"A Night in Tuscany" Cooking Party

I was asked to do a cooking class at the home of Julie Treat with the theme, "A Night in Tuscany". She is family, my husband's niece, and knew about our trip to Reggio Emilia in March of this year. She has also been to Italy and is very interested in the cuisine and thought a group of her friends would enjoy sampling authentic Italian food. Although technically we were not really staying in the Tuscany region, we did visit it and had a gastronomic tour there. Our trip was centered on the Emilio-Romanga region in the town of Reggio Emilia where we visited Parma, Modena, and Bologna. There are three blog posts about the culinary immersion program in Italy if you are interested in reading about the specifics.
For Julie's cooking party we decided on this menu:

Antipasto: Fontina, gorgonzola, and pancetta with herbs on crostini
Primo: Tortelli verde with salsa bianca and salciccia
Secondo: Pork tenderloin stuffed with proscuitto and parmigiano-reggiano with Lambrusco sauce, served with herb oven roasted potatoes
Contorno: Panzanella
Dolce: Panna cotta with fresh Amaretto peach sauce



I also brought a sampling of my 30 month aged parmigiana reggiano cheese from Parma, some grissini, proscuitto, olives, and served in with aged balsamic vinegar. I couldn't resist sharing the antipasto we had nearly every meal in Italy.



Panzanella salad

Julie serve Prosecco, as an aperitif, when the guests arrived, Lambrusco and some other red wines, and Limoncello at the end.

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Proscuitto and Parmigiano Reggiano and Red Wine Sauce

2 pork tenderloins
4 ounces proscuitto, thinly sliced
4 ounces parmigiano reggiano cheese, shaved
16 ounces Lambrusco wine and 16 ounces white Marsala or dry white or red wine
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp sage, minced
2 tsp parsley, chopped
2 T all-purpose flour
2 T butter

Salt and pepper the surface of the pork. Pound with mallet until uniform thickness. Divide ham and cheese in two equal amounts. Place each portion down the center of each of the two pieces of pork. Roll the meat and tie with butcher twine. Heat a large skillet to medium high and add 1 T oil. Brown the tenderloins on all sides. Place meat in a large baking pan, sprinkle it with flour, rub it with garlic, rosemary, and sage and sprinkle it with half the wine. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes, until liquid is clear when pierced with a fork.
Take the meat out of the pan and allow it to rest for 10 minutes while you prepare the sauce. Deglaze the pan with some of the reserved wine and cook it for 5 minutes. Strain it and add it to a small saucepan. Add butter and cook until it's smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Slice pork and drizzle with sauce. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top.
Serve with roasted potatoes.

Herb Roasted Potatoes
1 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic, sage (1 tsp each)
1 T oil
1 T butter
Cut potatoes into wedges. Blanch for 5 minutes in boiling water. Drain and place on a large baking pan. Sprinkle with herbs, salt,a and pepper, oil and butter. Bake at 375 degrees until brown and tender, approximately 20-25 minutes. Turn halfway through baking. Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees and bake an additional 5 minutes for crispier potatoes.

There were a total of 7 guests and all were more than willing to prepare the various dishes. Two prepared the antipasto which was enjoyed by all. Julie was very interested in learning how to make pasta so she led the pasta team. We made the dough from scratch and filled it with a chard and ricotta filling. The sauce was a simple butter, cream, parmigiano reggiano sauce and we added some browned Italian sausage to the sauce. Pasta making for the first time is not the easiest thing to do, but Julie is a quick learner and she and her friends made excellent pasta. The good thing about fresh pasta is that is cooks quickly so it was ready in just 4 minutes. The guests sat down and ate the pasta while it was hot and fresh. Judging by their comments I believe they really enjoyed it. We started on the pork tenderloin and got it stuffed and browned. In the Motti School in Reggio Emilia the student chefs placed the pork in a roasting pan, sprinkled a couple tablespoons of flour on it, tossed in a handful of chopped fresh herbs, and added about 4 cups of wine (Lambrusco and dry, not sweet, Marsala). I had never seen that technique but it resulted in a thickened wine mixture after the pork was cooked. This worked well with the class and we had a great sauce base. I strained the wine mixture and put in in a saucepan, added a little butter, salt and pepper, and the Lambrusco sauce was perfect. The pork was tender and juicy, drizzled with the wine sauce and served with the potatoes we roasted. The potato recipe was also something I learned in Italy. The chef boiled the potato wedges for 5 minutes, drained them, and placed them on a baking sheet with some oive oil and a handful of chopped herbs. Since they were partially cooked they roasted to a golden brown within about 20 minutes. The guests were happy to learn this technique so they could make their oven roasted potatoes on a weeknight without it taking over an hour. We all had samples of the pork and potatoes (including me, standing in the kitchen) and I was transported back to Italy where I enjoyed the same dish. I am hoping the guests liked it. We hurried to make the panzanella. Now this is one true Tuscan dish. When we were on the walking gastronomic tour of Florence the tour guide was telling me about what people in Florence eat at home. She explained that they enjoyed a lot of fresh vegetables in minestra (soup), then used stale bread to turn the leftover soup into ribolita (re-boiled soup with bread). She also described panzanella, made with stale bread soaked briefly in water, squeezed out, then combined with the freshest tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. With it being tomato season right now I made panzanella at home with tomatoes from my garden. I didn't have enough for the class so we used local tomatoes. We did not soak the bread since it was too fresh but it was just right combined with the tomatoes, onion, cucumber, basil and dressing. None of the guests had tasted this dish before and Julie remarked, "I'd rather have bread in my salad than lettuce!"
For dessert, I had made panna cotta at my house and transported it to the class because it takes several hours to set. We were going to make the panna cotta at Julie's but eat the ones I brought. We ended up making the fresh peaches and Amaretto and skipping the actual panna cotta making due to the lateness of the hour. I explained the process in detail, though. I used half whole milk and half heavy cream, just like the Italian student chefs did at our class and I found their panna cotta to be the best dessert I had my entire trip. I was hoping we would create a similar dessert for Julie's guests.
Two guests made the fresh peach sauce and the peaches were incredibly sweet and tasty.
When the women spooned the silky panna cotta topped with the Amaretto peaches every one of them were very pleased.
The "digestivo", Limoncello, was not the most popular item of the night. Most of the women did not care for it at all.