A Cooking Class Lunch with Pietro Porcu

Produce was bought from the San Benedetto market for our cooking class lunch. We were all looking forward to helping Pietro prepare the produce for our lunch.

Pietro Porcu has 2 restaurants in Melbourne, Da Noi and the Tea Rooms of Yarck. He is part of the team leading us on this fabulous tour. Another hidden restaurant was scouted by the team and we had our cooking class in this lovely environment.

The two young girls from our group, Lucy and Maggie, were absolute gems in being Pietro's right hand girls. I could see how they thoroughly enjoyed being in the kitchen and learning from Pietro.

When all the ingredients were ready, Pietro gave us a run through of what we would be eating plus demonstrations on the making of the filling for the zucchini flowers and the making of the samphire pesto.

While the two chefs (Pietro and Franco) were cooking the food, we adjourned to the dining area. Our first dish was the Zucchini flowers stuffed with a filling of prawn and zucchini with a side of local mushrooms. The dish was delicious.

Fried zucchini flower

Then there was a plate of pan fried mushrooms, which were of a different variety to the sides we had in our first dish. The mushrooms had a lovely crunchy texture. Then there was the Shaved Fennel and Orange salad.

Mushrooms galore!

We then had red prawns beautifully cooked in a delicious stock. The shells of the prawn were so thin and translucent. The prawn meat was so sweet. In the same dish, we had Fregula (a kind of pasta) which was cooked in the same stock.

Prawns with fregula

The last main dish was Grouper served with Bottarga (shaved and sliced) with Samphire pesto.

Grouper with Bottarga and samphire pesto

Franco's wife Michaela made us Sorbetto al limone.

Sorbetto al limone

To top it all of, Pietro served us Sardinian style Creme Caramel (made by Nonna).

Sardinian creme caramel

All I can say at the end of this meal is, what a fantastic afternoon! The food was excellent and Franco and Michaela were wonderful hosts. This is an event that I will never forget. Pietro, I can't wait to visit your restaurants soon.