il Cantico della Natura

High on a hill il Cantico della Natura

 The pool water temp 26 deg

 

The view to the Lake Trasimeno

 

Our little Italian room all stone and cool.

 

Large olive tree outside our room

 

 The villa il Cantico

 

Dinner is served just outside our room

 

 While we watch the sun set

 

Enjoying dinner

 

 Starting with a Prosecco which I love ... Sandy who is not normally a big lover of Prosecco, say's it some how taste better in Italy ... well of course it does!

 

To finish a red Bliss and Buona notte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Fontane della Papa To il Cantico della Natura

Never underestimate how long it can take get from a to b in Italy. We left Fontane at 10am after a great breakfast of wild grown rockmelon yum. It’s the end of the summer the fruit is just so full of sweetness, a real flavour bomb after coming from the end of winter in Aus.

Ok Pete back on track … focus .. mind off food.

So as I was saying it took us 4 hours non stop to travel 220 km north east from Fontane dell Papa to our next 3 night stopover at il Cantico Della Natura in the olive tree studded hills overlooking the town of Magione on the shores of Lake Trasimeno. We were on both small country roads as well as the auto strata, traveling from the region of Lazio, then under “The Tuscan Sun” at a hot 36 deg …
so romantic ...  well from the comforts of the air-conditioned car, then finally into to the Umbria food region.

    

Here we will have some time to chill out … read a book or two and then have a cooking class featuring some typical Umbria foods. Will report back when I know what is typical.

But before the fun start we have to make our way up the mountain on a small dirt track which “Gloria” is sure is classified as a highway!!!

 

Interesting sign Sandy … il Cantico della Natura … very rustic sign … very 1970’s looking sign …and what does “Natura” mean.

In the past Sandy has managed to book us into amazing places found after hours trolled on the internet back home looking for that "unique location" and or "unique experience".

So Sandy have you just enlisted us into some sort of a Natural Camp singing Koom Bi Yre! ( bad spelling but you should get the drift ) and ... or are clothes optional !!! With a cheeky grin that only she can give me she said you will just have to wait and see.
 

We park the car in the designated mysterious well-hidden carpark, hint one, looks doggie, we then have to walk the last couple of hundred meters to the top of the hill. The 1^st thing I see is a large swimming pool and amazing views over the Lake below and from where I’m standing I can see one very white older man back on in a sun chair sitting on the “obligatory little white towel”. I look at Sandy and she laughs AS IF look closer he has swimmers, they are very small swimmers but swimmers no less. Something's just don't need to see the light of day or get sun burnt !!!

Leaving Fontana del Papa

Well it sure was hard leaving the comforts of Fontana del Papa, Assentina and her son Andrea made us so welcome, we had some great one on one cooking time with them.
Definitely honed in on some of the finer Italian details so looking forward to teaching the correct way that spaghetti carbonara should be cooked and most of all how it should really taste.

                                                         3 Bella people and 1 cute doggy

A night in Tolfa

A bit of exploring into the little town of Tolfa some 5 km away from the cooking school of Fontana del Papa

 

Tonight was a festival of a saint and as there are many saints the are many festivals!

 

Check out this liquorish stall 

 To the left is the raw branch

Some is salty

Some sweet

 

So 11 Euro's later we now have some car snacks

 

 Dinner tonight was a Porchetta, so dry bread roll with hot seasoned pork, fun Italian street food.

 

 

All work and no play

All work and no play ... so now its time to check out the pool

 Its so hot and dry here that the spring that we used last time to get drinking water has dried up. Its the end of a very hot dry summer for the guys at Fontana del Papa

Scaloppine al Limone

In Australian the myth is you use veal, but when you dig deeper in Italy it is not so common to slaughter baby cows. The meat they use for scaloppine is "medium" aged beef, so in Australian we would refer to that as a Yearling .
The meat is well hung ( and not in a boy way !!! ) so it is a dryer product. so using Australian meat it would be better to firstly dry with paper towel to reduce the moisture.

Coat the meat in semolina flour and cook medium flame in olive oil until brown set aside. we did this to this stage 1/2 an hour prior to going to the final stage.
In Italy this would be enough time for you to have your Primi course

In the same pan with the pan browning's add 3/4 cup of full fat milk ( not cream ) along with

zest of lemon and juice to taste.

 

Simmer down, stirring constantly to form a sauce, add back in the meat

 

Turn over and warm the other side.

 

Serve with a rocket salad dress in olive oil

 this is the 1st time we have seen this cooked in milk and the end result was a tender meat full of flavour

 

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

To date in Italy we have had mixed feelings about Spaghetti alla Carbonara done in restaurants as well as at cooking classes, Andrea shows us 3 of his secrets and its a winner hands down.

This is a definite for the Retreat's kitchen

Remove the rind

Dice into slices

 

 Heat oil in pan cook for 10ish min's 

 

Add 1/2 cup white wine then simmer

Reduce by 1/2 over the next 5min's or so

 

 

 Beat 2 eggs     ( if serving for 6 )

 

Gradually whisk in this much micro grated parmesan cheese ... bit by bit ... slowly incorporating this is one of the secrets. It takes time to bring all the parmesan and the egg into a firm paste.

 

  

 

 Get handy Sandy to add lots of ground pepper

 

So as I said we want it like a paste

 

 Yep yep got it ... its a paste ( secret 1 )

 

Add cooked packet pasta ( best for this dish ) to the pancetta ... yes Italians do use dried pasta.

 

 

Take it off the hot flame ( secret 2 )

 

Add the egg and parmesan "Paste" and a little say 1/4 cup of the hot pasta water ( secret 3 )

Fold for a minute or so, off the heat, the hot pasta will cook the egg and coat the spaghetti.

 

 Till is looks like this.

 

Looks even better on the plate, simple ... but so many chefs get it wrong, even Italian ones...

Today it is pure perfection and yumoooooooo Thanks Andrea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is all about the pasta, the right pasta, for the right dish.

Over the past 2 cooking trips to Italy in 2013/14 years we have cooked here and then gone home to try out the recipes and sometimes with varied success.

The Italianism was just missing, now we are back in Italy to hone in on the exact little details that make our taste buds sing.

To learn more detailed secrets from local cooks that we didn’t see or absorb or just plain missed the 1^st 2 times round.

This time we will end our cooking adventures in Sicily where we hope to experience a whole new food region.

Anyway let’s not jump ahead just yet ... today is only our 2^nd day and 2^nd cooking class.

The varying degrees of language has made us assume certain details because of our previous cooking experience and up bringing in Australia.

Here in Fontana del Pupa where we have cooked in several classes in the past, so today it’s the finer details about why our pasta was looser at home and has a different mouth feel and bite, not bad just different.

 

We often make pasta in Australia with pasta flour and no semolina ! granted it has a beautiful silky smooth texture that is great for filled pasta like ravioli, but not for pasta sauce dishes.
Now we are in the land of a million experts on pasta so we will just have to take away just that little bit more information and do with it as we can as there are loads of sizes and shapes and they all have there place in the 20 food regions of Italy so we will never be able to master all. Assuntina’s is Roman so growing up for her pasta was more meaty in texture and more satisfying to the bite.
So now it’s even down to whether we should use a finer or coarser semolina. So hang on its going to be a debatable ride, one that I won't be having with any Italians!!!! 

So 1 pasta is not for every dish!!

 

Today is all about the pasta, the right pasta, for the right dish, Roman dish that is!!!

Well of course there is semolina flour "fine"

and about the average size egg to 100grams flour ... but this all depends on the size of the egg, the humidity of the day and the water content of the flour when it was milled ... simple! yes

Bla bla bla yep got the next steps (don't use a food processor) do it by hand use a rolling pin ( not a pasta machine ) bossy lady this Assuntina

The next picture tells a 1000 words

 

As does this one

 

But here is "the trick" which we have missed, back home because we were using pasta flour and not

semolina ours was sticky and didn't unravel on the back of a knife. 

 

 

 

Cleaver little beavers

 

 Now for todays simple sauce remember it all about the pasta "Not the Sauce" oil, garlic, parsley and later we added truffle.

 

Find someone to drop the pasta into the hot salted water ... thanks Andrea, Assuntina 23 year old son now helping out with the cooking school.

 

 

 

 You want to see foamy water when it is getting close to cooked.

 

Other tools of the trade

 

The finished dish ( sorry crape picture ) will get a better one off Sandy camera when I can work out how to do that.