For me it was a beautiful meal – and all I had to do was a bit of pear peeling and a lot of washing up!
Lisa Banchieri did all the “easy” stuff – like most of the cooking and a few tasting sessions!
The menu was :-
- Lisa’s Bruscette
- Fresh pasta ravioli with pear and ricotta inside and pear and gorgonzola sauce outside
- Lamb cutlets with artichoke
- Chocolatissimo!
Location Da Pinocchio, Piazza Mercato Centrale Firenze.
We cook in this room shown above so plenty of wine to tempt us – but we were there to cook!!
The first thing to cook was the last thing on the menu – La Torte di Cioccolato – aka chocolatissimo, made with hardly any flour, just egg yolks mixed with sugar folded into whipped egg whites into which the molten shaves of a huge bar of black chocolate are poured and cooked for 40 minutes – even the left overs were very delicious!
Then we made the pasta – well , in truth actually Lisa made the pasta – these ladies were happy to sit and watch – although mixing, kneading and stretching is more often a participatory sport in these classes!
Then the cutting of the carciofi – artichokes – these beautiful plants, especially the purple ones, look attractive just in a vase in the kitchen for decoration but when the time comes to eat them they also taste good raw having been scrubbed with lemon and then doused with lots of extra virgin olive oil and shavings of parmesan cheese – or as ours were destined to be – chopped and roasted with lamb!
The bruschette were simple toast, freshly chopped tomatoes and basil simply serves with evoo ( extra virgin olive oil!) salt and pepper – we ate them as we waited for the main event!
After the almost pure chocolate dessert we definitely felt a toast was in order to our Personal Chef – Salute – to Lisa Banchieri!
