Italians do it better

And the winners were...

By Edoardo. Thursday, 29. May 2008, 22:28:39

prize, quiz, winners, ragù, pasta, focaccia, wine, dinner

The evaluating jury has unanimously (!) decided the winners of the challenging quiz launched during the Italian Day at Opera.

The brave and fortunate souls who won were: Catherine, Eddy, Marianne and Walter, and the price was an italian dinner, of course cooked by the Italians at Opera.

We had also 2 special guests who joined us, Chaals and Melissa.

Sadly many italians were missing in the event, but Luca, Rosario and me have done our best to feed and entertain the hungry guests... well, 7 (seven) bottles of wine helped thought!

In the kitchen the italians were surprisingly comfortable in sharing tools, the sink, the oven, the space... and help each other and this is what they cooked:

bruschetta: a must!
spaghetti al ragù:
Luca spent the whole previous night cooking a delicious ragù, and, you know, the ragù the day after is even better!
pennette alle melanzane e formaggio:
Rosario showed us his superior, french-italian mixed cooking skills with this on-the-fly recipe which turned out to be really good!
focaccia alle olive and focaccia alla cipolla:
I replicated the success obtained some days before with two focacce.

The second one, (focaccia with onion), I must admit, was very good, my best result so far, thanks also to the lessons learned while cooking the first one...

I'd like to share this precious tips, and you might want to take note of them:

1) never trust other people's oven
2) salt is never enough
crema di mascarpone:
A combined and perfectly syncronized work between Luca and me leaded in two big pots of this delicious dessert.

There was also some "italian" ice-cream (made in Kristiansand) brought by Walter together with a couple of bottles of wine, thanks Walter!

The whole evening was accompanied by the already mentioned 7 (seven) bottles of wine and many other liquors, grappa, Madeira (thanks to Eddy), even Absinthe!