Anyone for pasta?

Today I went to London for an italian-themed cookery class. I'd booked this at the beginning of January via an email from one of the voucher experience companies, which was offering access to a range of courses at a good price and I liked the idea of using some of my free time to develop new culinary skills and invigorate my cooking. I considered artisan bread making and Spanish tapas, but was drawn by the italian option and the dates for this one worked well.

The course was held in St Katherine Dock near to Tower Hill, and there were 9 of us participating plus the Chef leading the course. I hadn't been sure what to expect; perhaps it would be like Masterchef with each of us working at our own work-station. In fact, it was a massive kitchen with a huge table which we all sat round so we could watch the Chef at work, and each of us got pulled in to take over individual tasks from him once he'd demonstrated. So my hands-on contribution was to make the tomato sauce as instructed by the Chef after other participants had prepped the garlic and onions (the dullest part of the process, although we learned some useful techniques for chopping onions and crushing garlic quickly and efficiently).

We made 4 lots of pasta dough by hand, and my part in this was to hand roll one batch with a rolling pin, as the other 3 lots of dough were put through a pasta-making machine. It was quite hard work to do it by hand, but quite relaxing at the same time; something I wouldn't mind doing at home if I wasn't in a rush and was listening to music or a radio play.

The machine was used to cut all the dough into tagliatelle, and the ribbons were hung up on coat hangers until it was time to cook them. We then moved onto making gnocchi, again by hand. We all got to knead the mixture of mashed potato, eggs and sage into a dough and to produce the traditional shapes, all of which had to conform to a common size to ensure they all cooked properly for the same length of time. We were handed back to rework any that failed to meet the standard. The Chef prepared the sauce of olive oil, chopped walnuts, lemon juice, garlic and parmesan in a large bowl into which the gnocchi would be tossed when cooked,

The final dish was a dried mushroom risotto, and my role in this was to chop up a boardful of mixed dried mushrooms. The Chef first squeezed out the water they had been steeping in to add to the risotto with the wine and the veg stock to enrich the depth of flavour.

We ended the session with a bowl each of tagliatelle with the thick, rich tomato sauce; the sage-flavoured gnocchi with the walnut sauce and the mushroom risotto which was a perfect creamy consistency and full of deep flavours.

It was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, trying out new dishes and sharing culinary ideas and experiences with the expert and other people interested in cooking. I took away at least four new techniques to try out at home and when we are emailed the recipes I am definitely going to have a shot at homemade pasta. The only problem is that my husband hates pasta so I will have to find some willing family and friends to share. Unless I can convert him, of course!