Cooking Class: A Tuscan Feast

Hello there! I promised more news from Italy, and here I am. Last week, I attended an Italian cooking class on making pizza, but a couple of weeks ago (even before I started The Nom Factory), I attended the first class, in which we made a full Tuscan meal. Both classes were unbelievably fun, but the first class was even better because it was more hands-on and a little more complex. I took the class with eight girls from my study abroad program, along with a few other ladies who were visiting Siena.

Roasted Pork and Potatoes         

           To begin, we made a typical Tuscan soup called Pappa col Pomodoro. Complete with slices of bread, garlic, basil, tomatoes, wine, and broth, this was a soup that was simple to make and would definitely warm you up on a cold day.  I managed to get some great step-by-step photos, so hopefully they help you understand how yummy this is.

First you heat the garlic, olive oil, and basil, then you add thinly sliced day old bread to toast it up and let it absorb all of the flavors:

Crispy, Crunchy, Garlicky Bread

                Once toasted, you add canned tomatoes:

Soaking up falvors

Finally, you add the wine and broth, and let it cook for a while until the bread breaks down quite a bit and all of the flavors develop. Doesn’t that look lovely?  I’ve also been told you can beat together some eggs (about one per person) with grated parmesan cheese and stir the mixture into the hot soup to this dish even heartier.

Simmering and Becoming Even More Delicious

For our next course, we learned to make homemade Pici pasta with a Sugo di Salsiccia e Porcini, or a Sauce with Spicy Sausage and Porcini Mushrooms. This was  one of my favorite portions of the class because it was the most hands-on. We started by making the sauce, which consisted of sautéing a mixture of garlic, parsley, and other herbs, then adding the sausage. After it had browned we added the tomatoes, wine, porcini mushrooms, and broth, in stages, and finally let it cook for a couple of hours while we prepared the rest of our meal. I was especially involved in this process, because I was the one opening up the sausages, adding all of the ingredients, and stirring the sauce. As a result, each bite was particularly rewarding.

My Individual Portion of Flour (a mix of two types) for the Pici

As I mentioned, we also made pici, pasta that is like a kind of very thick spaghetti and is typical in Siena. We each received personal portions of ingredients, and were granted the opportunity to learn to make pasta under an experienced eye.  After we finished rolling them out, we popped them in the water, added some sauce and fresh parmesan, and said “Buon Appetito!”.

Finished Pici al Sugo di Saliccia e Porcini

Throughout the rest of the class we made Roasted Pork stuffed with Herbs, accompanied by roasted potatoes, and a Rice Cake with Raisins.  I have less to say about making the pork, because this stage was much less hands-on, but it was really cool to watch our instructor, a typical little older Italian lady, skewer the meat with a spit and fill the hole she made with fresh herbs. Also, the potatoes were cooked perfectly and tastes heavenly after soaking up the juices from the roasting pork.  The cake was a fun surprise because she let a very short grain rice cook in hot milk, which it eventually absorbed, and then added flour, sugar, vanilla, and raisins soaked in Vin Santo, before pouring the batter in the pan. The resulting cake was light and a bit springy with a lovely delicate flavor, and a perfect light end to a fantastic marathon meal. 

Rice Cake with Vin Santo Soaked Raisins and a bit of Chocolate Sauce