Cooking class in Sant Ambrogio

October 03, 2014

Cooking class in Sant Ambrogio

One of the things that I like to do (Linda not so much, but she’s a good sport), is arrange a cooking class when we travel. For me it’s more of a way of making a connection with the locals rather than learning a new recipe or technique. We were in Sant Ambrosio for about 3 night and we had arranged through the website http://www.sicilianexperience.com to take a cooking class at the local restaurant. There is only 2 restaurants in this town and one of them is a great pizza place. The place we had arrange things at was called Osterria Baccus and Chef Mimmo. Before arriving in this place we had no idea where the cooking class was to be so, being the only open restaurant in town we ate there the night before our cooking class still not know that this was were the class was to be held. We had a great meal and bottle of wine that I have discussed earlier.

We arrive for the cooking class at the appointed time 9:30. We had met Chef Mimmo the night before and we chatted for a while. Chef Mimmos' English skill were great and we had no trouble communicating at all and he was a really pleasant guy who was passionate about the traditions of what he was cooking and about passing this on to his 2 sons. We started to discuss what we were going to make that morning and he seemed to want to make fresh lasagna. I told him that I had taken a cooking class in Bologna and understood how to make fresh pasta. I love lasagna and fresh pasta so great, let’s go. Chef Mimmo was a great teacher. We start making the fresh pasta. I didn't need a lot of coaching so he kind of got me started and Chef went on to making the rest of the lasagna. Chef supervise me making the pasta, but I think he could see that I was not a complete rube and let me handle this mostly on my own. Being a former potter I was pretty good at kneading but Chef Mimmo did give me some really good pointers. You could tell that he had done this a couple of hundred times before. You could tell because he did not measure any of the ingredients neither the flour or the eggs but by the time I finished mixing it all he had is spot on. Got the dough made and let it rest. On to the ragu and the béchamel. Although I’ve eaten it many times I had not made lasagna but once or twice. The technique of using both a ragu and a béchamel was new to me although I’d made both many times. Again for me it’s not so much about learning a new recipe or technique but more about doing a project together. The project was going to be making an eating this lasagna. We had made the mistake before of eating before a cooking class. I wasn’t making that mistake again. I was getting hungry.

Chef has two sons and there was also another son of an old friend of Mimmo who was there to help. One of the things that struck me was how fascinated the guys were about making fresh pasta. I know that fresh pasta, especially egg pasta is more traditionally a northern Italian thing but all the guys seemed truly interested in making this fresh pasta. Mimmo later said that they had never seen it done before. I like to thing that maybe it was because a crazy American could come in an hang (albeit only somewhat ) with the chef. It was fun to see how interested they were.

Chef Mimmo next started on the ragu since that took the longest. I have done this before a number of times but I was surprised at how much meat he was using. It wasn’t until later that I realized that we were making the restaurant special for the next few days. I would have never guessed that from the amount of pasta that we made but again the Chef was spot on with his quantities. Got the ragu going and let it cook. On to the béchamel. A pretty standard component which I've made many times but again Chef knocked this out without measuring anything. We rolled out the fresh pasta and cooked it, cooled it, assembled the lasagna alternating layers of ragu, béchamel, parmesan and the pasta. Got it into the oven to roast.

Here’s the thing I had never seen before, fish in Agridolce. A cooked fish roasted in a sweet and sour sauce. The fish, “capone”, yes just like Al Capone, was in season and was suppose to be delicious. Chef pulls out the 2 whole fish that he’s gotten just the day before. Chef, gills and guts the fish in a minute or two. Again you can tell he’s done this many times before. He instructed me to cut the whole fish on the bias, including the heads. He we particular about how this was done. We put them in a frying pan with some olive oil. It took only about 10 minutes to cook the Capone through. Meanwhile his son was working on the sauce. Cooking a bunch of onions in olive oil with a couple of bay leaves and sugar. Chef adds the white wine vinegar, again all by eye. Once this has reduces a little we combine the fish and the onions and put it in the oven to back for a little while.

Now we eat. I’m starving. Always my favorite part of the cooking process. We sit down and I insisted that his sons who helped us, join in the meal. We even insisted that the girl from the coffee shop next door who had just sat down to lunch to join us. This after she insisted that I call her signorina, not senora by showing me her hand with no ring. I stand corrected. This lasagna was some of the best ever, maybe it was because it was a joint project but the combo of the ragu and the béchamel was great and especially with the edges of the lasagna got all nice and crispy. It was some of the best ever. I know his dinner guest later that day were enjoying it too. A big surprise was the Capone in Agridolce. I’d never had this before. Heard about it but never had it. It was really good. The fish a very mild flavor and the contrast between the sugar and the vinegar was really great. Of course when we are serving it up, the Chef wants' the head, so I need to have the head too. It was really great. Altogether a really great meal. Chef was a great teacher, patient and knowledgeable. We started the cooking class at 9:30 AM, we didn’t get up from the table until 3 PM. A great day.