Oh man, this day might have been my favorite day of the week (you’ll read about the other favorite day soon). I had been looking forward to this day for weeks, and finally, we got to check it off my life bucket list.
A cooking class in Italy. It was as amazing as it sounds.
We started out the day with no food in our bellies and espresso when we arrived at Ristorante Malborghetto around 9 AM. Owned and run by the incredibly talented Chef Simone Muricci and his wife Alessia, he is a true Tuscan chef, teaching us true Tuscan recipes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!
We began by receiving our own embroidered aprons, with our names and the date of our cooking class. They were quite possibly the cutest gifts I’ve ever received with purchase. 🙂
The restaurant itself is mighty small, but it felt so homey. We absolutely loved this place, and I think we’re still going through withdrawals from having been away from it for so long now.
We were led to the back of the house and promptly began assembling dessert, tiramisu. Holy cow this was an easy recipe, and the lack of an overwhelming coffee taste made this my favorite tiramisu ever. We prepared it first so that it could have time to set in the fridge while we created the rest of the menu.
Next up was my favorite dish of all time, pasta with bolognese sauce (also known as ragù alla bolognese in Italy). If I could bathe in it, I would. We started by grinding the vegetables (red onion, celery, and carrots) in the grinder, which Chef said he liked best because of the high water content that came out of grinding vs. dicing. Then we sauteed those down, and added the rest of the ingredients: ground beef, pureed tomatoes, red wine, and then salt and pepper at the end. The most incredible cooking tip I may have ever received came from Chef Simone: in order to continue simmering any type of food without destroying the moisture in the food or adding a different taste, add water. Keep adding water a little bit at a time until you’re ready to take it off the stove. Genius!
Next was making the pasta from scratch. I have attempted this in the past to dismal results for a variety of reasons: 1) I definitely wasn’t using the right flour (semolina my friends, semolina); 2) I have a manual pasta maker, which you technically need three hands for (one to feed the pasta into the machine, one to catch the pasta as it goes through the machine, and one to crank the machine!); and 3) I’m an extremely visual and kinesthetic learner. I need to see someone doing something (usually only once) and I can do it immediately; however, for things that require a certain consistency to work, I need to be able to touch it to learn how it should be done. This was one of the most valuable lessons of the day. Once we made the dough, we set it aside for about 20 minutes with a damp towel over it to keep the dough from creating a crust.
We let the sauce simmer for a least another hour before we even thought to cook the pasta (which took like 3 minutes since fresh cooks faster than dried). We started on the secondi (second course), wild boar sausage with cannellini beans (salsiccia e fagioli). I for one love cannellini beans because of their creaminess, but I’ve never attempted to make beans from their dried versions. Good thing we didn’t have to this day either! In fact, we used leftover cannellini beans from a previous recipe! Chef Simone explained that many Tuscan recipes try to use and reuse leftovers in as many ways as possible to save money. This was actually the third version of cannellini beans used in this particular recipe, and it did not disappoint!
*At this point in the cooking, I think our lack of sugar intake led to an inability to really retain the information. Thank god he gave us a laminated copy of the recipes!
We left that to simmer, and we cut the pasta and laid it to dry a little. We also made parmigiano reggiano bowls for the pasta! I could’ve stood there and eaten all of the bowls myself, but I decided to exercise some self-control and wait for the actual meal. We heated up grated parmesan in a sauce pan, and waited for the edges to turn a golden brown. Once that happened, we took it off the stove and, with the help of a long skewer, pulled the cheese off the pan onto an overturned bowl. A few seconds later, it hardened, and voila, you have an edible bowl!
Finally, we prepared the appetizer, porcini crostini with shaved truffles. Truffles are also super common in Tuscany, and when heated (by shaving it onto warm food), the aroma they release….JEEZY CREEZY, THE STUFF OF GODS I TELL YOU. This was also a super easy recipe: just grill the porcini, add a mixture of extra virgin olive oil and chopped rosemary and garlic to both sides and grill, grill the bread, assemble, and voila, deliciousness!
And now, our favorite part…THE EATING AND DRINKING! We sat down in the restaurant and began to eat the fruit of our labor. Everything was incredible. My mouth is still watering thinking about it. We also enjoyed the paired wine with each course, and let me tell you a secret: it’s always never a good idea to stuff your face with food and wine after not eating anything for close to 5 hours. I got greedy and paid the price.
Yes, we polished off all of those bottles. Yes, we ate all that food. And yes, I promptly threw up everything we ate because I was a pig, drunk, and unable to monitor my body’s internal full-meter.
It didn’t ruin the time we had, so no pity. We booked a 3-hour cooking class that turned into 7 hours because of our lively conversations with Chef Simone and Alessia. The stories he had about living in Tuscany, running his own restaurant (in the middle of nowhere), and becoming successful at his trade…these moments, my friends, are what traveling is all about.
[Side note: for those of you who continue to think that America is becoming socialist, or Obama is socialist, or whatever, keep this in mind: Simone told us they weren’t allowed to turn the heat on (neither at home nor the restaurant) until November 1 because it was ILLEGAL to do so otherwise. Our villa was only tile, so we froze our asses off every night when the temperature dipped to 40 degrees. Yeah, we don’t live like that in the States, so shut it.]
These people were the salt of the earth. Hard-working, fun-loving, decent people with a successful restaurant, doing what they love. It was an honor to learn from him, and a joy to hang out with him and his wife for an afternoon. We probably could’ve hung out with them all week; in fact, we went back that night for dinner (because let’s face it, I had no food in my system), and it was again, incredible.
unreal…ravioli with melted pecorino cheese and pears
The dream for Timmy for the week: bistec a la fiorentina, served on a hot stone
Thank you to the Muriccis for not only showing us a good time, teaching us how to cook, and making us feel welcome, but for also giving Timmy the recommendation for our next adventure. It was a doozy.
♥, VB
From Peaches to Beaches 