‘Pasta is conveyor of culture’: Learning from an Italian master chef
After two-year hiatus, Casa Artusi Philippines reboots with new classes for traditional artisan cooking
On a Monday afternoon, A Mano at One Bonifacio was transformed into a classroom. Casa Artusi Philippines, the local branch of the famous school in Italy whichespouses traditional artisan cooking, finally booted up after the pandemic. Visiting Italian master chef-educator Carla Brigliadori went around the table guiding the participants on how to shape the pasta dough.
“Pasta is the conveyor of culture,” said the master chef who hails from the Emilia-Romagna region, the epicenter of Italian gastronomy. The region produces many products that bear the quality assurance label (denominazione di origine protetta).
Twenty-eight students, clad in white aprons, stooped over a long table, kneading the dough and turning it over with a matterello, a long rolling pin.
Chef patron Margarita Forés, who set up the local Casa Artusi and assisted Brigliadori, quoted the Italian signoras as saying that the matterello had other functions, such as disciplining wayward husbands.
Wine and flavors
The recent pasta-making session wasn’t just a hands-on class. Between recipes, students sampled the dishes paired with wines. For starters, they sipped Prosecco and nibbled on piadina, a lard-based flatbread, served with prosciutto, strawberry and mango marmalades and squacquerone, a delicate cheese made fresh by the Bacolod-based Casa Del Formaggio.
As Forés prepared four sauces, Brigliadori cooked the appropriate pasta for each recipe.
“Making fresh pasta is harder. The timing has to be right. It takes very little time to cook them.You have to know exactly when to remove the noodles from the water,” Forés told Lifestyle.
Hence, the seafood pasta was a medley of shrimps, crab meat and olive oil, teamed with spaghetti alla chitarra, long, square-shaped spaghetti strands, shaped from a stringed
chitarra pasta cutter and paired with white wine.
Garganelli, ribbed cylindrical noodles, complemented the
chicharo (local peas), prosciutto and Italian butter.
Farfalle, bow-tie noodles, worked well with the intensely flavored three-cheese sauce and red wine. Paired with broad, flat noodles, the classic ragout was made with the sofrito, an aromatic flavor base of onions, celery and carrot, followed by the minced meat. The
juices from the beef added to the savory flavoring.
Forés underscored the importance of demonstrating how ingredients are cooked. Participants gained experience and were encouraged that they could duplicate the recipe.
‘Lechon’ and ‘porchetta’ For nearly a decade, Brigliadori has been visiting the Philippines, conducting classes at the Casa Artusi branch and cooking for special events hosted by the Italian embassy.
She recalled that on her first trip, Forés took her to Farmers’ Market in Cubao. After the tour, she was initiated into Filipino food with balut, fertilized duck egg. “I ate a little bit out of respect for the culture,” she said.
As a gastronomic exchange, Forés conducted Filipino cooking classes at Casa Artusi in Italy and likewise offered dishes at the Artusi Festival in Forbeen
limpopoli, Italy. She engaged the Italians by showing similarities between the kinilaw and the crudo (raw fish), the pancit molo and the tortellini en brodo (stuffed noodles in broth), lechon and porchetta (boneless roast pork) and the adobo and brasato (braised beef with wine).
In 2019, Brigliadori trained the A Mano kitchen team on how to prepare handmade pasta and other recipes before it opened at Rockwell Power Plant. Managed by Forés’ son, Amado, A Mano has
known for its authentic cuisine. When a consulting team tweaked the dough recipe to suit the climate, it became one of the three Filipino restaurants that was listed in 50 Top Pizzas in Asia-Pacific 2022.
A Mano’s pizza dough is fermented overnight in order to produce the umami flavor and lightness. Brigliadori pointed out that the fermentation makes the dough easier to digest.
“The flour is important (for texture) as with the proportion of toppings. You don’t put too much sauce or a mountain of toppings. There has to be a balance of crust and toppings,” she said.
Enjoying mangoes
Since her return to Manila after three years, Brigliadori has been enjoying mangoes daily at Forés’ house and also likes pancit molo and the traditional cassava cake. The chef finds adobo a little heavy for her taste but she favors organic red rice from the Cordilleras.
Back home, the master chef savors the produce of Emilia-Romagna such as the Po Delta rice, nurtured by the sweet and salty water from the Po River, and grilled fish from the Adriatic Sea. Among her favorite foods are potato gnocchi and tagliatelle, a versatile pasta and pizza with capers and anchovies.
As life returns to normalcy, Forés is looking forward to more visits from Brigliadori at the White Space commissary with new offerings such ashealthy recipes and plantbased foods.
“Casa Artusi Philippines has helped to make the world smaller,” explained Forés. “It brought a bit of the art of Italy here. The class is an experience beyond making pasta. It’s about tasting, wine pairing and learning about history and culture. For one afternoon, people are transported to Italy and experience what it’s like to be at the Casa Artusi.”
Brigliadori gave her blessing to Casa Artusi Philippines with an Italian saying, “Le cose buone hanno le gambe lunghe.Good things will stay for a long time.”