Cooking class in Norcia

On Monday, we set off for Norcia, where Jan, Bill and I were taking a cooking class.  Our teacher for the day was Flavio.  Flavio is the executive chef at Palazzo Senica, the hotel/restaurant where we took our class.  On the menu for the day: oil poached local trout, gnocchi, tagliatelle and a poached egg appetizer.  The class consisted of myself, Jan, Bill and a lovely couple from Canada.  Flavio had to go back and forth between English and French, and thankfully, he did both very well.

We started out with the trout.  Please be aware that I am going to alternate between Celsius and Fahrenheit since I missed some of the differences in temperature.  The same goes for weights of things for the pasta/gnocchi.  Heat olive oil up to 55 C and add chives, lemon thyme, sage, marjoram and oregano.  All fresh if you please.  Keep the oil at 55 C for an hour with everything in it.  Then remove from the heat.  If you are in somewhat of a hurry, you can then add your fish that you have cut into bite sized pieces.  If you are not in a hurry, let the oil sit overnight to get all the flavors that you can out of the herbs.  Once you are ready to poach the fish, let the oil come back to 55 C and add the fish slowly.  Make sure the fish is on the thin side (in terms of thickness).  Our fish was max 1/4 inch thick.  We also added fresh crayfish tails, still in their shell, to the oil.  Those poached for 8 minutes.  It was served with a balsamic reduction, trout eggs, salt flake and green ground pepper.

Always make sure that you garnish with something edible, and that matches the flavors in the dish.  You can also keep and reuse the oil, but only to poach the same fish.  Make sure you strain it before you store it.  You can always try other flavor combinations- duck with some orange flavored olive oil, smoked salt oil, chocolate flavored oil.  The end result is tender fish that looks raw, but isn't.  It is so tender and so full of flavor.  It worked really well with the salt flakes and the green pepper. There was also the bite from the balsamic.

Next up was an egg appetizer that may have changed the way I look at poached/soft boiled eggs.  The eggs seem poached, but they really are soft boiled.  Cook your eggs in water that is 55 C for one hour.  Make sure they are still in their shells!  You can do this a day or two ahead of time.  Once you are ready to eat them, line an oval shaped silicon mold with a bit of extra virgin olive oil.  Then sprinkle on some breadcrumbs that are flavored with fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil (achieved by mixing in a food processor).  Then carefully crack the eggs (one per mold).  Then top with more breadcrumbs and a bit more extra virgin olive oil.  Bake at 400 F for 5 minutes (or longer if you don't like runny yolks).  While that is baking, grate some fresh Parmesan into little square silicon molds and microwave for 1 minute (no more!!).  This gives you little Parmesan crisps for garnish.  Also, if you are really lucky, you have made some ricotta spuma (blend up until smooth some ricotta salata, olive oil and salt to taste, then transfer into an aerator can- voila!).  Put a squirt of spuma on/in the serving dish, top with the egg that you have carefully removed from the mold and top with the crisp and some basil as garnish.  Drizzle with olive oil if so desired.

I have to admit that before, I had an aversion to eating soft boiled eggs and poached eggs.  Maybe it was because I always got them when they were lukewarm and so the texture was off.  But these eggs...it was so rich, but then lightened by the time that you got a spoonful of the spuma.  You could taste the fresh basil in the breadcrumbs, which added a nice little crunch, along with with crisp.  Just writing about them makes me want them and my mouth water.

Finally, we finished off the day, with what else, pasta and gnocchi!!  Two of my favorite foods, especially when I want carbs.  And there is cheese involved.  Or butter.  Or both.  Preferably both.  To make the pasta that they make here, I can assure you that you need special ingredients.  They are: flour, eggs, salt and olive oil.  Flavio told us that in the north, they use egg yolks only, so you need 2.2 kilos of flour, 35 egg yolks, salt and oil to taste.  In the south/central, they use 2.2 kilos of flour to 10 eggs, salt and oil to taste.    I know this makes a lot, but you can go ahead and make it all or half or whatever.  Then, after it has been cut into the desired shapes, frozen and then cooked from frozen.  We only made a small portion per person, so it was one egg and 100 grams of flour, salt and oil.

Make a well in the center of your flour and add the egg, salt and oil.  Using a fork (or your fingers) break the yolk and slowly start to move around the flour well, incorporating a bit of the the flour at a time.  After the flour has been incorporated, kneed until the dough is firm and smooth.  No flour bits here!  Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.  After ten minutes, roll out using either your hands and a rolling pin, or a pasta machine.  Start at one of the thicker settings and slowly work through the machine until you can read a newspaper through it.  Let rest for a bit while you work out the rest of the dough in a similar manner.  Once done, you can roll it and cut into various shapes for various purposes.  If you do decided to roll it out, do it on a wooden table.  That way, it gets some of the roughness from the wood and holds the sauce better.

For gnocchi, bake potatoes at 400 F for an hour on a bed of rock salt.  This will help absorb the moisture in the potatoes.  Let cool so that you can handle them and then peel them.  You will need 2.2 kilos of mashed potatoes plus 300 grams of flour.  Work softly until it comes together.  Make sure that you use high starch potatoes for this.  You can season with salt and nutmeg if you so desire.  Mix well, divide into sections, then roll out into little logs.  Then, cut the gnocchi into pieces about 1/4 inch wide.  Using a fork and your thumb, place the gnocchi on the fork and roll off gently with your thumb so that you get an indentation.  

Our finished gnocchi.  For the sauce for the pasta, take tomato puree, olive oil, basil and salt.  Heat over low heat until just heated through.  Do not stir!  I know it goes against every instinct.  Put the spoon down!!  Just swirl around in the pot.  Be careful that it doesn't boil.  My eye knows what hot tomato sauce feels like.  Cook the pasta for 2 minutes in boiling, salted water.  Toss with the tomato sauce, top with some homemade ragu that you have had simmering for three hours and top with Parmesan cheese.  For the gnocchi, just melt butter.  Don't let it foam, or really heat up and start to pop.  Add some fresh sage.  Don't fry the sage!  Remember, the butter shouldn't be to hot.  Cook the gnocchi in boiling, salted water until they float.  Then, toss in the sauce.  Serve.  You can always add cheese if you feel like it.

What's that?  You don't have a fresh made ragu that has been simmering for hours on the stove?  What is wrong with you?!?  Ok, fine.  Sweet some minced carrot, celery and onion (one of each, please) in some olive oil.  Then, using some top quality beef with fat in it (80/20), add the ground beef, then some peeled and rough chopped tomatoes (seeds removed of course).  You can add garlic, but keep it whole so that you can remove it.  The same goes for the sage and rosemary that you can toss in as well.  It really comes down to the quality of the ingredients in something like this, so keep that in mind.  Finish off the meal with a great glass of local white wine.