Buon Appetito for learning, Italian style at the Huon Valley’s Farmhouse Kitchen

ELAINE REEVES explores traditional cooking from the heel of the boot of Italy

Supplied photos for Elaine Reeves' Taste column in the Mercury about cook Giuliana White. Picture: GENEVIEVE WHITE

WHERE to start? Five hours to cook 13 dishes when very little is prepared ahead and there is a coffee stop midway through. The prospect would leave me decidedly flapped, even without seven people watching my every move — seven people not there to help but to be entertained and instructed.

Giuliana White has a couple of aids to calmness however. One, she has been making this food since she was a little girl learning from her mother, and second, she has her daughter, Genevieve, to fetch the next thing she needs, whisk away what is finished with and remind her to check the oven.

Giuliana White. Picture: GENEVIEVE WHITE

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“Everything we are going to do today is super simple,” she tells the class assembled at The Farmhouse Kitchen, just outside Cygnet. Simple yes, but so much to get through. At least at home with the clutch of recipes we can be less ambitious.

We start with what will take the longest — the bread. The dough needs a couple of hours to rise and then will take 45 minutes to bake. The quantities are generous, enough to make four or five ciabatta loaves. Not to worry if you are not feeding a hoard, freeze some says Giuliana.

When you want to use them, that them then pass the top and bottom quickly under running water and then put them directly on the rack of the oven to heat for 20 minutes. Some of the loaves will have black olives added to them, but an unseen ingredient is a floury potato that has been “boiled to billy-o”. Added to about 2kg of flour it ensures moist bread.

With one exception, everything we learn today comes from Puglia, the heel of the Italian boot. Giuliana has never lived there, but it is where her parents emigrated from in 1959. “If want really traditional food from any culture go to the migrants,” says Giuliana. While those still at home compromise and adapt, “everybody who leaves a country holds on to the culture fervently”.

The only diversion from Puglia, is hummus. The chickpeas are boiled with carrot, onion, garlic, celery, parsley and a peeled tomato. It is very important that the water that barely covers the chickpeas, or it just does not work.

The chickpeas have been soaked overnight, greens have been washed, a ricotta was made earlier, as was the break cake topped with strawberries rhubarb and apples, otherwise everything is done as we watch. Next, red capsicum and beetroot go into the oven and eggplant under the grill — each destined for their own salad. She says baking in the oven is better than blistering the capsicum over a flame; this way the flesh is cooked.

When they are ready, she takes the capsicums out of the oven one at a time, because they are much easier to peel when they are hot. Contrary to what many would think of as a cuisine of robust tastes, Giuliana says: “Italian food all about subtle flavours.”

Some of the appetising fare prepared during Giuliana White’s recent class at The Farmhouse Kitchen. Picture: GENEVIEVE WHITE

There is garlic in everything, but not so much that it overpowers the hero ingredient. Similarly, there is a fair bit of chilli powder, but just enough to get a little heat at the end of a mouthful — in Calabria, they would go for much more. Contrary to the cliches, rosemary is not added to everything — certainly not the top of focaccia, and oregano can be used on pizza, in salad or with meat, but not added to pasta or its sauce.

The biggest bowl of greens is ready for the pot. It includes chicory which was first intended for the dairy cows. Giuliana grows perpetual spinach, sliver beet, kale and uses the leaves of beetroot and broccoli.

This somewhat bitter crop of greens is boiled in salted water until the stems are quite tender, then drained. Then they and a pinch of chilli powder are added to some oil where a clove of finely chopped garlic has been lightly fried. It’s as simple as, and for my money, one of the best things on the menu.

And competition is stiff on that menu, which includes an avocado and a cucumber dip, six different salads, the hummus, a frittata, stuffed mushrooms with a zucchini and spring onion sauce, the bread and some bought cured meats for good measure. Buon Appetito indeed.

See thefarmhousekitchen-tas.com for program and gift vouchers.