An Authentic Italian Cooking Experience
It being our 3rd/4th time in Rome, we wanted to do something different and we thought a cooking course would serve as a valuable investment and let’s just say it is already paying dividends. We had a blast. It was beyond what we expected. We went in to it with little to no expectation as we connected with a duo on Facebook who called themselves Claudia & Eleonora. No reviews, not a lot of info available as they were pretty new but we are so glad we decided to roll the dice here. We hopped in an Uber to Trastevere in the morning to meet them on a street corner and when we arrived, they found us right away. They greeted us with hugs, lots of energy and big smiles. We started the morning off by hunting down our ingredients. They took us to a few mom & pop shops in Trastevere where we collected items such as fresh meat, parmigiano, red wine, fresh spices & more. Afterwards, we went to Claudia’s, rolled our sleeves up and got to work in the kitchen.
We started with preparing the coffee for the Tiramisu. We got 3 Bialetti stovetop espresso makers going with some Italian roasted beans. Once they were ready, we took the coffee and put it outside for it to cool down. We washed the potatoes and got them going so we could peel them and get them ready to be gnocchi noodles. Next, we cut the eggplant for the meatballs and got the wine popped so we could sip on something while we worked. We needed something to munch on too so we cut the bread and made the bruschetta and the fresh basil was amazing. We soaked some bread for the meat balls which was a new technique we didn’t know about. Minced the parsley, spiced the meat, cracked some eggs, peeled the potatoes, busted out the parmigiano. At this point we were in high gear. Multi-tasking in the kitchen like true Italians.
The meatballs came together well and once we got them off the heat, they were delicious. We busted out the mascarpone and Eleonora’s grandma’s old gear. We dipped the biscotti crackers in the espresso and layered it with cocoa and the mascarpone. It came together nicely. We put it in the fridge to set and it was gnocchi time! We threw it into the old pasta press then rolled it out and cut our pieces carefully. We made our sauce, it was simple but packed with flavor. Once gnocchi was ready after a quick boil, we threw it into the sauce and the smell was indescribable. We were all drooling and we enjoyed it shortly after. The style in which it was prepared allowed us to get more of the potato flavor out of it. Amazing.
We finished up with the salad and it was all very new for us. We used fennel, oranges and olives with a bit of salt. It was very unique and my tastebuds were all over the place. A very interesting combination.
Overall, we really appreciated this experience. Way beyond what we expected and it was so authentic. We absolutely loved it and can’t wait to try these recipes at home. We highly recommend tracking these ladies down. They will make you a part of their family, show you love and share some incredible food with you. What else could you want? Thanks again to Claudia & Eleonora. We had so much fun!
Check out their page here