Pictures from Italian Comfort Foods 2

A few months ago, I announced that my Italian Comfort Foods class was coming back to Different Drummers Kitchen with a few modifications.

Italian Comfort Classics

Class was held this past Monday, and it was sold out. This time, we started the class making pasta puttanesca and thenĀ basic tomato sauce. I had the staff busy helping out, so there aren’t any pictures of these two items, but the links to the posts should give you the idea.

I spent the entire afternoon prepping for the eggplant and chicken dishes that were on the menu.

Eggplant sliced and salted
Eggplant sliced and salted
Drying eggplant and breading station
Drying eggplant and breading station
Breading and frying eggplant
Breading and frying eggplant
Fried eggplant
Fried eggplant

On the menu were eggplant and chicken milanese and alla parmigianna, and I promised two different styles of “rollatini”. Since there were almost thirty hungry people in the house, I prepared most of the chicken including the chicken in the chicken alla parmigianna as tenders, since these would be easy to distribute.

Chicken milanese tenders
Chicken milanese tenders
Chicken tenders alla parmigianna
Chicken tenders alla parmigianna (Sometimes the edges come out a little crispy because I don’t like burying mine in tomato sauce)
Eggplant alla parmigianna
Eggplant alla parmigianna

For the chicken rollatini, I flattened out some chicken cutlets to about 1/4 inch and rolled them up with some proscuitto, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. Then I secured the rolls with 3 toothpicks, breaded, and baked them. It’s a spin on chicken cordon bleu.

derryX chicken rollatini
derryX chicken rollatini

For the eggplant rollatini, I used the same preparation as I did for the first Italian Comfort Foods class. Everyone is always so astonished when I reveal that making such a tray of this stunning dish at home costs less than $20.

Eggplant Rollatini before sauce
Eggplant Rollatini before sauce
Eggplant rollatini ready for service
Eggplant rollatini ready for service

The feedback for this class was resoundingly positive, and between people who stayed back after class to chat and others who have emailed me throughout the week, everyone seemed very satisfied with the amount of food they were given, which is important because I want to make sure everyone feels that their experience was worthwhile.

I’m already working on the concept for my next class, which isn’t until June. I’m ditching the Italian food altogether for this one; I’ll be focusing on a meal that is 100% American.

I’ll make sure I post information on that one as soon as it’s available because I’m positive it will sell out quickly.

After that, at some point, they want me and Cousin Bobby back to teach the pizza class again, and I’m also working on something that’s more hands-on before the end of the year. And I might have a super-secret surprise in the works.

Many great things coming in the next few months!

Here’s a gallery of all of the above images:


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