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Chef Claudio prepares to instruct and entertain his only two pupils for the week. No need to use his big teaching kitchen in the basement of the building across the way. This class will be held in the restaurant kitchen.
Ready to get going.
Bill's ready too.
Cindy is boiling gnocchi.
Over there on the left is gnocchi in gorgonzola/pear sauce and on the right is gnocchi in butter/sage sauce. Mmmm. And in the back is a mixture of egg and rapini called a frittata. Rapini looks a bit like broccoli but tastes more like kale. It's strong and bitter and I didn't like it much. But it sure was pretty.
Chef Claudio ground his own beef. He used meat from the shoulder, only the best.
Cindy stirs.
Chef Claudio sifts.
And now he's making pasta. First you start with a little volcano of flour and then you drop the eggs into the middle.
Three eggs and mix and mix with your fingers and get it just exactly right. You can press the pasta in a machine, he says, but you can't mix it in a machine. To mix the pasta, you must use your fingers.
Then you roll out the pasta and you cut it with a big cookie cutter and you drop a small spoonful of salt and peppered ricotta into the middle and you fold it over and you lock it tight by pressing with a fork and you twist it around and make a little cap out of it. Cappelletti. Yum.
And here is a movie showing exactly how Chef Claudio did it.
Claudio makes a messy pie dough.
Bill does too.
Now he rolls it out.
Getting it just right.
How come pie crust is so easy with Claudio watching and so difficult at home?
The result is delicious. Grandmother's pie -- custard with hazelnuts. Yum.
Tomato and bread soup in front, and I think those are artichokes in the back.
And this is a poor chicken. Scrawny, huh? That's because this chicken hasn't been pumped full of hormones.
Cindy observes. Right after this we had a "Christmas Story" moment. Whack!
But there's plenty left.
Fill the poor chicken with sage.
Tie him up.
Put him in a pan with olive oil and garlic and more sage.
And roast him. Yum
And here is a movie showing exactly how Chef Claudio did it.
Now Claudio is going to teach Bill how to make lasagna. Turns out Claudio's recipe is almost exactly like Bill's. Red instead of white wine. No milk. But basically, it's the same.
A layer of bechamel sauce followed by a layer of noodles much thicker than Bill's, followed by a layer of meat sauce, followed by more noodles,
followed by more bechamel, followed by....
dollops of meat sauce, followed by...
a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Mmmmmm....
Cleaning fish guts is even more fun when the fish have suckers on their tentacles.
Chef Claudio made an outstanding eggplant Parmesan dish from that extra-fresh eggplant and the calamari wasn't bad either.
And finally, by special request, Chef Claudio taught Bill how to make biscotti. If only Bill had written down the recipe. He thought it would be in Chef Claudio's gift cookbook. He hopes Cindy has it.
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