Food, Glorious Food, Part 1

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta”

~Federico Fellini

One of the highlights of our trip to Italy was attending  a cooking class at Ristorante Il Ritrovo .  Chef  Salvatore was a wonderful, engaging teacher and just the epitome of an Italian chef.  Chef Salvatore views cooking as his art and he excels at his art!

Our first task was to make pasta.  After combining the ingredients, we kneaded the semolina dough.

Gina mixing egg in the center of the dough

Next step:  putting the dough through the pasta press to make a uniform sheet.

Tina working the pasta press under close supervision

We made flat pasta as well as ravioli.  For the ravioli filling, we made a luscious mixture of 5 different cheeses.

Armed with a pastry bag loaded with cheese filling, I placed precisely spaced dollops onto the pasta sheet

After the pasta, it was time to whip up a tomato sauce.  We created a wonderful Pomodoro sauce.

Crushing the tomatoes in the pomodoro sauce

The key to this sauce, as with so much of the cooking in Italy, is in the freshness and quality of the ingredients.  Chef Salvatore emphasized this point to us repeatedly:  use the best ingredients you can.  Our sauce was so delicious, I thought I’d share the recipe!  I can imagine using cherry tomatoes from the garden this summer as the basis for this sauce.  Mmmmm ~

Pomodoro Sauce

Ingredients:

Cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 small clove garlic, finely minced
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, dry and finely chopped
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Extra Virgin olive oil, best you can find and fruity (frutti)
Starchy water from cooked pasta
Coarse salt
Freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano
Fettucine or other long, flat pasta

Directions:

• In a cool saute pan, combine 3-4 T olive oil and garlic then heat to medium.  Stir occasionally, taking care that the garlic doesn’t brown as the pan heats up.
• When you begin to smell the garlic and hear it sizzle a bit, stir in crushed red pepper and a handful of parsley.
• Add tomatoes and let them cook for a few minutes.  As the tomatoes begin to soften, crush them with a fork.  Continue crushing tomatoes as the mixture cooks until they no longer look like tomatoes.
• Add a ladleful or two of starchy water to the tomato mixture and stir until blended.
• Add salt to taste
• The pomodoro sauce won’t take more than 10 minutes to prepare and shouldn’t be cooked much longer.
• If necessary, remove the sauce from the heat while you wait for the pasta to cook.
• Once pasta is cooked to al dente (firm to the bite) stage, drain, and add pasta to the saute pan with the sauce.
• The pasta will continue to cook so it is important not to overcook the pasta in the water.
• Serve immediately, topping with fresh parsley and garnish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and olive oil.

Click here for printable recipe

Inhaling the wonderful aroma of our handiwork

After all of our hard work, it was time to sit down to an amazing meal in Il Ritrovo’s dining room overlooking the Mediterranean.  We enjoyed roasted vegetables, our pasta dishes and a chocolate torta for dessert.

Delizioso!

What an incredible experience!  The food that we prepared was simple but delectable.  With  minimal ingredients you could really taste the freshness as the flavors exploded in your mouth with each bite.  As an interior designer, one of the most important aspects of any of my projects is editing a space.  A few well placed, hand chosen pieces make the design pop.  In Italian cooking and interior design the same principle applies:  it doesn’t have to be complicated to be beautiful ~ or delicious!

Toasting ourselves with Prosecco!

Life is too short, and I’m Italian:  I’d much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size 0

~Sophia Bush

xo,

Pamela

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