When we returned from our cooking class with Velia, I was talking with Paola about what we made (they are friends). I said "there are a few other things I would like to learn such as pizza, tiramisu, ravioli and homemade ricotta cheese." She said "I am not a teacher, but I will teach you whenever you would like."
So, we planned on Sunday night to make pizza. We went to church (an hour away in Terni) (cool experience even if we didn't understand hardly anything) (Andrew said "they even say Amen here too!") (he had to listen a long, long time to hear any words he recognized) and then after visiting a nearby waterfall, came back to Baschi. We were swimming when Paola came over and said whenever we were ready, we could learn.
We went into her kitchen and first made the bread dough for both the pizza, and farm bread. While it was rising, she and Domenico started making cheese. I didn't not realize that to make ricotta cheese, you need to make pecorino cheese first and then you make ricotta with the "leftover" milk. They got milk from their neighbors that day (their own sheep had babies and they could not use their milk yet) so they could teach me. After cooking the milk to the right temperature, they remove the curds and press them in these molds with holes so that the juices come out and only the cheese is left. They then rub the molds in olive oil every day for a few months and they are left with this amazing pecorino cheese! They then heat the milk again and with the strained curds this time we made ricotta cheese. So cool~!
Then it was tiramisu time. I forgot to take pictures of that process, but it was easy and delicious! Lauren is already planning her Italian dinner party! So by now the dough was ready and we headed outside to the brick oven pizza station. We rolled out dough and made focaccia bread and various pizzas. When the novelty of cooking wore off, she told us to sit down and Domenico would serve us our pizza on the patio. It was delightful and delicious!
We had such a great pizza dinner, we decided the next day to eat dinner with them again. We called Paola from our daytrip and asked if we could eat in her restaurant that evening as well. She, of course, said that would be great. When we returned from our long day of sightseeing, we were happy to come home to Paola's cooking. It was one of our best meals...she started with this cool salad that was actually wrapped in a grilled eggplant. It was followed by homemade pasta and then we had these yummy meatballs cooked in zucchini with potatoes. She finished the meal with panna cotta (one of my favorites!) And we didn't even need to get dressed up or go far from our own restrooms! AND she gave me all the recipes!
No comments:
Post a Comment