For a while now, I wanted to rent a villa in Europe with a group of friends or another family. The villas didn’t seem too expensive. The idea of living amongst the locals for a week or two sounded fun. I surfed the webs and signed up for emails relating to this topic. One of the site that kept sending me information is RentVillas.com.
But, alas, we haven’t gotten to the planning and organizing phase. Everyone is busy working or taking care of their families. Now with the pandemic, we sure are not going any time soon. The emails from RentVillas.com kept coming and, once in a while, I would take a peek. One day, the header “NEW VIRTUAL CLASSES – DIRECT FROM TUSCANY, WITH LOVE (& FLAVOR!)” caught my eyes. The company shifted gear and decided to bring Tuscany into peoples’ homes. They offered cooking classes once a week, mostly on Sundays. I was so excited to finally fit a class into my work schedule.
We not only had a fun family activity but enough food for lunch and dinner. We weren’t able to make the dessert because we didn’t have the gelatin leaves. GELATIN LEAVES??? I didn’t even know such thing existed. Amazon did (LOL). It was delivered a couple of days after the class. We will attempt to make the panna cotta following the instructions from our recorded video 🤫. The cost for the class was $40 which is cheaper than being there in person (flight+lodging+actual cost of the class)!
From the Chef:
For reference, your class menu on 8/23 includes three delicious dishes:
Gnocchi al pesto
Spezzatino con piselli
Panna cotta
Here are the ingredients and equipment items you’ll need on hand for class on Saturday 8/23:
Gnocchi al pesto
For the gnocchi:
- Potato (1, peeled and boiled)
- “00” or AP flour (2 heaping tablespoons)
For the pesto:
- Basil (1 bunch)
- Parmigiano (grated, 7 ounces)
- Pine nuts (50 grams or about ¼ cup)
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Salt & Pepper (to taste)
Spezzatino con piselli
- Beef (stew meat of choice, such as brisket or shoulder, 800 grams or about 1.7 pounds , cut into walnut-size pieces)
- Peas (fresh or frozen & thawed, 400 grams or 1 and ¾ cup)
- Celery (30 grams or ¼ cup, chopped)
- Carrot (30 grams or ¼ cup, chopped)
- Onion (yellow, 65 grams or just over a ½ cup, chopped)
- “00” or AP flour (as needed)
- White wine (dry, 80 grams or 1/3 cup)
- Vegetable broth (500 grams or about 2 cups, warm)
- Salt & pepper (to taste)
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil (as needed)
- Tomato paste (the more concentrated, the better! 10 grams or 2 teaspoons)
Panna cotta
- Heavy cream (500 ml or 2 ¼ cups)
- Vanilla bean, whole (1 pod)
- Gelatin (unflavored, in sheets or leaves, 8 grams or about 3 sheets)*
- Sugar (white, granulated; 80 grams or 1/3 cup)
*Note on sheet gelatin: 1 sheet is equivalent to 1 teaspoon of granulated gelatin. If you can’t find sheet gelatin, granulated will work!
Materials:
- Cutting board
- Chef’s knife
- Apron
- Mixing bowls
- Pots, medium, heavy bottom x 2
- Sauce pan, small, x 2
- Plastic cup (small, hard plastic – to be used for mixing the pesto)
Whew! We had all the materials. We needed all hands on deck to make the gnocchi and the main dish. This is my first time being on zoom and it was a bit intimidating seeing people’s faces all at once, especially people I don’t know! Our camera faced the candle until Sammy saw a kid her age who would popped up on the screen once in a while. His appearance encouraged her to turn the camera on herself (briefly). She said, “I feel his pain.”
“Josephine! You need more flour!”
We finished the class without setting the kitchen on fire and learned a few things. Chef Malgeri’s assistance, Sara, demonstrated the use of a mortar and pestle to make the pesto sauce. The way we did our sauce which was putting all the ingredients into the processor burned the basil (oops!). She also demonstrated chopping of the vegetables which was cutting lengthwise then cross-sectional. Her knife technique was fun to watch. The last thing we learned was that the spezzantino con piselli is a classic Italian stew dish. The beef in this recipe can be replaced with any kind of meat – lamb, chicken, quail or whatever your heart desires. I wonder how it tastes with tofu?
The bonus was Josh cleaned and put items away throughout the class. By the end, there wasn’t a big mess to clean up! I would say this is our first successful online family cooking class. Can’t wait to try another class soon.
In Chef Cinzia Malgeri’s own words: Cooking is an art…You can watch our dinner or cooking class or walking in Tuscany…Then you dream with our place…
