Cibo E Vino - Cooking with Friends (Cooking Class)

     Ever wanted to be able to cook restaurant quality dishes to impress your friends? Cibo E Vino and their head chef Paul Toogood are opening up their kitchen for you to come in for a hands on cooking class to learn to cook a three course meal. I was recently invited to a media preview of the class and also get my hands dirty learning to make some pasta.

     We were split into 2 groups. Chef Paul takes us through how to make orecchiette. The dough is prepared before hand and chef starts breaking it up into little balls. We're then shown how shape them into little ears, he seems to be making them at the speed of light so I ask him to slow down so that we can see exactly what he is doing. It's then our turn to churn them out. It's simply a push of the thumb and then a quick flick and they are done - easier said than done of course ;)

Working hard or hardly working? ;)

Our combined effort, is this going to be enough for lunch?? ;)

    We then move on to watch Chef Colin Lambrisket prepare the pasta dough for the linguine. The dough has been premade and he rolls it out with a rolling pin until it's the right thickness and width to go through the roller of the pasta machine.

     Once it's almost ready, we also get a few goes at cranking the handle. Chef makes it look so easy! It's actually quite an effort for me to turn the handle just a couple of rotations, lacking some arm muscles I think.

    The dough is folded multiple times and put through the roller to 'laminate' until a nice smooth silky consistency is achieved.

     We then all come together again to watch Chef Paul show us how to make gnocchi. The potatoes are peeled, chopped and then steamed. Once cooked, they are put through a mouli which grinds them down to a smooth mash. An egg yolk is added to the potato mash and then equal amounts of plain flour and semolina are added and worked into the dough.

Chef Paul showing us how it's done.

My baby! We all get our own batch to make.

     Once the dough has come to the right consistency, it is divided up and rolled into long sausages and then cut into little pillows.

A finished batch of gnocchi.

     Chef Paul takes out a block of truffle pecorino cheese to shave to make the sauce for the orecchiette. He lets us all have a small tasting. The cheese was so tasty, I could have easily eaten the whole block!

     The orecchiette is added to a stock, to which the peccorino is added to make a creamy sauce - no cream added.

     Due to time constraints, we missed seeing the linguine being cut but this is what the end result looked like.

     Once the gnocchi is done, Chef Paul moves on to preparing the pasta sauces while talking us through the processes.

     Tossing the gnocchi in a butter sauce, helps prevent it from sticking as well as adding flavour to it. The third chef in the brigade at Cibo E Vino is Chef Danny Westside. They are all super friendly blokes and made the cooking class experience a fun one. The three pastas are dished up and we all get to eat! Not before photos are taken of course...

Orecchiette with truffle peccorino sauce.

     It was a shame that by the time we had this, the pasta had gone cold. It was a little too firm for my liking but I'm sure if we had eaten it while it was piping hot, the texture would have been absolutely wonderful.

Gnocchi with house made sausage sauce.

     There was a lot of murmuring around the table when everyone tucked into this dish. The gnocchi dumplings were soft pillows of melt in your mouth potato goodness - just how they should be.

Linguine with prawns, tomato, peas and basil.

     The flavours and colours in this dish were vibrant and fresh. I absolutely adore basil! The prawns and peas added some sweetness to the dish.

      What sets this cooking class apart from the others is that after your hands on session with the chefs, 3 of your friends get to come in and eat what you have cooked. Your chance to impress them with the skills the chefs have taught you ;) Though there are 3 pasta dishes shown above, the chefs will teach you how to make an entree, a main and a dessert from the restaurant menu. For more information and bookings, visit the class information page on their website. The next class will be held on Saturday 18th August and will be limited to 4 people so that you get a bit more one on one time with the chefs.

      All I can say is that I was so inspired by the class, I went home and tried to make gnocchi on my own! Ryan has made it before and has done a pretty awesome job and I have just always been too afraid to try. After watching and learning how to make it from Paul, I wanted to see if I could do it myself. I succeeded, though my gnocchi was no where near as good as Paul's or Ryan's. Lots more practice needed. And yes, that's shavings of truffle. We visited the Marrickville Organic Markets that weekend to buy some produce to make an anniversary dinner and were very excited to get our hands on some fresh truffle. What better way to eat it?

      This is not my first visit to Cibo E Vino though it has been a long long time since I had last been (Castle Hill is a little bit out of the way for me, if I was a local I'd definately be visiting more often). It's where I had my first taste of hand made gnocchi, which I absolutely fell in love with. It saddens me when I see packet gnocchi being used, it's just very very different in taste and texture, it's not the same! The restaurant has been through some changes since but it's great to know that the gnocchi is still just as good, if not even better than when I first tried it. They now focus on a range of hand made pasta dishes and have established themselves as an 'Artisanal Pasta House'. I've also heard that their fries are to die for. YUM! Go pay them a visit. NOW.

Cibo E Vino

Shop 2, 299 Old Northern Road

Castle Hill

Open Tuesday -Saturday, 6:00 - 10:30pm

Pasta with Prawns, King Brown Mushroom & Capers - Ryan Cooks (and Bakes!) and a Double Rainbow

        So it's Friday night, we've spent all day out and about so it's time to chill out at home, hmm what's for dinner? It's the month of Lent and Ryan has decided to go meat free on Fridays. Mum had cooked fish for dinner but there wasn't quite enough for both of us to eat too (she always expects that we'll cook our own or will be going out for dinner).

       So into the fridge and freezer I go, seeing what we could use to cook with. Pasta is always a pantry staple, and we almost always have prawns in the freezer and I was in luck that there were just enough prawns left for us to use. These two ingredients are always a winning combo. I had some capers left from when I made my pan fried fish with salsa and pea puree and I also spotted a tray of Oyster mushrooms and King Brown mushrooms so we decided to throw in one of the King Brown's. Some other fridge staples like garlic, chilli and white wine and we have ourselves a very tasty sounding pasta dish for dinner.

        I let Ryan take care of dinner because I had decided that I wanted to make macarons so needed to to all my prep so I could make them after dinner.

        While Ryan is cooking I notice that there is a huge rainbow right outside. I run out and see that it's a full length rainbow, and it's a double rainbow!

        I ran in to grab my camera but by the time I came out the clouds already started to come rolling in and the rainbow was slowly disappearing. I could still see both ends of the rainbow but unfortunately my camera wasn't capable of capturing it.

        My brother notices that the sky is glowing a bright amber in the direction of the sun setting. There is a really eerie feel in the air, reminds me of when we had the dust storm that made the skies red. The rainbow has faded into the clouds so I return back to the kitchen and dinner is almost ready.

        I can't give you an exact recipe for this (because I can't remember exactly how much we used and what we did) but I'll give a list of ingredients and basic instructions which should help inspire you to recreate it if it takes your fancy. Vary the amounts according to your own taste. This is what Ryan and I have labelled as cooking by instinct. We have a general idea of what flavours work well and we 'wing it'. Most of the time dishes made this way turn out really well for us. We were a little heavy handed on the chilli (even without the seeds there was quite a bit of heat), but other than that it was a tasty flavourful pasta dish. The capers really lifted the dish and gave it a bit of zing. The King Brown mushroom added sweetness while the prawns provided the savoury element. It was a well rounded dish in terms of flavours and textures, exactly my kind of dish.

Ryan and Angie's Pasta with Prawns, King Brown Mushroom & Capers

Ingredients:

• Dried spaghetti (or any type of pasta), half a pack
• Shelled prawns approximately 300grams
• Handful of capers in brine
• 1 King Brown mushroom, sliced
• 1 Chilli, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of Garlic, finely chopped
• White Wine, approximately 1/4 cup
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Cook pasta and drain.

2. Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the prawns, remove from the pan.

3. Return pan to the heat and add mushroom, garlic and chilli and brown.

4. Pour in the white wine and let it boil to evaporate the alcohol.

5. Add the pasta, prawns and capers to the pan and toss well. Season with salt and pepper.

6. Serve with a splash of lemon juice - enjoy!

        After dinner I attempted to make my macarons. I was trying out a new recipe and technique (from a blog I'd found that guaranteed to break the 10 myths of macaron making). I also realised that Ryan has never ever seen me make macarons before this (but has always been a happy taster and critic of them). He watches me make the batter and when I offer him the piping bag he declines but then decided to have a go at piping them in the end. Not a bad job for a first timer! He ends up piping most of the batter for me except for the last tray which I end up doing.

        Unfortunately my macarons did not turn out, they didn't cook through properly and were cracked on the surface. I've been trying to experiment and make a manuka honey macaron shell and this being my second time (with manuka honey), was also a failure. The first time I used manuka honey I tried an italian meringue recipe and that didn't work so I thought that this supposedly fail proof recipe/method would help me achieve my goal but alas this one gave me a failed batch of macarons too.

        Ryan and I have concluded that perhaps honey changes the characteristics of the batter hence ruinging the macarons. I bake them longer and on a higher heat to turn them into delicious little honey meringue cookies. I tried the same recipe/method again the next day (without honey) but get the same results so it could possibly be that I was doing a few things wrong, like undermixing the egg white and almond meal mixture. I also think I may have cooked them on too high of a heat and then when I turned the heat down a little, I probably needed to cook them for longer.

        I've made okay macarons before but being the perfectionist that I am have never thought that they were good enough so am always trying to improve them. I might just resort back to the original recipe I've used as a guide, at last I know it gives me results (even if I don't think my macarons are perfect enough yet).

Alio - Pasta Making Class

 

        Thanks to the lovely Jen from Jenius, I won myself a spot to a pasta making class at Alio Restaurant. What better way to end my birthday weekend. When I entered the competition on the blog I was not expecting to win, I rarely win things in my life and when I saw the annnouncement I was in disbelief but excited at the same time too. All I had to do to win was "leave a comment below in 25 words or less and convince me why you should win!", Jen really liked my answer ;). As part of the Alio Restaurant ten-year anniversary celebrations in June, Head Chef Ashley Hughes was giving away a limited number of tickets to a series of interactive pasta-making masterclasses. Two spots were being given away on Jenius courtesy of Wasamedia.

        There were about 12 of us in total in the class, all from a mix of backgrounds including bloggers and competition winners. It was also nice to see a familiar face in the crowd by the name of Phuoc from Phuoc'n Delicious. I was nervous coming to the class because I didn't know anyone, it was so totally out of my comfort zone! The information sheet says that it was going to be a hands on class however, it is more of a demonstration class where Ashley shows us through a variety of hand made pastas and also his hand made foccacia. It was quite an intense two hours even without the hands on experience. At the end we get to eat what Ashley cooks in the class =D.

        Ashley shows us how to make pasta from scratch. He makes his own pasta fresh daily and has been doing so since Alio has opened. It's amazing what just a few eggs and flour can become. Some important notes I remembered: '00' italian flour will give you a better quality final product as it's a stronger/harder flour and high in gluten. I've seen this on the shelves of supermarkets before though each area varies, might have to go to specialty food stores or a deli for it. If the dough is dry, add more egg and never add olive oil to your pasta dough as it changes the consistency of the pasta.

        Ashley has also been making his own foccacia from day one. I love it when a restaurant chooses to make their bread in house though not alot do, it is easier to buy in bread but when you can smell bread freshly baking, oh it's blissful!

        He's very generous with his olive oil but only chooses to us the best quality oil so I guess it's not that bad =D. The focacia is flavoured with Murray River salt, rosemary and some other herbs. It was torturous smelling it cook during the class.

        Ashley shows us how to make his celebrated ‘Rotolo’dish, which is a roll of pasta filled with a spinach ricotta cheese mix and sauteed mushrooms. He uses field mushrooms and adds in dried porcini mushrooms to add flavour. The mushrooms are sauteed in butter.

        We watch Ashley cooking down some baby spinach with his hand! Don't do this at home kids! He explains to us that it doesn't need much cooking time and that by using his hand he can gauge it easier and as soon as the temperature is too warm for his hand the spinach is ready to be taken off the heat.

        The spinach is drained of all mositure, finely chopped and mixed through some ricotta and other hard cheeses.

       Ashley's older sister Tracey co-owns the restaurant and runs the front of house. She's also his right hand helper during the class.

        The fillings are done, then Ashley gets on with making the pasta. The dough is put through the pasta machine and turned and rolled constantly until it is even and straight on the edges.

        At the speed and precision which Ashley works you can tell he's been doing this for a long time. I bet he could do it with his eyes closed ;).

        The pasta is rolled to the right lenth and then trimmed and placed together to make a large sheet. For amatuer pasta makers they recommend that we source a quality fresh pasta seller and buy the sheets premade. The spinach and cheese filling is spread onto the sheet and a thin row of mushrooms is placed along one edge (which will become the centre of the roll).

        The pasta is then rolled up, kind of like a swiss roll, and then wrapped with a cloth and the ends tied up with some kitchen string to help hold it together during cooking.

        The roll is then placed into a kettle pot and left to boil away while the class continues.

        With the leftover pasta Ashley shows us some of the more common/easier pasta styles.

First off, ravioli.

        There is no mould or special tool that he uses here, just a simple pasta cutter or sharp knife and his hands.

He then shows us how to make tortellini's.

        Thank goodness for pasta machine attachments. He shows us the attachments to make linguini and fettucine. He suggests to us that to start off with these are the pastas that we want to perfect first before we move on to the filled pastas. The important part is in the rolling of the pasta dough, once you master that everything else will eventually fall into place.

Ashley's plates of ravioli, tortelli, fettucine and linguine.

        For lunch he throws together a Caprese style salad to go with the Rotolo. Grape tomatos, buffalo mozzarella, aged balsamic and olive oil, fresh basil, oh so simple but oh so good!

        The bread comes out of the oven and everyone goes "Oooohhhh". A little more olive oil =D.

The Rotolo is ready!

Ashley slicing up the Rotolo and dividing it up.

Tracey helps to slice up the bread.

        Another side dish, warm marinated olives, I'm not an olive lover, I still havn't quite acquired the taste yet. However, as Ashley goes to so much trouble to cook lunch for us I try a couple, they wern't too bad at all! I still can't say I like them though.

        To go with the Rotolo Ashley makes a simple butter, sage and chestnut sauce. We all help to carry plates to the dining room where a table has been set up for us for lunch. Everything on that table (apart from the Grissini) was made during the 2 hour class.

        Tracey throws together a rocket and cheese salad for us. It was suprisingly really good, shows the power of quality produce.

        The Caprese salad, simple flavours, quality ingredients, it was good! Ashley has managed to balance all the flavours well. The acidity from the tomatoes and the balsamic, the creaminess of the cheese, the freshness of the basil, I could smell it from the distance I was standing to the bench where he was working on.

        Warm marinated olives. Not overly salty, just delicious, but I'm still not an olive lover.

        Spinach, Ricotta and Mushroom Rotolo with sage and chestnut butter sauce. Yum Yum! The pasta was almost silky, the filling nice and creamy, the chestnuts sweet. I loved it.

        The foccacia was pretty good too! And dipped into the balsamic and olive oil... oh my goodness. Soft fluffy interior, and all the flavours from the olive oil, salt and herbs.

        Hand rolled grissini sticks which they also make themselved. They were good! Flavoured with parmesan I think?

        Chef Ashley Hughes posing for photos. Tracey joined us for lunch and told us a bit about how Alio started and all the stories before Alio when they were both working overseas (together and apart). She also brought up some interesting points about the internet and the impact it has on the food/restaurant industry especially such sites as eatability and it's power where people can anonymously attack restaurants and same goes for blogs. It's made me aware of alot more things and also how I will approach my reviews of restaurants in the future. We also talked about some other stuff but it's a shame I didn't really mingle too much with the others, that's me though in new environments. I enjoyed my morning immensly, even though I had to get up extra early for a Sunday morning. Thank you to Ashley and Tracey for having us and to Jen for picking me as a winner of the competition =).