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The aroma of caramelised red onions and tomato paste boiling over the stove mercilessly teased the palate as one felt one’s mouth watering during a culinary workshop by visiting Italian chef Marco Saracino at the Beach Luxury Hotel here.
Saracino created simple recipes during the workshop, which included the Italian staple recipes of gnocchi and fresh pasta followed by Italian truffles, tort ail tronco al cioccolato and chocolate cake. The pasta or spaghetti he made right there fresh before your eyes instead of opening a packet. He had kneaded the flour, which he spread out with a rolling pin before folding it into a rectangle and cutting into thin strips.
“I am using halal turkey meat instead of smoked bacon in the dish,” he announced while cooking tagliatelle just so everyone knew.
Saracino currently runs Vicolo, an Italian restaurant in Dubai. Being a part of Nakheel Hospitality and Leisure Group since 2018, Marco has successfully led the kitchens of five restaurants across Dubai including Il Faro, Trattoria, Asian Kitchen, Piazza Pizza and La Cucina. With traditional cooking styles and simple authentic ingredients, he showcases the best of Italy.
The culinary workshop was a live demonstration of how to make handmade pasta and Italian artisanal desserts organised as part of the celebrations of the Italian Cuisine Week in Karachi to promote Italian gastronomic traditions as well as train professionals from the catering industry here in the basic methods and techniques of creating delectable recipes and decadent desserts using Italian ingredients.
The gnocchi alla sorrentina was a wholesome dish cooked with mashed potatoes mixed with eggs and cut into small pieces that were again, like the spaghetti, added to a thick tomato sauce. The desserts made using normal chocolate as well as white chocolate simply melted in the mouth.
The culinary workshop was followed by a tasting session for the audience for them to experience Italian gastronomy at its best.
First visit to Pakistan
Speaking to me, the chef said that it was his first time in Pakistan and he was looking forward to tasting some local food here as well.
“I have tasted some dishes such as biryani in Dubai but I am going to try paya and nihari here very soon,” he said.
When warned about our spicy food, he laughed and said that Italian food can also be pretty spicy so he can take it.
Asked if he had any trouble getting the ingredients of his choice here, he said he got all the vegetable and meat he needed for the cooking except for his preference for cheese. “The meat was no problem. The vegetables were no problem. The tomatoes for making the sauces were easy to find and we also used canned tomatoes and paste but I couldn’t find the exact cheeses I wanted,” he said.
The Italian Cuisine Week coincides with the bicentenary of the birth of Pellegrino Artusi, father of Italian home cooking, in order to propose a focus on the essential relationship that binds the Italian gastronomic heritage to its territories of origin.