Cooking classes in Venice with the bloggers of A Taste of Venice
Cook In Venice meets A Taste of Venice Food & Blog Tour – photo by Liz Knight
On the 13th January this year, Cook In Venice has managed to fullfill one of their dreams: to host a group of international bloggers for cooking classes in Venice and for lunch!
This happened thanks to the event “A Taste of Venice – Food & Travel Blog tour” organised by Monica Cesarato and Vivo Venetia, with the support and help of a large group of sponsors, all deeply in love with Venice, its food, its arts and its people.
Cècile Rousset (founder of the start-up Vivo Venetia) and Monica decided to organize this blog tour in Venice to get people to discover the Venice which is often overlooked and forgotten, the authentic Venice, a Venice which is made of local artisans struggling to fight against the cheap and ugly imports from abroad, the Venice which has amazing food and countless good quality wines, often ignored by most visitors and tourists, the Venice which offers lots of different and unique activities. They wanted to show the world that Venice, no matter the season, is not a Disneyland, but a city which lives, which is thriving with artists, ideas and above all excellent quality of products.
Blue skies for Cook In Venice and A Taste of Venice
Cook In Venice wanted to be part of this: the aim of our company has always been to get people to discover the amazing food of the Serenissima through a series of cooking classes in Venice. A cuisine which is multi-ethnic, simple but which always puts at the forefront the fresh excellent quality of the produce, which must always be local! A cuisine that only recently people outside of Venice have started to appreciate. A cuisine which is not just made of Cicchetti and Wine, but a culinary tradition with thousand years roots, made of fresh caught fish and locally grown fruits and vegetables. A style of cooking that, thanks to its easy recipes and simple techniques, is ideal for today’s fast lifestyle!
So, with this in mind, inviting these amazing group of bloggers was simply obvious!
A cooking class in Venice with International Bloggers!
But we could not have organized all of this without the help of our sponsors, starting with the location of our cooking class, the amazing Palazzo Minotto in Dorsoduro and Gabriella Pianizzola, who allows us to use it for our cooking classes in a 15th century place! A huge thank you for setting up the dining area like a dream!
Cook In Venice: A taste of Venice blog tour with Abate Zanetti tableware
We would like also to thank Abate Zanetti for the amazing tableware, all in Murano blown glass and U-Cook Italia for all the knives and gadgets, which have been so useful during all the culinary class.
The day started with a visit to Rialto Market for the usual shopping of the ingredients which we would be used during the class. We met with Carmela Sereno Hayes of Carmela’s Kitchen, Beatrice Sartori of Select Italy Travel, Silvia Donati of Italy Magazine, Saskia Balmaekers of Ciao Tutti, Liz Salthouse of DreamDiscoverItalia, Jonell Galloway of The Rambling Epicure, Karen Henderson of The Venice Experience, Liz Knight of Rome If You Want To, Gillian McGuire of Rome For Expats, Marion Liautaud of Un Grand Weekend à .
Selection of Fish at Rialto Market – photo by Liz Knight
We spent some time chatting with our lovely (and not so bad looking either) fishmongers – yes ladies, this is always part of our cooking class :-D ) – and we picked some nice and chunky cuttlefish for our Seppie in Umido and also two large pieces of pre-soaked dried cod for our Baccalà Mantecato.
We then moved to the vegetable and fruit stand and purchased some radicchio, onions, potatoes, celery, carrots and more for our Risotto with Radicchio di Treviso and Drunken Cheese and for Patate Gratinate.
Selection of greens and vegetables at Rialto Market – photo by Liz Knight
We made one last stop for our fresh bread and then we set off for Palazzo Minotto for a day of cooking, food and wine with lots of laughter and good times.
On our arrival Gabriella with the help of Emanuela Perenzin and her daughter Erika of award winning Latteria Perenzin had prepared an amazing display of locally produced drunken cheeses to be tasted by our bloggers: a smooth and buttery Buffalo cheese drunken in Glera vine leaves (Prosecco leaves), San Pietro Cera d’Api, a hard cheese wrapped in wax, Capra al Traminer, a goat cheese wrapped in Traminer vines. What is a drunken cheese? Formaggio Ubriacato  is a traditional Italian cheese made in northern Italy’s Veneto region. Affectionately called “drunken cheese”, it is bathed in gallons of dry wine along with skins, seeds, and leftovers from the wine. This allows the cheese making process to extract the unique sweet, delicate aroma of the wine and its complex flavours.
And of course we could not let our bloggers tasting on this great cheese without getting them to drink some amazing wine from the same area. So we kindly asked Laura Faganello of Prosecco Colsaliz, an award winning winery in Refrontolo, the area of Prosecco, to help us keeping the spirits high, in the true sense of the word!
Laura started us off with a Valdobiaddene Prosecco DOGC Superiore, a traditional Prosecco, highly sought after and appreciated all over the world, a classic spumante with an aroma and persistent flavour which was very much appreciated by the bloggers and the sponsors alike!
Prosecco Colsaliz – Photo by Liz Knight
After the tasting and a detailed presentation by Emanuela and Laura, we set off to cook.
The menu for the day was:
- Baccalà Mantecato
- Risotto with Radicchio di Treviso with Formaggio Ciok Ubriacato in Mosto d’Uva
- Seppie in Umido
- Patate Gratinate
- Tiramisù with Ricotta Mascarponata
Baccalà , Risotto and Tiramisù: three of the most typical Venetian recipes, known worldwide. We wanted to show our bloggers the authentic original recipes!
We started off by boiling our cod and whilst the fish was simmering, we started to prepare our Tiramisù, which, as most people know, originated in Treviso, a beautiful city near Venice, in the 70s. We told the story of the Tiramisù to our bloggers and explained the tricks to a delicious and moussy recipe. On this occasion we used a particular cheese created by Latteria Perenzin: ricotta mascarponata, a mix of ricotta and mascarpone, giving a lighter version to these dish.You can find our Tiramisù recipe here – or you can simply book one of our culinary classes in Venice and we will teach you how to prepare it!
Tiramisù ingredients – photo Liz Knight
After the Tiramisù we got all of our bloggers involved and we got them cleaning and chopping cuttlefish: not everyone was impressed, but they all gave 100% and prepared the fish for our Seppie in Umido, a very very old recipe of the Venetian cuisine. Umido in Venetian means cooked in tomato sauce.
Slicing potatoes for Patate Gratinate – photo by Liz Knight
After the funny faces and the laughter of the cuttlefish cleaning, we proceeded to prepare our potatoes for Patate Gratinate. We all chopped and sliced with our nice ceramic knives under the watchful eye of Marco Priori of U-Cook Italia! There was a lot of discussion on how Gratin Potatoes should be prepared and where they originated from – great starting point to explain to the bloggers the reason why Venetian cuisine is so varied!
By then our cod was ready to be creamed. Arianna placed in our mixer and proceeded to add the oil which will make it moussy and light. In the meantime we told the story of how baccalà arrived in Venice and why we love it so much! You can find the recipe of Baccalà Mantecato here!
It was now time to prepare our radicchio for the Risotto di Radicchio with Formaggio Ciock. We used Radicchio di Treviso, a DOP variety, grown in Treviso area. Â For more risotto recipes click here – if you want to know what risotto is and why we love it in Veneto, click here.
We explained to our bloggers the tricks for making a perfect risotto and then in turn they started stirring!
After 20 minutes it was finally time to sit down and have lunch all together! All washed down with lots of prosecco and rosè wine by Colsaliz!
A Taste of Venice meets Cook In Venice – photo by Abate Zanetti
An enourmous thank you to all the people involved in this event, bloggers and sponsors alike: without you this will not have taken place!
GRAZIE MILLE from COOK IN VENICE!
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Would have been nice Monica?
I know – and so many other bloggers thought the same, but it was not completely up to me the choice – sorry!