Seriously who doesn’t eat pizza and pasta?
Even if you’re a vegetarian, you can still dine on them with much gusto.
But often we go to the nearest Italian restaurant for them and spend big bucks on food that you can actually prepare yourself.
Yes, you can learn Italian cooking right here in Singapore and come up with the most delectable dishes in your own kitchen.
The Basics of Italian Food and Cooking
Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of Italian cooking classes, let’s talk about the cuisine itself.
The Italians like the French are enamoured with food; they even love the same things, which are wine and cheese.
But they also have their own peculiarities.
While the French love good presentation the Italians prefer simplicity.
While the French can have as many as 10 ingredients in one dish – think of cassoulet – the Italians are happy with four or five.
The Italians are very particular with their ingredients.
They don’t take shortcuts, so they make their own sauces and sun-dried tomatoes.
They fish and grow their own poultry or pork.
They climb hills and harvest their own olives and capers.
Freshness translates to very flavorful and healthy dishes.
Even doctors will tell you that if you want to keep your heart in good shape, opt for the Mediterranean diet like that of the Italians.
Italians consider meals as a great time to bond with their family and friends, so they eat slowly and punctuate the courses with glasses of wine.
Now Off to Italian Cooking
In Singapore, it’s quite difficult to search for a school that offers Italian cooking techniques like how to create or cook various kinds of pasta.
You’ll have a bigger chance of learning that if the fine-dining Italian restaurants offer occasional classes or you enrol in formal training.
The regular short-term courses in academics, meanwhile, may last for a couple of days or weeks.
What is commonly offered, therefore, is recreational Italian cooking, and they are normally focused on certain types of dishes such as spaghetti pasta, pasta in marinara sauce, or pizza cooked in an authentic brick oven, among others.
They may also deal with certain food categories such as pasta, salads, pizzas, desserts, ice creams or gelatos, and coffees.
The inputs you’ll get can be very basic, but that may be enough to jump-start your Italian cooking knowledge and training.
The classes can be hands-on or demo.
The announcement is often clear about it. If it’s not, make sure you can contact the chef or the school.
There’s also a school that teaches Italian cooking in your own kitchen.
There are also Italian cooking lessons for the kids.
Normally they are taught how to prepare some types of pasta such as macaroni and spaghetti or prepare and bake pizza.
The dough is often prepared, and all they need to do is to add their favourite toppings.
Because Italian cooking shares some characteristics with those French Cooking, it’s not impossible to find a class that teaches both European cuisines.
Coffee and Wine
With the popularity of coffee and wine in Singapore, you might as well get more acquainted with it by taking Italian cooking classes.
You’ll learn which wine goes well with what meat or meal, as well as how to prepare your own espresso so you can skip lining up in Starbucks.
See you at the Cooking Classes and learn to cook Italian cuisine for your loved ones.