Amaltea Cooking school : second lesson

Italian cuisine : between traditions and techniques

Having tradition as a departure point is important  but nowadays using the correct technique for making a better preparation is really important too!

Many of our traditional dishes were born from the need to use local food products and  keep them in time to prevent them from going bad.  Today  with a better knowledge of cooking techniques  it’s possible to make them even more good and healthy.

The second lesson was about the basic of meat ragout , vegetable soups and different methods of cooking eggs:

  • “Ragù di carne Modenese” Modenese meat ragout:

Ragout is a term used to indicate sauce meat cooked for many hours over low heat, made of several ingredients (which vary depending on the region). The most popular is the Bolognese one that usually is served with pasta .

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A little bit different from Bolognese ragu  but similar is the Modenese ragu  . The difference consists in the meat used .
There are some tricks for making it tasty and not to heavy , for more info you can find information in recipes section!

  • “Minestrone di verdure” Vegetable soup:

this is a really easy preparation but a little bit different from the usual. We diced all the vegetables for the soup. We put them into different bowls and sorted in the order of cooking. First the ones that needed a longer cooking and after those which required little time. We browned the onion with olive oil and then we added one  vegetable at time with a bit of vegetable broth. We did so until the last vegetables.

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The result was excellent the vegetables were cooked to perfection and very tasty!

  • “Pasta e fagioli” Pasta and beans soup:

One of the classic preparation of traditional Italian cuisine is pasta and beans. Each region has its own variations, but one thing  is sure, it is a very tasty dish! We made a base of garlic oil, chopped bacon and ham shank. After cooking them a little bit we added carrots, celery and onion minced. We browned all together and after we added the beans and tomatoes chopped. We covered everything with water , we added salt and pepper and we left it simmer for about 40 minutes.  At the end we took out half of the beans, we blended them and put again all together. We added rosemary and we cooked pasta into the soup. Deliciuos!

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  • “Uova in camicia” Poached eggs:

finally I learned I to make poached eggs! We put  water and white wine vinegar and a pot and when it was boiling we started making  a whirlpool with a spoon and suddenly we put one egg without the shell . We waited just 3 minutes and it was ready !

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  • “Frittata con gli spinaci” Omelet with spinach:

in a bowl we beat the eggs with salt and pepper and we put them in a skillet with a little bit of oil. When they were half way cooked we added spinach , previously boiled , dried and seasoned with salt . We finished to cook the omelet never turning it up and down but only moving it a little .