Discover pasta bliss at Lake Garda – On a cooking class in Italy with Stefano Rossi

The cooking class at Lido Palace was part of a press trip with Visit Trentino, but, as always, everything written here reflects only my personal thoughts and opinions.

I Riva del Garda on the northern shore of Lake Garda, lies the beautiful and award-winning hotel Lido Palace who was recently awarded his first Michelin key. Many of the grand rooms have panoramic windows overlooking the lake, but I'm not here for the view or the nice rooms. I'm here to meet the hotel's own master chef, Stefano RossiHe's going to teach me how to cook stuffed pasta from scratch, and I already know before we start that it will be both inspiring and fantastically delicious.

Ingredients for our tortelloni (or ravioli?)

Stefano feels almost as much like an Italian food philosopher as a master chef. He passionately explains that good pasta doesn't require many ingredients, but rather ingredients of good quality. And ideally they should be local, like most of the food served at his restaurant. Here we are talking about lemons that Stefano has put in salt in the refrigerator for several weeks, cheeses that have been stored for several years, and ricotta that is so fresh that it is almost still lukewarm.

Today's dish that we are going to make is ravioli filled with ricotta, salted lemon and cheese, served with pumpkin sauce and grated truffle. A dish that sounds so luxurious that you almost have to put on your best party shoes. Or… are we going to make ravioli? Tortellini? Tortelloni? Stefano calls the pasta ravioli, but we learn that it's all about shape and size. Same same pasta, but wonderfully different. I would say we're learning to make tortelloni.

The secret ingredient in the recipe is the salted lemon, but since it's not something you can throw together in half an hour, I would simply recommend lemon zest instead.

Step 1 – Mix the pasta dough

Apron on and sleeves rolled up. Stefano pours the flour onto the marble table in front of us and creates a well in the middle of the flour – like a volcano. Into the crater of the volcano he pours the egg yolks. You can use whole eggs instead of egg yolks, but the dough will be more supple, luxurious and smoother with just egg yolks.

He whisks the eggs together before carefully folding the flour into the egg mixture with a fork. Make sure to stir the flour in well so it doesn't become lumpy. When the dough starts to take shape, it's time to start kneading.

Step 2 – Knead the pasta dough

Of all the steps in baking pasta, this is by far the hardest. This is the step that separates the amateur from the ambitious. It is thanks to this step that all Italian nonnas have upper arm muscles like bodybuilders. Now the dough should be kneaded until it is shiny, smooth and elastic. The egg yolks contain fat that makes the dough softer and easier to roll out very thin, but this is hard work. Don't give up - it takes 10 minutes of efficient kneading before the dough is perfect.

Two tips that Stefano teaches that really help are 1) not leaning your body against the work table but standing 10 centimeters away and 2) working with force from your wrists – not with your fingers.

Step 3 – Let the dough rest and fix the filling

Now let the dough rest, preferably for 30 minutes at room temperature and preferably wrapped in plastic. In the meantime, mix together the ricotta, Pecorino, Parmigiano, sage and lemon in a bowl. The aroma of the mixture is like opening a window onto a sun-warmed garden in Italy.

Step 4 – Roll out the dough and cut out rounds

Time to roll out the dough. To make it easy for us, we get help from Danilo to run the dough in the restaurant's pasta machine. With a pasta machine you get an even result, quickly and easily. Of course, you can roll out the dough with a rolling pin, but be restrictive with the flour and only use a little flour on the baking table so that the dough doesn't stick.

Once the dough has been kneaded, we take out round “cake molds” with a diameter of 7-8 centimeters and press out circles from the rolled dough. If you don’t have a round cake mold, you can just as easily take a glass and cut along the edge. It’s a bit more complicated, but it usually works quite well.

Step 5 – Fill and shape the pasta

Now the filling is to be added to the pasta. Stefano lets us use syringes to distribute the ricotta mixture as smoothly as possible. If you don't have a syringe, it's still fine. The most important thing is not to use too much filling - the pasta will look better and taste better if you use a little less filling than you think you need - max 1 teaspoon per knot.

We carefully spray water on the rounds (it must not get too wet!) and fold them in half and press all the edges firmly so that they stick together. This is one of the most important steps. A little water, a little pressure and a little prayer to the pasta god that the knots will not fall apart during cooking.

Now you have two options. Either you leave the pasta as the crescent it is (mezzanine ravioli), or you fold the edges together and fasten the ends together (tortelloni). Stefano shows us a few different ways to fold and shape the pasta. Different shapes often come from different parts of Italy and different shapes often have different types of filling. It turns out that making tortelloni is not that difficult and when I have made my first tortelloni I get into a flow of folding and pressing, as if I have never done anything else. We place the finished pasta knots on a lightly floured baking towel, so that they do not stick to each other or to the table.

Step 6 – Cook the pasta and butter

A large saucepan of lightly salted water is brought to the boil. In the meantime, we heat up and prepare another large saucepan with a large knob of butter and sage leaves. Here in the bubbling butter we will add the pasta when it has finished cooking.

When the water is at its best, we drop in our tortelloni. The pasta bounces around in the boiling water in the pan for 3-4 minutes before finally floating to the surface of the pan like little golden ducks. We catch the pasta knots with a slotted spoon and place them in a warm pan with the hot butter. The pasta water is allowed to follow – that's the trick. The result is creamy, fragrant and completely irresistible.

Step 7 – Serve the pasta

The step we have all been waiting for is now near. It is time to taste the homemade, handmade pasta. On a bed of smooth pumpkin sauce, Danilo carefully places our pasta and tops them with fresh herbs and finely grated truffle. The reward is great and the taste is fantastic. It is without a doubt the most delicious stuffed pasta I have ever eaten. The acidity from the lemon, the saltiness from the cheese and the creaminess from the ricotta is epic.

Is a sauce needed or not? Personally, I would prefer to serve the pasta as is, with just the melted sage butter, but if you want, you can of course serve it with a tomato sauce or a pumpkin sauce on the bottom. However, I think it takes away a bit of the flavor sensation from the pasta itself.

Do you also want to learn how to make pasta like a real Italian Michelin chef?

Every Monday and Wednesday, Stefano Rossi and his team hold Pasta cooking classes at Lido Palace in Riva del Garda. This is an experience that I can highly recommend and that you will benefit from for the rest of your life. You may have a pasta machine sitting in a kitchen cupboard, but it is after this course that you will really know how to make pasta!

Would you like to read more about Riva del Garda and Lake Garda? Check out my page about Lake Garda!

Have you also been on a cooking class in Italy? What did you learn to cook?