Cooking with Rita and Anna

Not Aunt Dora's Kitchen

In Italy we arranged to have a cooking class through our excellent tour guide (and TV star, we discovered), Giovanni. If you have been following my posts you will have read about it in “Cooking With Aunt Dora”. We enjoyed this experience so much we decided to try it again here in Portugal. Ben found the Lisbon Cooking Academy online and they booked a class for everyone. It was going to be hard to beat “Cooking with Aunt Dora”, but it still would be an experience to add to our Portuguese adventure with the kids.

Like everything else here in Portugal, we couldn't get there easily and after many twists and turns and up and downs, our UBER driver dropped us off “close” to the location. Sure enough, it was not on a street and we had to go down more stairs to get to the address. once inside the academy, we were presented with a completely different setting than Aunt Dora's little Italian kitchen. This was a modern spacious cooking classroom. We were greeted by one of the bubbly friendly culinary teachers, Rita and she informed us that we were going to be joined by an

Preparing cod fish

additional four other tourists shortly, but not to worry they had a “Never empty glass” rule to wine, so the wait would not be a trial. Settling in with an excellent glass of Portuguese wine we did not have long to wait until our other participants arrived, four school friends from Germany here on a vacation. Not only were these Germans not the reserved stand-offish Germans we were used to from cruising, these four women were outgoing, friendly and educators, so we got along great. In fact we were told that our preconceived opinion of Germans was because they were from the other side of the country – who knew?

After washing up and getting fitted for aprons, we began the class with appetizers. The normal Portuguese cheese, bread and olives were kicked up a notch with chorizo roasted over an alcohol flame in a special roaster. “Alisha do I have room to bring one of these home in your suitcase?”.

We learned to make a green bean tempura, Portuguese “Punched” potatoes and cornbread crusted codfish, with cabbage on the side. As well, we were instructed in the making of the famous Portuguese egg tarts, pastel de nata, although we were warned that if we did a review on Trip Advisor not to mention this because it was not normally part of a class because they had a separate class just on this delicious traditional desert.

We chopped vegetables, crushed garlic, mixed batter, stirred sauce, pulled codfish bones, and generally got involved in all aspects of cooking this meal the Portuguese way. Then when everything was ready we sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labours, a delicious Portuguese meal.

Cooking With Aunt Dora

Rolled Veal

What do you give someone who has everything? How about a cooking class in Italy about cooking Italian food? Since our son and his Partner were visiting us in Lecce, we decided to save their birthday gifts until they got to Italy and we gave them Italian cooking lessons (For fun; not because they needed them of course . . .)

The Green Italy Crew

GreenItaly, the tour company we used for a tour of the area with friends, also offered cooking classes. We were so impressed with their service that we decided to go with their offerings; it was close by and seemed like a fun day. The owner offered to pick us up at the Ostuni train station and offered us a quick free tour of the town of Ostuni after dinner.

The Expert Pasta Makers

This was no usual cooking class. We were not in a big fancy “School Kitchen”, we were in Aunt Dora’s farm house. As we pulled up to the obvious working farm, we

Making Pasta

were greeted by the uncle and numerous dogs, who questioned our presence on their territory. The uncle shook everyone hands, but he obviously spoke no English and went about his work on the farm. We were ushered into the house where we met Aunt Dora, her daughter and a friend. Aunt Dora is a retired professional cook from a local B & B, but more than that, she is like our driver’s Mother who we met on the tour, an Italian wife, mother and homemaker, doing all the cooking and preparation of food for the family. Who better to teach us to cook Italian?

We started off preparing veal, which was seasoned, stuffed, and rolled to be gently cooked in homemade tomato sauce from tomatoes grown on the farm. These tomatoes were picked when ripe and left for a week “in a box” to sweeten. Back home I have to add carrot or sugar to my Mexican or Californian tomatoes, but that is not needed with real Italian tomatoes.

Proud Pasta Maker

We then made pasta. Everyone was given a pile of flour and we added water and mixed it to create the pasta dough. Having made pasta myself many times, I know the feel, and Aunt Dora was impressed with my ability – not so much some of the others. Once the dough met Aunt Dora’s exacting standards, it was rolled into long ropes. We then cut it into little pieces and made Orecchiette. This is not easy and takes practice. You use a knife and press and pull it across the piece of dough and onto your finger to create a convex circle of pasta, which is then reversed onto your thumb. It sounds difficult and it is. It took us all a while to get a decent piece of oreccchiette. As we slowly practiced Aunt Dora slickly produced a pile of these little pasta. Fortunately I was working on the same pasta board as she was, so my efforts got mixed with hers and I looked pretty good. Once we had sort of mastered this skill, we were instructed on making Macaroni, which is much easier. You simply cut a small piece of pasta and slide your knife over it, rolling a little cylinder of pasta.

Finally Finished . . .

While Aunt Dora and her helpers finished the veal and cooked the pasta we sat down for an amazing selection of Antipasto dishes, all made with local ingredients by Aunt Dora. Fried zucchini, breaded eggplant, fava bean puree, roasted peppers, artichokes, molded ricotta cheese, salami, and others I do not recall. All were delicious, and I was having serious doubts if I would have room for the actual dish we had worked on, but when it arrived everyone did their best. Of course the meal was lubricated with lots of local wines and someone must have leaked the fact about the birthdays, because desert was a delicious Nutello/chocolate cheesecake.

The Results of our Work

In addition we were served Tangerines from the orchard and we left with a branch of fresh lemons to take with us.

We left for a walking tour of Ostuni, full of Italian food and knowledge of how to make it. Let me know if you want to know how to make oreccheitte, I think I can do a reasonable imitation of Aunt Dora’s pasta.