Sunday, March 28, 2010

Scuola di Cucina!

Last Saturday, Rachel, Veronica and I, all took an authentic Italian cooking class. It was SO much fun! We went to an Italian ladies house and she and taught us how to make fresh pasta.
Making fresh pasta is a loooong process! First we had to mix flour and eggs and make the dough, then let it sit. Then we flattened it out into sheets and let it sit again. Then we cut it into the shape that we want and what next?? Yep! SIT AGAIN! Homemade pasta in Italian is called "pasta all'uovo fatta in casa".
We also made a mushroom sauce ("salsa ai funghi) and a cream and ham sauce ("panna e proscuitto") for our pasta. I liked the cream and ham sauce the best.

Then we made "panna cotta" for dessert. Sorry, no american name for this, there is nothing like it in the states! All it was, was cream, sugar, gelatin sheets (yes, SHEETS! It was gelatin that was in hard clear sheets that looked like plastic. Weird.), and vanilla bean and a little milk. Rachel said it reminded her of flan, but I have never had that before so I wouldn't know. It tasted really good but the texture was a little strange. Panna cotta IS my favorite gelato flavor though!
Also, there was one other Italian woman there to help translate because our teacher for the morning spoke nothing but Italian. BUT I am proud to say that I understood most of what she was saying! We defiantly want to do it again and she said next time we can custom make a class and make whatever we want. I think I want to learn how to make Pizza next. It is SO good here!

Rachel and Veronica

Stirring the cream for our panna cotta



Trying to flatten my dough to make tagliettelle noodles


Rachel separating our noodles so they can dry

The best part of course: EATING!!