Lisa sets out the flour mountains for us to make pasta
Deep thanks again to everyone who joined us for our two Tuscan Christmas cookery sessions over the weekend – and to Lisa Banchierifor coming over from Florence to such a cold London to do the teaching
It is always lovely to see old friends and regular visitors, but additional numbers give the lesson more energy -as well as enabling me to offer a good price – so it was also really great to see the group expand and to include some new people.
The menus were as promised – On day One – Saturday, we had a Christmas Eve menu, which has to include fish
– but we rather broke the no meat rule with an
- aperitivo of a beautifully smooth Crostini Toscani, made with blended chicken livers and Vin Santo,
- followed by a primi piatti of ravioli made with red and green pasta ( tomato paste and spinach!) filled with ricotta cheese and spinach
- the fish course was Sea Bass al ‘Isolana – simply baked with extra virgin olive oil , olives and cherry tomatoes on a bed of thinly sliced potatoes – but so delicious
- to finish – by request – our dessert was a chocolate tart – cake crust on the outside but inside just molten chocolate !!
red and greeen pasta
Sadly, I was too busy helping as a Sotto Chef to have time to take many photos but one of our group Chima took some videos, which he has offered to send to me to add to the site – should be fun!
Day Two was the Christmas Day menu – and in Italy they usually roast a Capon – however the Caponising process (now done by chemicals not castration) has been illegal in England for some years and all the butcher/butchers websites that import the birds for Christmas couldn’t provide anything before 20th December – so we had to turn to two very fine free range chickens!
These birds were given a very thorough bed bath by being rubbed all over (inside and out!) with half an orange each – this kills any bacteria as well as adding flavour, our stuffing meat was made with Tuscan Sausage , Mortadella and many fresh spices and was absolutely delicious.
The chickens were carved and eaten after our
- aperitivi of Melazane Crostone ( huge aubergine slices toasted with salt and garnished with pecorino cheese)
- freshly made pasta stretched into wafer thin lasagne sheets, filled with asparagus that had been steamed and chopped into a bechamel sauce ( even better than I remembered from the last time!)
- roasted chicken with Tuscan roasted vegetables
- Apricot flan
Alessandro gets passionate over wines
On both days we had Alessandro , my Italian teacher – now turned Sommelier – to give us his very passionate insight nto Italian wines and how they complement the taste of the food we were eating
As he recommended we had some fine Vernaccia di San Gimignano with our pasta and fish and a good Chianti with the chickens.
So next week on Thursday 13th we are back in Florence and ready to do something similar again for our Florentine friends.
Salute !!!
