade egg pasta, Arista Tuscan Style, and Tiramisu.

Anyway, the queen of this cooking class in Tuscany was the sauce for the fresh handmade pasta,

fresh tomatoes (Piccadilly or Cherry) that you let “caramelize” and “flambè” in the pan. Everyone is asking me the recipe and the students in our cooking classes are starting to send pictures of their sauce and pasta, once they’re at home.

And so my friends here’s the recipe (by popular demand) of Caramelized Tomatoes Sauce. It’s incredibly simple, incredibly tasteful, I’d better say Amazing!!

Just a few suggestions to obtain the best performance from this excellent Mediterranean condiment;

follow the tips and be sure you’ll delight your guests:

• First of all the pan: a no-stick one! you can’t use another kind because the result will be completely different
• Tomatoes to buy: Piccadilly (in some countries you can find Santorini tomatoes, as my friend Jeannie told me on Facebook) or Cherry tomatoes.
• Buy the tomatoes in Summer (the best months here in Tuscany are July and August). During the rest of the year, you can cook a very good tomato sauce (salsa di Pomodoro) like that one in THIS RECIPE for Parmigiana Aubergines.
• Tomatoes must be ripe, but firms and without stains.
• Here in Italy, we can find very sweet tomatoes, so you can flip the step to add some sugar: in fact, the sauce goes away and still remains the fruit with all its sweetness. You could maybe add 1 or 2 teaspoons max depending on the number of tomatoes.
• Add salt immediately after pouring the tomatoes and flip them (high fire) “flambé”. Be careful with your kitchen and switch on your kitchen fan.

Cooking on the rooftops was a new experience for us, but meeting this amazing family was even better. They were very happy with our sauce and I’m sure they cooked it once at home.

 Can you find “Piccadilly tomatoes” in your country? Do they have the same name?

Would you like to inform me about a simple but tasteful sauce for pasta that you usually eat in your country?

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L'articolo Cooking on the rooftops of Florence: caramelized tomatoes! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

You know ours is an Itinerant Cooking School in Tuscany: you can learn while being at your holiday home in Tuscany (just call us and we come), but is equally true that I can pass down many “secrets” while you’re at your own home…faraway. This is the magic of the web!

In this post you’ll find everything you need to know before preparing cakes and desserts successfully, as my granny taught me.

If you completely lack the skills in cooking it could be a little difficult to learn without making something together.

If you’re coming on holiday in Tuscany you can call us: Cuoche in Vacanza (Cooks on Holiday) and take a cooking class wherever you’ll be, thanks to our cooking school in Tuscany.

Anyway, if you’re just a bit skilled, you can read the following tips and learning how preparing something in the best way. Learning by doing it’s the best way. That’s why I think it’s not necessary your phisical presence beside me, and this is the first reason who brought me to start the blog section: my Granny’s tips.

In fact here I try to pass down all my granny’s secrets in the kitchen. Together with what I learned to the Professional Chef Academy in Florence, this is my largest heritage and I’m so happy to share it with all my friends, students and customers abroad.

My Granny’s tips is what you’re looking for to live better your own kitchen, with family and friends.

Time is short, but the success of your dishes in front of your guests is very important for you; is this your case?

Well, read the following tips, this section could be really helpful, even if you’re not coming to our cooking school in Tuscany.

I already wrote in blog posts some granny’s tips about Frying and about Italian Pizza, now this post is about something that usually takes a lot of time …often without success; here are for you: Tips about Cakes and Desserts.

And now let’s start with some granny’s advices about fundamental ingredients for cakes and desserts:

CREAMS:

EGG WHITES (HOW TO WHIP UP PERFECT):

1. Use a glass or porcelain container (NO plastic)
2. Use a warm/hot container
3. If you have to mix 2 different texture compounds (like egg whites in a cake for example), always pour the lighter weight in the heavier. You’ll avoid in this way that it goes flat.

HEAVY CREAM (HOW TO WHIP UP PERFECT):

1. Use instead a very cold container. Maybe stored in the fridge for a while before pouring the heavy cream. You can put in the fridge the whips as well.
2. Hold a medium-low and constant speed. Too high speed turns your heavy cream in butter

CUSTARD, ENGLISH CREAM, COFFEE CREAM:

1. When you’re preparing a cream that changes texture as it cools, to know when you have to stop cooking: deep a spoon in the cream and then pass a finger on the back of the spoon. If remains a definite sign, the cream is ready
2. Never use electric whips to prepare custard or English cream, just a wooden spoon. If you work them too speedy you risk to loose your cream
3. Would you like preparing a Coffee cream, but you’re afraid to obtain a too liquid cream? Well, combine the boiling milk (that you’ve to use for the cream) with a handful of coffee beans, coarsely crushed (not minced). Let it rest for 1 hour at least, than sieve it and use the milk for the cream.
4. If you’d like obtaining a velvet texture for your cream (even if it has not lumps): sieve it when is cooked.
5. If you need to wait that a custard cools. To avoid the formation of a film on the surface (it’d change the cream texture once mixed), pour the hot cream in a low and wide box and cover it with a cling film.

RELATED AND “CREAMY” LINKS TO THIS POST.

Would you like to know some Tuscan and creamy Desserts that we usually make at our Cooking School in Tuscany?

Click on the Colored written to see their pictures and recipes

 ZUPPA INGLESE (CUSTARD is an important ingredient of this typical Tuscan dessert)

The PERFECT CUSTARD and Zuppa Inglese (Tuscan Trifle) recipe

NO EGGS BAVARESE, YOGURT, VANILLA AND WILDBERRIES SAUCE

TUSCAN ZUCCOTTO WITH COFFEE AND CHOCOLATE CREAM

THE REAL TIRAMISU

Well my friends, this is the first part of my granny’s advices about cakes and desserts, see you soon for the second part about other tips for pastry and cakes.

Do you like this section? Did you already know or try some of my granny’s tips? Please leave a comment and tell me what are you thinking about.

If you’re coming in central Italy on Holiday, don’t forget our Itinerant Cooking School in Tuscany and contact us: we’ll prepare together the tasteful dishes!

Have a nice week-end!

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L'articolo cooking school in tuscany: my granny’s tips and secrets. Cakes and Desserts 1° part proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

My granny (like all the grannies here in Italy) used to say many proverbs and she often said: “Il fritto è buono anche in capo a un tignoso” that’s italian for: “fried food is good even if eaten on a dirty head”…how to blame her? If there’s something we don’t like,  we’ll probably like it if fried.

Probably that’s why Frati Toscani (Tuscan Doughnuts) are one of the most requested desserts in our Cooking Classes in Tuscany, mostly in our kids’ cookery classes, when there’s someone who like kneading and working by hands. Anyway ours are definitely all hands-on cookery courses on vacation and we often prepare Tuscan Doughnuts in our couple cookery courses with and for adults as well.

In Spring or Summer, when sun is high and a swimming pool is waiting for you, you can mostly enjoy your holiday learning to make a typical Tuscan Menu at your holiday home; there’s no bigger gift to me than see the smiles and happiness of our cooks-students together with their family and friends.

Last Summer we run a Private Cooking Class for a family of 4 that came from U.K.; they were here in Tuscany on vacation in a beautiful B&B among olives trees, between Pisa and Lucca: La Lucertola. The parents like cooking and kids are used to read culinary books and try recipes, anyway they were curious how to prepare Tuscan Donuts and Tortelli Maremmani and their cooking class was focused on these.

Tuscan Doughnuts are very simple to make, but (as everything simple) it needs to be respected each step; in addiction to this, I’m passing you a small trick from my granny: using fresh heavy cream in the dough, to give an amazing soft and light texture.

The name is “Frati” (italian for monk) because of the “ring” of hair that monks have on their head.

If you prepare them without the “hole” in the center, here in Tuscany they are named Bomboloni (Italian for Krapfen) and you can fill them with a Chocolate Cream or Custard…I leave you to imagine how they’re amazing.

Here in Tuscany we used to prepare Frati Doughnuts during Carnival festivity, together with other fried delicacies sold “on the road” during country fairs. In fact nowadays you can find these doughnuts in every season of the year, but they’re still sold as a street food, or prepared at home from mothers and grannies.

Like everything “easy to taste”, Tuscan Doughnuts are perfect at any time of the day: snack, lunch or dinner time; the left doughnuts from our cookery lessons in Tuscany (we often prepare a lots) are perfect as breakfast for the day after.

My granny’s tips:

1. Use heavy fresh cream
2. Be sure having set all you need handy when you’re frying
3. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to thread it into the hole of the doughnut and get it spinning while frying
4. Put in the caster sugar immediately after drained in oil absorbing cooking paper; they’ll be very hot, but it’s important that they’re in contact with the sugar just when they’re still hot

Click the links below to read, share or print some other recipes in our Cooking Classes in Tuscany:

• Fresh-Handmade Pasta and Italian sauces
• Bruschetta 
• Chocolate Salami or Tiramisu

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L'articolo Tuscany: Enjoing Cooking Classes at your Holiday Home with Frati Toscani (Italian for Tuscan Doughnuts). Here’s my Granny’s authentic recipe! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Days of fire here in Tuscany… in every country as well, I suppose: Christmas’s gone, the last day of the year’s gone…our tummies are full!

If you’re living my situation and you invited a lots of people at your table before, during and after Christmas…maybe you’ll need to sleep (first of all) and to manage “these days after” the party as well.

Organization is a must, but first of all: it needs to prepare quick and easy dishes for the days coming after the big (in Italy for sure) Christmas lunch.

1. Butter and Sage
2. Pummarola Sauce (Tomato, Garlic and Basil)
3. Mushrooms Sauce
4. Pesto Sauce
5. Sea fruit sauce 
6. you name it…

Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi 

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L'articolo Tuscan Cooking Class: Homemade Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi… a perfect Italian meal after Christmas Holidays! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

 Although I attented to the Italian Academy for Professional Chefs in Florence, I can truly say that her teachings, with those from my Grandma, are the most important school for me.
In fact everyone can learn tecniques, but few people are so lucky to be followed from someone who put her heart in cooking and thinks to the guests first of all.Obviously she’s a really fantastic chef, a marvellous person and she’s always ready to teach everyone the finest art of cooking, that’s why she’s so requested in our Cookery Courses around Tuscany.

mini croissants

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L'articolo #cookery courses in Lucca: Mini Croissants Cookies by Nonna Rossy, deliciously stuffed with Nutella or Jam proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.