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.