Cooking Class March 2013

 Cooking class today took us to a rural cheese farm where they raise lamb, cows, horses, and probably other animals.  It was a beautiful old building among rolling hills with some incredible views.

Inside there was a large room decorated with old farming tools.
 

(check out the bookcase all the way at the end.  trust me, it will make sense later)

Behind the demonstration/work tables, there were wine taps on the wall.

The first dish we learned how to make was caponata.  The main ingredient for this dish is eggplant.  Today we also added onion, pepper, and a potato.

Andrea and our chef

We diced all of the veggies.  Then we added some olives, raisins, capers, and pine nuts.  Some caponatas also include tomatoes and/or carrots.  Once they are all chopped, you sprinkle with salt and generously drizzle with olive oil.  At this point you put it in the oven at about 400 degrees and bake for 30-45 minutes.  At that point, you mix up about a 3/4 cup of white wine vinegar and about a 1/4 cup of sugar and pour over and cook for an additional 10 minutes.  It is important to stir periodically throughout the entire cooking class.  I have had this dish before with tomatoes, and it came out tasting almost like a barbeque.  Today's version was good, but when I make it, I will add tomatoes.

Next up was the Sicilian version of fried mozzarella.  The cheese they use is a really bland cheese.  I tasted it before it was breaded and fried and it tasted like milk.  I have never eaten cheese before and thought it tasted like milk.

Nothing new here, dredge cheese wedge in flour, then in egg which has been beaten with salt, and then bread crumbs.

Cheese ready to be fried.

Cheese being fried

The caponata in the oven.  Andrea said we could cover it while baking, but clearly the chef here doesn't.

We did not make these, but we did get to eat them. They are slices of zucchini with mashed potato in between that were breaded and then fried...delish!

After watching them cook our cheese, and sampling it, we had a demonstration of the making of cannoli filling.  Just in case you were wondering, you should not use super fresh ricotta cheese for this process.  The cheese should be at least one day old.  So I think we are safe using Sorrento ricotta ;)

 

Those are the shells.  According to Andrea, nobody makes their own shells anymore, so head out to the bakery and buy some shells for your stuffing!

Ricotta filling consists of how ever much cheese you decide to mix up with 30% sugar added.  Do not mix in a food processor or with another appliance!  On the east coast of Sicily they add in gummy candy things, on the west coast they add in chocolate chips and near Etna they add pistachios.  I wish we were on the west coast!

My mini cannoli

The main dis was lamb.  We did not prepare it, but this is what it looked like before being cooked.

I really liked their plates.

The wine tap I mentioned before

Some ricotta cheese to eat with lunch

This is the caponata all cooked up.  Like I said, with the tomatoes, it is more of a red color and tastes more like barbeque.

On the left are those zucchinis stuffed with mashed potato.  I have no idea what the other thing is, but it was tasty.

This is a version of the blood orange salad.  They added fennel, which I think could have easily been left out.

Some more fried cheese and some eggy baked dish.

Sausage

pasta in a cool dish.

The finished lamb.  I could not bring myself to try any, but everyone said it was good.

After lunch, they opened this door hidden by a bookcase and brought us into the cheese shop.  At the very beginning there is a picture of the inside and you can see the bookshelf all the way in the back behind the tables.

This is the first process in aging the cheese.

Some of the fresh ricotta

and some pecorino cheese which we got to taste.  It was good, but a little would go a long way!  It almost ended up with an aftertaste similar to blue cheese.  But shave this over some pasta with olive oil and it would be really good.

That was pretty much our day at the farm.  I am looking forward to trying out the caponata at home and seeing if I can get it more like the first one I had.