Tuscan Cooking Class

One of the highlights from the Tuscany leg of the trip was our cooking class at Villa Mangiacane.  The Villa's head chef, Massimo Bacus taught us his gnocchi and a risotto.  The class's philosophy is below from their website:

PHILOSOPHY
The objective of our cooking lessons at Mangiacane is to experience the heart and soul of Tuscany through food, history, and culture. Our cooking lessons are about much more than a list of ingredients and how to cook them. Food and wine should be enjoyed with gusto, and that can begin with the preparation of a meal. We wish to introduce this philosophy into the cooking experience at Mangiacane for a memorable and valuable cooking lesson.

The one-on-one lesson was fantastic.  Massimo is super passionate about cooking and cooking traditional Tuscan dishes.  He was actually left law school to to follow his love for cooking.   He started with the gnocchi, explaining about the potatoes and how his gnocchi recipe will change based on the type of potatoes used (young potatoes will have more delicate skin and the heat should be reduced).  Without going into every step by step detail (Massimo explained every step with great detail, I tried to take notes but it was tough to keep up!) here is the short version:  After making the dough, we started the sauce (in order of when added to the pan).   Young red onion (just that a red onion before its a full bulb) 2 types of tomatoes diced up, salt (maldon sea salt from Essex) fennel, olives, capers, dices tuna fillet, garlic, basil.  We cooked the gnocchi and added them to the sauce with some of the water - bam!  An instant classic!  

The risotto lesson was very informative.  It started with with the rice and he explained the different types and showed up the brand he uses (Acqerello, only found in Italy - I am bring back a couple bags).  He made the risotto from start to finish in about 25 minutes - it was perfect, real creamy and tasted like rice and zucchini (the 2 main ingredients).  It also had zucchini flower, pine nuts, spices, and garlic.  Wow it was so good and he made it look so simple.  We'll see if it could be duplicated in the tight kitchen of 161 East 91st street!