Hen’s day out at Zigi’s Cooking School

I will often have a drink while I'm cooking – beer, cider or a glass of wine – but that's generally not in a commercial kitchen with pleasingly sharp cooking knives.

It was flutes of sparkling wine in hand at Zigi's Cooking School in Chippendale late last year for a hen's day out, while slicing beef, making praline and other hen-related activities.

Chef Zigi Ozeri of Zigi's Cooking School, Abercrombie Street, Chippendale

Other than an overseas trip away, I've probably experienced the gamut of hen's nights (and days) during my adult years: from the expected – strippers, tacky restaurants, cruises and gay clubbing – to the less common, including refined wine bar sessions and shows at the Opera House.

For the food-inclined, Zigi's offers something different (potentially followed by some of the very much expected activities) and an ideal environment for groups that don’t necessarily all know each other. And a drink before noon as the cooking school kitchen adjoins Zigi's Art Wine Cheese Bar.

Drinks in the kitchen

A range of classes are available – from cooking three-course meals to much more elaborate cheesemaking – and all can be tailored to the group and budget. Our group of 10 was, aside from mid-morning boozing, cooking a two-course meal with chef Zigi Ozeri and his offsider supervising us in two groups.

Cooking class

With paper chef’s toques and silly nicknames, we were split into main course and dessert teams, with a range of tasks for everyone. Team work and cooking tips went hand in hand with bubbles and kitchen fun.

Beef fillet

On our menu for the day was grilled beef fillet with Israeli couscous and a spring vegetable salad with lime chilli vinaigrette, followed by dessert of a berry mille feuille with pastry crème and hazelnut praline.

Sliced beef fillet

Helpful kitchen tips included tightly wrapping fillets of beef in cling wrap while marinating and cooking, so that the meat can retain a neat shape for even cooking. These thick steaks were cooked on a grill and finished in the oven.

Chopping cucumbers for salad

Sharp kitchen knives are everything. Indeed, dull knives are more dangerous than sharp ones in the kitchen.

And always have a non slip surface beneath a chopping board, especially the plastic ones. Use different chopping boards for meat and vegetables.

Pastry rounds for mille feuille

Our mille feuille used store-bought puff pastry sprinkled with sugar and baked beneath a second tray, minimising the 'puff' action, but still allowing crisp, golden layers to form within the flattened pastry rounds.

Mixed berries for mille feuille

Zigi and cooking class

A cheat's version of creme patissiere was whipped up with the inclusion of custard powder - not a bad replacement if one was time short, but not quite as good as the real egg-y vanilla cream for piping.

Baked  pastry rounds

Our baked, glazed puff pastry rounds came out of the oven perfectly while a hazelnut praline was formed from freshly roasted nuts and hard sugar toffee, blitzed to a crumb when cooled.

Chef Zigi

Chef Zigi re-heating beef

Another restaurant tip imparted by chef Zigi was the use of a blowtorch to reheat food just before serving; for example, the outer surface of meat that's been resting post cooking.

Grilled beef fillet with Israeli couscous, spring vegetable salad and lime chilli vinaigrette

We feasted on our handiwork of a platter lunch while undertaking standard hen's activity.

With a well-dressed salad of Israeli couscous, tomato, cucumber and rocket, the mostly medium-rare cooked beef fillet was an ideal accompaniment to awkward questions and making sure the bride-to-be was really ready to enter marriage-dom.

Piping pastry cream

We returned to the kitchen to assemble and complete dessert, which comprised pastry rounds, piped pastry cream, berries and hazelnut praline, finished with that dessert fix-all, a shower of icing sugar.

Wild berry mille feuille with pastry crème and hazelnut praline

The mille feuille is actually a great idea for a versatile, last-minute dessert, so long as you have puff pastry in the freezer and fresh cream or an easy creme patissiere recipe and some fruit.

We probably spent just over three hours at Zigi's: cooking, drinking, laughing and having a fun, educational and belly-filling time of it all. Pretty much everything you'd need for a hen's day out. See their Facebook page for more details.

Visiting Calabria via Casa Barilla Cooking Class

Barilla tagliatelle with fresh ricotta, asparagus, nduja and salted ricotta made at
Casa Barilla, Annandale Street, Annandale

The furthest south I went during my time in Italy was the Amalfi Coast in the Campania region, which also hosts the ancient town of Pompeii and the region’s capital, Naples.

Executive Chef Luca Ciano of Casa Barilla Cooking School

The Calabria region is further south; the toe of the boot that is the shape of Italy, if you will.

It's known for specialties like my favourite salumi, nduja Calabrian spicy salami paste and caciocavallo cheese, with a cuisine that's a blend of meat and fish offerings as is characteristic of many regions of Italy that have a sea border as well as inland areas.

Casa Barilla Cooking School, Annandale Street

While I've not been to Calabria, I got a glimpse into the food culture through a cooking class at Casa Barilla in Annandale, with thanks to a fellow blogger.

The cooking school of the Italian Barilla brand, the setup at Casa Barilla is great: parking out front, coffee and cake to start (or an Aperol spritz for those inclined at 11am) and casual yet intimate classes with Barilla Executive Chef Luca Ciano leading demonstrations and hands-on, interactive sessions.

In the cooking school kitchen

Our Calabrian cooking class featured three dishes; two that we would be making ourselves following a demonstration from Chef Ciano, who has worked in Sydney restaurants including Mosaic at The Westin and at Sheraton on the Park over the last 12 years.

He has much respect for the Sydney restaurant scene in general, but especially the high end Italian restaurants whose chefs’ portraits adorn the walls of the class kitchen. Ciano cites the lack of good mid-range dining in Sydney as one of our city's weaknesses compared to Italy.

Chef Ciano cutting dough for crostoli

As seems to be the case when cooking a three-course meal, we started with making dessert, which in this case was more of a snack or treat to have with coffee.

Crostoli or chiacchiere are fried pieces of lightly sweetened dough, dusted liberally with icing sugar. It's similar to the dough used in making cannoli shells, just shaped differently and easier for it.

There's also the savoury version gnocco fritto which I had in Bologna in the north of Italy, alongside various cured meats and cheeses.

Deep frying crostoli

With a simple recipe for dough, it was a case of bringing the ingredients together by kneading into a smooth ball, and then resting the dough in the fridge before rolling through the pasta maker later.

Chef Ciano did a quick demonstration before we returned to our kitchen stations to make our own dough.

Crostoli - traditional Easter fritters

The end result of the demonstration was pretty impressive for such a simple recipe. Crisp, golden cards of puffy pastry that crumbled on bite with a shower of icing sugar for sweetening.

Chef Ciano admits to using his chiacchiere as a base for plenty of Nutella, straight from the jar.

Deep frying croquettes

The entrée portion of the three courses was a demonstration and tasting only, which was a bit of a shame as I've never made croquettes before, despite eating plenty of the crunchy, crumbed morsels.

The eggplant "meatless meatballs" comprised roasted and mashed eggplant flesh, various cheeses including fresh mozzarella, and egg and breadcrumbs to bind the mixture. Coated in flour, egg then breadcrumbs, the croquettes were expertly shaped into cylinders (which is the part of the recipe I think I would have eggplant mash falling through my fingers).

Eggplant croquette with crisp eggplant skins and Barilla tomato and basil sauce

Deep fried until golden brown, Ciano served the croquettes on Barilla Tomato & Basil sauce, and garnished with the most fantastic, crisp threads of eggplant skin – cut off from the vegetable, dried, coated in flour and deep fried until crisp-hard.

Chef Ciano joked that Australian eateries offered freshly cracked pepper with everything, "even on your cappuccino!" as he added pepper and olive oil to finish. I can’t disagree – cracked black pepper is one of my favourite spices.

The eggplant croquettes were excellent: piping hot, stringy with cheese and enhanced with both the Barilla sauce and eggplant skins. It’s also a versatile recipe as almost any vegetable can be used (as long as it’s not too wet) and any type of meat can be added (mince, prosciutto, seafood).

Cooking in the kitchen

Mise en place

Chef Ciano adding tagliatelle to the sauce

We moved on to the main meal featuring Barilla's egg tagliatelle. Ciano shared some of Barilla's 135-year history to today's achievement of being the biggest food company in Italy.

In Australia, we have their pasta and sauces range; however, in Italy they offer much more under a variety of brands.

Barilla egg tagliatelle

It was an educational session for some when it came to cooking dried pasta. The tried and tested way is to add 7 grams of salt per litre of water for cooking pasta, adding in the pasta when the water is boiled.

Use lots of water so that the pasta won’t stick to each other, reducing the starch to water ratio. Never add oil or wash pasta after cooking (perhaps an exception for pasta salad) – both tips of which impact the starch left on pasta which helps sauces stick to the shapes.

Cooking spring onions in olive oil

For the sauce, first we cooked spring onion, garlic (as a whole clove, not chopped bits which tend to burn if added in early) and thinly sliced asparagus spears in some seriously decent extra virgin olive oil under the Academia Barilla brand.

Cooking chopped asparagus

Heating Barilla Ricotta sauce

A jar of  Barilla's Ricotta sauce with tomato was simply added and heated, ready for the addition of pasta and final ingredients.

We were using some amazing fresh ricotta and spicy nduja from Salumi Australia to stir through, simply melting into the sauce, adding flavour and texture. Indeed, the nduja was some of the spiciest I've ever had.

Adding pasta to sauce in the pan

Chef Ciano is all for mixing pasta into the sauce pre serving, and not serving the sauce as a pool atop cooked pasta (I admit to doing the latter when constrained by pan size).

Creating a pasta tower

Ciano also demonstrated the creation of a pasta tower, which I've never really seen outside of styled photographs in cookbooks and magazines.

Twirling the long pasta with a large fork in a ladle, a bit of a pasta nest forms and can be gently placed onto a plate, for garnishing with grated salted ricotta and oregano sprigs.

Tagliatelle

We lunched in the kitchen with convenient pull-out stools and a glass of Sicilian white wine; completely necessary for combating the super-spicy nduja. Our group's pasta was a tad past al dente but the sauce was definitely a saving grace: creamy, sweet with tomato and with a big spice kick from the nduja.

Wine served with lunch

Adding grappa to crostoli dough

After lunch with help clearing dishes, it was time for the fun of rolling and frying the crostoli dough we made earlier, now rested.

For those who haven't used a pasta machine before, this was a great opportunity to sample before making the very easy decision to buy one.

Chef Ciano demonstrating pasta rolling

What I learnt was to resist the urge to flour the dough unless it seems to be sticking at any point. What some of the others learnt is that the dough needs to be a certain thinness to even fit into the roller at the very first stage.

With sheets of pasta rolled, it was simply a matter of cutting them into rectangles with a pastry cutter with a slit in the middle, and getting the frying oil ready.

Deep frying crostoli

Ciano's tip for testing oil heat was to simply test a small piece of dough: if it bubbles and fizzes, the oil is ready. Burning quickly or sinking without bubbles means the oil is not ready.

I loved seeing the dough puff up with bubbles almost as soon as it hit the hot oil, with the grappa and beaten egg in the dough reacting superbly.

In cooking to a golden state, we needed to ensure that the crostoli was cooked for long enough so that it would stay crisp at a later time – an audible crunch when breaking the pastry was the indicator.

Completed crostoli

Drained on paper towels, the crostoli was dusted heavily with icing sugar and best eaten fresh, perhaps with a macchiato on the side. We ended up with so much crostoli we took about five takeaway containers' worth home.

At the end of the 2.5 hour class (which ran a little over time in our case), we received Barilla goodie bags featuring the egg tagliatelle we had used for lunch, a jar of Barilla pesto sauce, recipes incorporating Barilla products and a miniature bottle of Campari.

The classes at Casa Barilla are definitely fun and worthwhile. The kitchen setup is great, chef Ciano and his right-hand-man Angelo are infinitely entertaining and full of knowledge on Italian cuisine, and meanwhile, lunch (or dinner) is sorted.

While it could be considered easy enough to cook dried pasta with a jar of sauce, the Casa Barilla classes take basic supermarket ingredients a step further, with tips and tricks that can be used in the kitchen widely and regularly. And as for my visit to Calabrian cuisine – it was hot but I liked it.

See more photos on my Facebook page (and Like it while you're there!). Casa Barilla hosts hands-on classes, demonstrations and celebrity chef classes throughout the year, with several scheduled as part of next month’s Good Food Month – see the website for details.

Talking fish, sushi and sashimi at Ocean Room

It would be safe to say that the majority of Sydney-siders are familiar with sushi and sashimi, if not fans of one or both. Lots of young children are even comfortable with maki sushi rolls, with nori seaweed and all.

So with the awareness and popularity boxes ticked, I got to delve a little deeper in a brief sushi and sashimi masterclass with Ocean Room executive chef Raita Noda earlier this year at his waterside contemporary Japanese restaurant.

Executive chef Raita Noda,for sushi and sashimi masterclass at Ocean Room,
Circular Quay

The restaurant interior is about as stunning as the quintessential Sydney view outside, but with a large collection of fresh fish on display for the class, Noda had our complete attention.

Sushi as we know it today, especially the nigiri style where there's a fish or other topping pressed onto an elongated ball of sushi rice, originated from traditional edomae zushi from the Edo period in Japan. The focus is on the neta topping, while the seasoned rice is designed to carry and enhance the flavours of the fish.

There's also a delicacy to edomae style sushi. For example, nigiri sushi pieces are often tailored to be smaller mouthfuls for female eaters, with Noda laughing that he doesn't want to see ladies open their mouths too wide.

Narito Ishii of Wellstone Seafoods

Joining Noda for the masterclass was his seafood supplier, Wellstone Seafoods, represented by general manager - and long-time friend of Noda - Narito Ishii.

Ishii's specialised knowledge of the Japanese approach to fish, and his unwavering demands for quality and freshness, gives Wellstone the impressive claim of supplying pretty much all the high-end Japanese restaurants in Sydney with local and imported seafood.

So trusted is Ishii that Noda's evening fish orders to him could read like the following: "Two white fish, two silver fish, and two of something interesting and unique" - the latter which are normally competitively priced.

Sashimi platter

Imperador is certainly one of the unique for me - it's a species I've not heard of before. The red-skinned fish is surprisingly sweet and delicate done sashimi style, and one of my favourites of the elaborate sashimi platter that Noda presents to us.

The contemporary style of Ocean Room means that sashimi is served with extras on top of soy sauce and wasabi. Indeed, almost every fish featured its own flavour addition - chives with the trevally or minced ginger on the whiting - elevating the experience to much more than a plate of raw fish.

Lightly seared scallops are always a winner, while I've been liking rich mackerel since my Japan trip. There was also john dory formed into a stunning rose, swordfish lightly seared, ocean trout (many Japanese chefs' preference over salmon) and kingfish.

Bluefin tuna

But there's always a star of the show and this time it was a portion of bluefin tuna, caught off Nelson Bay in NSW.

There is serious contention around the threatened status of southern bluefin tuna. It is legal to catch bluefin tuna in Australia but there are conservation measures in place.

Ishii said there were plenty of the impressively large fish about this year, likely because of the reduction in allowable catch numbers in Australia since 2010.

The bulk of tuna fished from Australian waters is exported to Japan, although the rising appreciation of sashimi tuna in Australia means that more high quality tuna are being sold, and valued, in the local market.

Executive chef Raita Noda,with one of his two sashimi knives

This tuna was one of the last of the bluefin tuna of the season (back in August), according to Ishii, and we were very privileged to have it in our class under the trained care of chef Noda.

Noda uses two sashimi knives at Ocean Room: one each of Tokyo and Osaka styles which have slightly different, flexible blades.

Bluefin tuna belly

He divided the tuna into its deep red akami lean flesh from the side of the fish, and the toro belly that's lined with highly desirable streaks of fat.

Noda likened tuna to beef steak that needs time to age after killing for flavours to come out. This portion of tuna had been aged for a few days ahead of our class

O-toro tuna belly nigiri sushi

The plate of o-toro nigiri sushi was an absolute treat featuring the fattiest, most prized part of the belly. This was probably my third experience of o-toro, simply brushed with soy sauce on sushi rice seasoned to Ocean Room's own recipe.

O-toro tuna belly

Sliced and draped across the rice, the o-toro has a vague resemblance to raw wagyu beef. It was definitely rich, fatty and full of luxurious flavour, but I seemed to have scored a piece that, like some of even the best steaks, had some sinewy sections that needed serious chewing.

Chu-toro tuna nigiri sushi

Noda prepared chu-toro tuna belly next - the part of the fish essentially between the o-toro and the lean akami. While still boasting a rich creaminess from the fat, there's a bit more of a sea taste to the chu-toro and a pleasingly soft texture.

Imperador nigiri sushi

Returning to the imperador, which Noda had now blowtorched the skin of, this nigiri style was topped with finely sliced green shiso leaf, which I find to have strong anise flavours and don't always love.

With just a sprinkle of sea salt in place of soy sauce, the "interesting and unique" fish were kicking goals.

Cuttlefish nigiri sushi

Cuttlefish, the lesser known cousin to squid, made an appearance as nigiri sushi too, with each piece finely and artfully scored.

Creamy is probably the last word you'd think to use to describe raw cuttlefish, but it's exactly that, with a bit of bounce to its chew and perhaps more sweetness than raw squid.

Latchet nigiri sushi

One of the funny looking, also red-skinned, fish from the display was latchet which Ishii said was from Bermagui down the southern NSW coast.

The soft white flesh made for an appropriate backdrop to the almost Chinese accompaniments of minced ginger, chives and soy sauce.

Akami tuna nigiri sushi

Finally, a dramatic plate of akami tuna nigiri sushi hit the table. Having been marinated briefly in soy sauce, the already deep red flesh takes on a jewel-like translucency and deeper colouring, contrasting ever so much with white sesame seeds and citrus peel.

The firmer lean tuna flesh is able to stand up to the big soy sauce flavour, making for a completely different eating experience to either of the toro options.

Narito Ishii of Wellstone Seaafoods (left) and Raita Noda, executive chef
at Ocean Room (right)

With ice cold sake and expert fish and sushi advice on stand by, the Ocean Room masterclass was a process of learning and being more conscious of the sushi and sashimi we eat.

The topic of sustainability came up, not only in relation to the bluefin tuna, but overall commerical fishing methods.

Is trawler and net fishing sustainable when small fish or unwanted varieties also make the catch? What does the demand for 'standard' tuna and salmon sashimi do for sustainability of these and other species? And what about the environmental sustainability of wild-caught fish versus farmed fish, and indeed, versus farmed land animals?

It seems there's plenty to talk about when it comes to fish, sushi and sashimi, See more photos from the Ocean Room masterclass on my Facebook page.

Food, booze and shoes attended the sushi and sashimi masterclass as a guest of Ocean Room, with thanks to Wasamedia.