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February 5, 2016

Italian Cuisine Professional Chef Training Course Lesson #1 “Tuscan Cuisine 1”

Our January class has started for 2016. Students worked hard from the very first lesson, not at all showing fatigue from their long flights. They vigorously went through an orientation, a sightseeing tour in Florence, and a cooking practice by Professor Francesco. The first cooking practice was “Tuscan Cuisine 1”. Today’s menu: Tuscan fried artichoke flavored with extra virgin olive oil and thyme Pappardelle with wild boar Fresh pasta Cimalino (veal shank) redone with artichoke Florentine steak Class started with Prof. Francesco’s speech and self-introduction followed by each student’s self-introduction Prof. Francesco puts the greater focus on the traditional cooking methods, which have been passed on from predecessors, over new […]

January 26, 2016

ITALIAN HOME COOKING Jan 25th, 2016

A new term of Italian Home Cooking course has started on January 25th, 2016! The professor is not only a real Italian mamma, but also a recognized culinary professional. Students will be cooking a delicious full-course Italian cuisine in a big beautiful kitchen at the professor’s house. Today’s menu: Appetizer with rocket & fresh mushrooms Red cabbage risotto Turkey grilled with herbs Half-grilled tomato & onion Mélange & yogurt mousse Italian mamma cooking must be daring and yet loose. Don’t worry if the onion burns a little bit! But at the same time she measures the ingredients and spices very precisely. Students always cook in a very friendly and fun […]

June 2, 2015

Italian Home Cooking May 5th, 2015

Today’s appetizer is one of the very major Tuscan cuisines, Crostini di fegatini (liver paste). The homemade liver paste is always the best. Today’s first dish (primo) is minestrone soup. You can use vegetables in season, so ingredients may vary depending on the season. Green peas are good now, so we put a lot of them, which made the soup sweet and tasty. It’s very gentle to the stomach, I love it so much! This is the second plate (second). Can you tell what it is? This dish is called “bruge”, originated from “Hambruge”. It’s a hamburger steak made of mushed lentil. With fresh spinach and cucumber flavored with white […]

June 2, 2015

Italian Home Cooking May 4th, 2015

Today we will cook a dish representing Florentine cuisine, roasted pork fillet Florentine style. After pressing in all necessary seasonings directly into the meat, you simply roast it in a pan. It’s a very easy yet delicious dish. Today’s appetizer is a salad in a parmesan cheese basket. It’s very colorful like Italian national flag. Very beautiful and tasty. Lasagna with basil paste for the first plate. Different from the classic lasagna, it’s modernly arranged and very popular among Italian people. Finished! Oven-grilled paprika and valeriana salad on the side. This is perfect, too. Black chocolate cake with whipped cream on the top. The softness of chocolate is just right, […]

December 2, 2014

THE FINAL COMPETITION – CONCORSO –

CONCORSO Here comes the last lesson of the Culinary art for professional chef course. Just like every course, there must be an assessment. I think you can feel the stress pouring out of the photos today. My classmates paid a lot of effort and attention into cooking all dishes to perfection. They must remember the recipes by heart. Even the Professor was not joking much today. The ambience was almost as stressful as inside a kitchen on the busy day. However, there is a motivation waiting for them because the winner will get a big bottle of wine which Professor Francesco has prepared it himself. The dish must be presented […]

November 29, 2014

THE WINE CELLAR VISIT – CANTINE –

PRINCIPE CORSINI The visit at Villa Corti is always like a dreamlike to me. Last time I went with my batch mates in May. The garden was full of blooming roses and we saw the princess standing on the balcony. The Corsini family is one of the most prestigious Italian aristocratic families. They have contributed to many historically important things in Italy for example the Trevi Fountain in Rome was commissioned by Lorenzo Corsini Pope Clemente XII who lived between 1652-1740. Today again I went with my classmates for a guided tour of the wine cellars and the olive mill. The tour guide explained about winemaking and oil pressing methods […]

November 28, 2014

HAM AND CHEESE FACTORIES

THE VISIT AT HAM AND CHEESE FACTORIES Today I walked through the morning rain to meet up with other students as we were going for a trip to Sienna. We had visited 2 interesting factories there. The Gambassi has been making Prosciutto for 4 generations. Today Filippo who is in the 4th generation showed us his family pride. Once you enter the place , you can see the racks were full of Prociutto and other meat products. Sienese pigs are famous for their tender meat. Filippo exports his family products all the way to US and Japan. He stated a Japanese Master chef, Chef Fukuda said the Sienese porks tastes […]

November 27, 2014

The Wine Lesson4

Corso Del Vino 4 Michele was back to be our instructor again. Today he taught us about dessert wine. We leant the differences between Champagne and Sparkling wine, also the differences of Spumanto or sweet Sparkling wine and sparkling wine. First of all, Champagne is a region inFrance which produces Champagne. No other sparkling wine can be labeled Champagne outside the Champagne region. The second fermentation method creates the beautiful bubbles in Champagne as well as the price tag which is a lot higher than other sparkling wine like Prosecco. You can have Prosecco as an aperitif and drink it with your meal. However, it is not common to drink […]

November 27, 2014

Happy Birthday!

Buon Compleanno On the day of our Sausage lesson , I saw some cake batter in a bowl and Professor Francesco was making the cream as if he was baking something. I was a bit curious why he was making dessert on the sausage day. Then I found out it was a birthday of our intern student, Kenta and our classmate , Rio. The birthday cake was freshly baked by Professor Francesco. It was manly decorated by our smiley chef, Yuki san. Our friends cut the cake together while we were singing for them. Then we all laughed because it looked a bit like they were cutting a wedding cake. […]

November 26, 2014

THE SAUSAGE MENU

SALSICCE When talking about sausages ,people think about German sausages first. Today we leant how to make hand made Italian sausages. Each city has its own recipe of sausages.Tuscany is famous for its Salami with Fennel. The South of Italy is famous for their spicy sausages. Making sausages, take lot of patience and skills. The chef needs to blend all ingredients together in a big tray prior to put them inside the machine to make sausages. It’s not too difficult. You just need to keep on practicing until you are familiar with making it. The reward of your great effort is yummy grilled sausages ready to be enjoyed. TASCAN SAUSAGES […]