Eating with a twist
Sometimes I wonder why I love Italian food so much. It’s not like I’m Italian or grew up with many Italian friends or families, but if there is a meal I always go to, it’s a nice bowl of pasta. I guess the wonder of living in a place like Melbourne, affords you the ability to experience multi-culturalism in food! We all grow up eating so many different cuisines and we really are spoilt for choice. So you can imagine my delight to be able to attend a pasta making class at Bottega! The restaurant is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and is holding various events, such as this pasta making class, as part of its celebration.
Gabriele Oliveri is Bottega’s head chef and is true blue…..Italian! Who better to teach us how to make pasta? We made three types of pasta: gnocchi, ravioli and stroprazetti, the latter being a twisty pasta!
One of the key things Gabriele taught us, was that we needn’t be afraid to use flour or semolina to dust the pasta or dust the surface! He suggested that you could always reuse the flour to make the next batch of pasta so as not to waste it! For the amount of flour that was thrown about, it was a very good effort by Gabriele not to get it all over the floor! He taught us how to make the pasta and knead it, and pass it through the pasta-making machine. To be honest it looked very easy, but I somehow doubt it was….
The class is interactive and you have the opportunity to help make some of the pastas, but given my known uncoordination, I didn’t participate! The stroprazetti was extremely interesting to make as it involved twisting the pasta between the hands and making the pasta like twisty worms!
He also provided very useful tips on how to store the pasta once you make it! For example, you can actually freeze fresh pasta after you make it (store it flat and then freeze it). Who knew?!
The end result was trays of gnocchi, lentil filled ravioli and stroprazetti.
Gabriele was kind enough to pose with his trays of pasta for me to take this picture!
Now here comes my favourite part of the day…..eating!
The first dish that came out was the stroprazetti, which was teamed with a pork and beef ragu. I think one of the great things of this dish is the shape of the pasta , as it captures the sauce in the twists! It was absolutely delicious and the texture of the pasta was quite soft, especially given that the pasta doesn’t contain egg.
The second that followed was the gnocchi. Now I must admit, I generally don’t order gnocchi because I’ve had some not so great gnocchi experiences. However, I have to say that this gnocchi was absolutely perfect. Not too chewy or grainy. Accompanied by a Gorgonzola dolce, radicchio, and walnut sauce, it was really a great dish. I think given the creaminess of the Gorgonzola it was set perfectly against the soft gnocchi texture.
The final dish was the lentil ravioli, with char grilled cotechino (a type of sausage) and caramelized onions. The sauce was very light and I think this helped to draw the flavour from the ravioli.
To top it off, we had tiramisu. This one came very cutely in a cup and I was surprised to get a bit of crunch in my spoonful from the crunchy biscuits that were at the bottom of the cup. Truly a delicious tiramisu with subtle coffee and liqueur flavours.
It was definitely an eye opening and a stomach opening experience! Definitely worth attending if you love pasta and want to learn how to make it!
Due to the popularity of the classes, Bottega are looking to hold this event on a more frequent basis starting in the spring. Check out their website in September for updates and details!
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