Cooking Class in Ortigia

After our excursion to the market, we ended up at Impact Hub and their beautiful teaching kitchen.  

Our menu for the day was ravioli alla Norma, a riff on the traditional pasta of Sicily, called Pasta alla Norma.  The pasta is tomato sauce with fried eggplant, ricotta salata, and basil.  The filling for our ravioli was fried eggplant, basil and ricotta. It was served on a bed of tomato sauce, and topped with ricotta salata.  Our main course would be tuna steaks agra dolce, with a roasted pepper salad.  Dessert would be cannoli because you have to have them here in Sicily.

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We made our own semolina pasta (all Sicilian pasta is made from Semolina)

filling ingredients

After mixing

Filling the ravioli

Adorable

After rolling out all that dough we took a break to have a few snacks.  Salame, cheese, eggplant pesto, and bruschetta.  All accompanied by a lovely Sicilian red wine.

A simple tomato sauce for the pasta

Building the plate

Buonissimo!

Roasted pepper salad

Our main course, tuna steaks agra dolce, sweet and sour with onions

No meal would be complete without a few cannoli here in Sicily

Sesame seed cookies and 'cigarette' filled with cannoli cream

After a full day of food, wine and learning, we headed back out to do a bit of shopping and then rest up before dinner.  Grazie to Loredanna and Arianna for an awesome morning.  Ciao for now.

At the Market

A riot of color and cacophony of sound, the market in Ortigia is a delight for anyone interested in food.  Local produce, fish just caught from the waters off Sicily, spices, condiments, and pastries are all part of this glorious food paradise.  The Sicilians are proud of their products, tomatoes from Pachino, capers from Pantelleria, and seafood from the Mediterranean are all part of the cooking here, and their pride in their products is obvious is the way they sell them.  

Anchovies

cherry tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes from Pachino

Zucchini flowers

basil

Olives

Salted capers, none of that brine here

Spices from around the world

Famed pistachios from Bronte

Pepperoni!

We were at the market with our guide and cooking teacher for the morning, Loredanna.  She and her colleagues are the new wave of entrepreneur here, wanting to grow the economy here in Sicily by teaching others about the cuisine, the island and its products.  she belongs to a cooperative in Ortigia that has taken over an old convent, where there is a cooking school, as well as areas for artists, and others who wish to grow the economy here.  

Did I mention the tuna?  This is the season and there is tuna and swordfish everywhere.  These are enormous fish, and by the end of the day, all of the fish is sold to the locals and the restaurants.  

I'm not sure if shark nose is a delicacy, but someone got one that morning

Not a fishy smell anywhere

Baby cod fish

Clams

It would not be an Italian market without flowers

Mussels

Broccoli as big as your head

Our last stop at the end of the market was Salumeria Burgio, where only local products most with the DOP, DOC designation are sold.  So, premium products from Sicily.  We were given small tastes of some of the cheeses, and salame, and Loredana chose a few for our aperitivo before class.  

Heading out of the market, I caught the Orange Juice lady

As we left the market, we trekked back to the Impact Hub in the center of town.  There we were given aprons, and sat down to a large table for our cooking class using some of the ingredients that we'd bought at the market.  More on the class in my next post.  Ciao for now.