101 YEARS OLD AND STILL BRUTALLY BEATING POULTRY...

YESTERDAY I wrote about my trip to the Franciacorta region of Italy, where I was so distracted by the wines, food and general relaxed, civilised air that I forgot that my main intention had been to try to save Italy from its political uncertainty.

The sparking Franciacorta wines, which seem to me to be equal to those of the Champagne region in France, were a revelation, but the cuisine was equally impressive, particularly when they taught me how to do it.

This took the form of a cooking class at the elegant Villa Calini restaurant in Coccaglio which has transformed my own culinary efforts. It was also huge fun as the restaurant’s main chef, Alessandro Cappotto, and his assistants trusted us, after telling us what we were making and how to do it, to get on with it and, while they kept an eye on us, to cook not just for ourselves but for other guests at his restaurant.

A good cookery lesson sends you away with not just a single recipe to add to one’s repertoire but teaches techniques that can be applied far more generally. This one certainly delivered the gastronomic goods.

There were five in our group and we were assigned, singly or in pairs, to different items in a multi-course lunch. I was happy, as I think befitted my seniority, to be paired with a delightful young lady to make a guinea fowl dish unlike anything I had attempted before.

We stirred eggs, breadcrumbs and stock into a bowl of minced guinea fowl to produce a sort of meaty stuffing, which was then wrapped in a thin coat of more guinea fowl, beaten so flat that it was almost transparent.

First I stirred while my young lady companion beat, then we swapped roles. Finally we took turns at slicing a hunk of Prosciutto very thinly to provide another layer of wrapping to the guinea fowl roll. Finally, the whole thing was put in the oven to create a sort of delicious overgrown sausage.

While we waited for it to cook, Alessandro demonstrated his risotto technique, which was unlike any I had seen before and began with heating the rice in a dry pan until it was almost too hot to handle, then pouring stock on it and leaving it to absorb the liquid without any stirring before finishing it off with butter, grated Grana Padano cheese and a slurp of potato purée to give a splendidly creamy texture.

My own risottos since then have been getting better and better but I need more experience before I dare to sprinkle mine, as the chef did to delicious effect, with liquorice powder.

As for the stuffed guinea fowl rolls, I found myself the other evening longing to try it but only having a chicken and some bacon instead of guinea fowl and Prosciutto. So throwing caution to the wind, I minced a chicken breast, mixed it with an egg, breadcrumbs and stock, battered a chicken leg into submission, rolled the filling into the flattened leg, wrapped it all in bacon, put it in the oven and forgot about it.

I had run out of bacon, so wrapped the final ones in chicken skin instead. By the time I rescued them from the oven, the bacon and chicken skin were crispy and the inside was delicious. My faith in Italian food is fully restored.