Chef Pete talked about the Lombardy region of Italy today. It is localed in Northern Italy nestled between Piedmont and the Veneto. Emilia-Romagna lies to the south of Lombardy. It's major city is Milan. It has mountains to the north where you will find typical game like hare, venison and birds. Mountain pastures are littered with grazing dairy cows and sheep. On the hills of Lombardy, you will find fruit and nut trees, mushrooms, and herbs such as rosemary, laurel and sage (hearty herbs). Lombardy also has plains that were formed from alluvial deposits from the mountains. The Po River runs thru here and when it floods, corn, wheat and rice fields were formed. Milan is considered the veal capital of the world. Because of the many lakes and rivers, fish is plentiful-pike, trout, perch and carp.
Specialties of Lombardy include Bresaola (dried beef tenderloin), risotto, Pizzoccheri (buckwheat pasta with Savoy cabbage and potatoes), Cassoeula (pork and cabbage stew), Osso Bucco (a dish made with veal shank) Grana Padano (a cheese much like Parmesan), Gorgonzola, Mascarpone, Taleggio, Mostarda di Cremona (preserved candied fruits in syrup flavored with mustard), Torrone (nougat), and Pannetone.
They are not well known for their wines as the landscape and weather does not allow for great tasting grapes, but you will find Lambrusco and Francia Corta (a sparkling wine).
After that, Chef Lexie lectured us on frozen desserts. Most frozen desserts are made from some combination of cream, eggs, milk or sugar or simple syrup. Creme Anglaise (ice cream, really) and frozen custard are made with cream and egg yolks, Gelato is made from milk and egg yolks and simple syrup is what is used to make sorbets and granitas. If you add Swiss or Italian meringue to sorbet, you get a "Spoom". I've never heard of that! Sherbet is a sorbet with a little bit of dairy added, either a powdered milk or regular milk.
You can make your own proportions for these ingredients to get the texture and creaminess you want. It really takes three days to make good ice cream. On day 1 you make your base and allow it to "ripen" overnight in the fridge. On day 2, you churn your cream in an ice cream maker. It needs what is call "over run", which is the amount of air churned into the ice cream. You need some, but not a lot. Cheap ice cream has more air in it than more expensive ice cream and you can taste the difference. You ice cream will always come out soft from the ice cream maker, so put it in the smallest container you can and store it in the freezer for 24 hours to harden. On day 3 you eat it!
We broke down into teams of two and each made Creme Anglaise and then decided what our own flavor profile would be. We started out by scalding 2 cups of cream. While that was heating, we whisked 4 egg yolks with 1/4 cup of sugar. Once the cream had scalded, we tempered the eggs with some of the cream to bring the temperature of the two closer together, then put the mixture back on the burner to cook (so the eggs were sterilized). Kim and I decided to do Lavender and Creme de Cassis for our flavor profile. I'll have to let you know tomorrow how it turned out. We are going to have an ice cream buffet for dessert tomorrow to try all these ice creams!! Experimentation can be such a trial!
For lunch, Gardemo made Zucchini soup topped with a ravioli that had a walnut pesto, ricotta cheese and an egg yolk in it. It was surprisingly good! Hot Plate made Friccassee de Veau (French veal stew). I know it's Italian week and we were suppose to make Osso Bucco, but apparently our order got confused and we did not get our veal shanks. One adapts, lol. Dessert was a chocolate sauce with bourbon in a shot glass that you drank! Very rich. There was also a nougat on one side of the glass and three 1 inch x 1 inch little brownies on the other side. The brownies were excellent!
After class we met with Becklien and finalized our flight to Rome, so at least that is taken care of. Two days in Rome, two days in Florence, then on to Milan and Piedmont for our cooking class.
I made Easy Cinnamon Buns tonight. Take an entire package of Phyllo dough (you can buy this at the store in the freezer section) and let it thaw. Unfold the sheets so that the lines run left to right, using a little water to repair any dough that may have torn when you unfolded it. Brush the dough with 1 Tbsp of melted butter for each sheet, then sprinkle each sheet with half a mixture of 2/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar mixed with 3 tsp cinnamon. You can then sprinkle it with raisins and/or nuts if you desire. Roll up starting with the end facing you and slice each sheet into six pieces. Put these pieces in a greased muffin tin (you will end up with twelve buns) and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. You can drizzle them with a powdered sugar frosting if you want once they cool. Easy!
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