A taste of Italia at the FCI

Last class we made ricotta and mozzarella for a reason. We were going to use it in our raviolis for this class! That’s to say we made ravioli – the pasta and filing from scratch – gnocchi, risotto and rice pudding! The rice pudding was made from risotto rice, and it was pretty interesting.

Anyhow, the first thing we had to do was make the pasta. It’s pretty darn simple. One egg, some flour and salt, a touch of oil and that’s about it. Mix it together and then knead it like a mofo, for about 10 minutes. Chef told us a pretty nifty trick. Instead of kneading like a mofo, all you really have to do is incorporate it all, give it a minute or so of kneading, and then just start rolling it through the pasta roller, folding it, and re rolling it. This, in effect, replaces the kneading, and it does something else. It gets the dough flat and ready to be rolled after you refrigerate it. This is a pretty nifty shortcut, if nor nothing else, it replaces the grueling kneading step. However, as everyone waited to “knead” their dough on just 2 pasta rollers, I spent the time kneading it. Chef said it was perfect and to just pop it in the fridge. Sweet. Nothing like keeping it old-school.

Anyhow, while the dough rested we did a few things. We started simmering the rice pudding risotto in milk and vanilla. Twice the milk boiled over right under our noses. Not the end of the world, but still, it sucks that we weren’t attentive enough to catch it before it happened.

So as the rice pudding boiled and the dough rested, we boiled, peeled and air dried some potatoes for our gnocchi, made a tomato sauce (similar to our tomate fondue), and started to prepare the ricotta stuffing. It was multi-tasking at its best.

The cheese filling was ricotta, parmesan, salt, pepper, an egg yolk and cream (and a few chopped herbs). Oddly enough, the ricotta which was sitting in the fridge for a couple of days was a little on the dry side. I guess it was sitting in breathable cheese cloth and not in a closed container.

I added a significant amount of cream but the mixture still seemed a little dry. But I didn’t want to over do it because I knew, ultimately, it would melt, which it did, and it was delicious.

We rolled out the pasta dough and made our ravioli. In the interest of time, and for the heck of it, I cut out my ravioli, but I didn’t shape them. Most of the people in class used round molds. I just left them “rustic.” I’m definitely a fan of this approach. It doesn’t affect the flavor, you get a little more pasta, but you also get an old world feel, rather than a cookie cutter, over worked product.

It was really good, and if you like rustic, it looked great too.

The gnocchi was surprisingly delicious as well! I thought it was going to be really bland, but it was quite tasty and had a nice texture. We riced the potatoes, then sifted some flour over it. After making a well, we put an egg or two in the middle and combined it all. Some salt and pepper and working it as little as possible, we combined it all, and rolled out a long log. Chopped the log and straight into the boiling water. A few minutes later, gnocchi was floating at the top, and bam, done.

It was a really productive first half of class. The next half we made a saffron risotto, which is a really simple preparation.

Our Risotto was less colorful than some other people’s. The recipe called for a pinch of saffron. And that’s all we put. However, we were told that in small batches for customers, we should use more saffron so it’s more colorful, and the customer could appreciate it more. It was like the difference in color between an orange and a blood orange. It’s clear the blood orange is a better looking product. I asked to try my classmate’s to see the difference. Very little difference, if any. My partner did however stir in a heck of a lot of butter at the end. It was a ridiculous amount, and I decided she could take it home.

At home we don’t have chicken stock at our disposal, so we just use chicken bouillon. In fact any recipe that calls for chicken stock that I’ve made in the house, I have used chicken bouillon to make a broth. It’s perfect, and adds a nice amount of salt, but not too much (or is it MSG?). But the risotto comes out great.

So we lost that guy in this class. He seemed pretty pissed, but I’m sure he was more pissed after we left and he could think it over and talk with his friends about it. But I think he knows it’s for the best. I think he’s going to redo level 2 when the next class gets to it. Turns out his buddies from Staten Island are in level 1 now, and he will probably be in their class. So maybe it’s better for him. I do know that he is going to act like a know-it-all in their class, but he’s probably gonna be just as bad as he has been, which will piss a bunch of people off.

Who knows, maybe it’s a humbling experience, or a realization. I’m sure he’s going to be a marked man if Chef Tom has his way, but then again, if you got left back, you should be watched carefully to make sure you don’t waste more time and money.

Next class he wave our HACCP/SafeServ test, and then we have the rest of the class to make ratatouille and another classic vegetable dish, confit bayaldi. I’m sure there will be plenty of time to discuss life with Chef Tom.

OH, one more thing. There were two visitors in our class who were making up a missed class and both of them were quite on the annoying side. Particularly this asian guy who was, supposedly, in the middle of studying at med school. He was such a douche bag, and I hope he never makes up a calss with us again. he was so annoying. Which makes me appreciate some of the good people, and friendly, not annoying, characters in our class.