7 days - Gourmet Italian Cuisine with Chef Paolo Monti

What to Expect

A great Northern Italian Cooking and Wine Program in Tuscany with Chef Paolo Monti, including working alongside the chef in the restaurant kitchen! - In this comprehensive "Hands On" cooking Program, you will learn the best of "Classic" and "Contemporary" Northern Italian Cuisine with 5 exciting classes. Altogether more than 60 recipes! The program is enriched by field trips to the wholesale market for fish, meat, cheese, pasta, wine, olive oil etc. a wine tasting at a local boutique winery and a very interesting day trip Parma and Modena for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano.

It includes:

• 7 nights full board accommodation
• All meals and beverages included.
• 4 cooking classes on Tuscan and northern Italian cuisine.
• Guided tours of Lucca, Siena, wholesale market visit, Day trip to Parma and Modena for the production Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma and traditional 12-year old balsamic vinegar, wine tasting in a local winery, guided tour of Lucca
• Transportation provided throughout.

Menu

Main Ingredients and Basic Sauces Class:

• Tomato sauce
• The sauce made with fresh cherry tomatoes, garlic, and basil
• Ragù alla bolognese - Classic Italian meat sauce
• Chicken stock
• Italian Garlic bread - with tomato
• Raw mushrooms on toasted bread
• Toasted bread with beans topping
• Butterfly pasta with a creamy mozzarella and tomato sauce
• Pasta with tomato, olives, basil
• Penne all’amatriciana - Penne with tomato and Italian bacon
• Hunter style chicken.
• Pork tenderloin in cream and lemon sauce
• Tiramisù - Classic dessert with mascarpone and coffee

Fish and Seafood Class:

• Shrimp salad on a bed of fresh fennel and orange
• Fresh Tuna tartare
• Mussels sauté with garlic, lemon, and wine
• Mussels sauté with celery, carrot, and Sambuca
• Spaghetti alle vongole - Spaghetti with fresh clams
• Tagliatelle allo scoglio - Seafood fettuccine with saffron
• Mezze maniche pasta with a pistachio and shrimp sauce.
• Baked whole fish with basil, tomato, onion, and potato
• Grilled fresh tuna with lettuce sauce
• Fish fillets baked in foil
• Panna Cotta - A cream dessert

Tuscan Cooking Class:

• Panzanella - Tuscan Bread salad
• Toasted bread with chicken liver and capers pate’
• Bread croutons with eggplant topping
• Tordelli alla Lucchese - Vegetable ravioli with special meat sauce 
• Ragù di carne alla lucchese - Aromatic meat sauce from Lucca
• Roast loin of Pork with pancetta, rosemary, and sage
• Roast Potatoes
• “Cantuccini” biscotti di Prato - The famous Tuscan biscotti
• Risotto, Veal Scaloppine, and Carpaccio Class:
• Raw beef carpaccio
• Italian style tartare with lettuce sauce
• Buffalo Mozzarella with a raw tomato sauce

Risotti: 

• Arugola Saffron and shrimps
• Radicchio, speck, and gorgonzola 
• With Porcini mushrooms
• With Squid ink and squid

Veal Escalopes:

• Veal Escalope with porcini mushrooms
• Veal Escalope with prosciutto and sage
• Veal Escalope in a tomato sauce
• Veal Escalopes in lemon sauce
• Semifreddo al croccantino - Iced almond crackle mousse

Schedule

Day 1

• Arrival at cooking school
• Accommodation in the school's apartments
• Aperitif at 7:30 pm
• Welcome dinner Dinner

Day 2

• 9:30 am: Breakfast
• 9:45 am: Hands-on cooking lesson with Chef Paolo Monti followed by lunch. This class is very important, we will start with a lesson on the origins of the Cucina Italiana, the main ingredients, fresh herbs, an Extra virgin Olive Oil seminar, explaining how all olive oil is made and taste a dozen different olive oils to recognize the differences, according to where they are produced. We will then start cooking some of the most important sauces of Italian and Tuscan cuisine. Have a light breakfast! because we will make 14 recipes and we will taste all of them! Afternoon excursion to Lucca and guided tour of the city. Return to the hotel for dinner
• 4:00 pm: guided tour in Lucca
• Dinner

Day 3

• Advanced fish and seafood class
• 8:00 am: Trip to see the fish and vegetable market, for Italian vegetables, herbs and fruit, salami and cheeses, but mainly to learn how to recognize fresh fish and less than fresh fish! See different types of fish and what they are used for.
• Return to the cooking school and we will cook about 15 different fish dishes: appetizers, pasta, main course and dessert
• Afternoon free
• Dinner with local Lucchese specialties

Day 4

• 6:30 am: Trip the Parma province, breakfast on the way, to visit Bertinelli Parmigiano Reggiano Dairy to see the production of this totally organic and wonderful cheese, followed by tasting the finished product of course! We then drive to Langhirano a "Prosciutto di Parma" maker, see how prosciutto is made in a Prosciuttificio La Perla, we visit the factory and see all the steps to produce this wonderful ham, followed by lunch with prosciutto, salami etc, and home-made fresh pasta with Lambrusco wine! After lunch, we drive to Modena to Acetaia Malpighi and visit the barrel rooms where the original "Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale" is made an ancient tradition going back to the Roman Times...and of course taste it! Return to Lucca for dinner.

Day 5

• Breakfast
• 10:00 am: Hands-on Tuscan cooking class about typical Tuscan Cuisine, we will make crostini ai fegatini, crostini alle melanzane
• Panzanella: the famous Tuscan bread salad. We will hand make the local vegetable ravioli and a delicious aromatic meat ragù from Lucca with unusual spices, for main dish Arista di Maiale: loin of pork with typical Tuscan herbs. For dessert, we will make Cantuccini also know as "Biscotti".
• Afternoon: free to relax, perhaps with a bicycle trip along the river or free to walk about in Lucca.
• 6:00 pm: Appetizer with a class of wine, suit up and work in the kitchen alongside our chefs for one hour, followed by dinner

Day 6

• Breakfast
• This day we will do some more advanced dishes not present n other cooking classes, spaghetti cacio e pepe al vino rosso, costoletta orecchio d'elefante, different basic sauces, basil pesto and rucola pesto, mozzarella di bufala cocktail, etc...

Day 7

• Breakfast
• 10:00 am: the final Cooking Class with Chef Paolo Monti, we will be learning how to make a proper risotto with shrimp and saffron, with porcini mushrooms, with red wine radicchio and speck, with squid ink. We will be preparing also 2 types of traditional beef Carpaccio and a Buffalo Mozzarella with a blended fresh tomato sauce, to finish, dessert, Semifreddo al croccantino
• Farewell dinner with a presentation of the certificate!

Day 8

• Departure