Lombardy cooking traditionally uses generous amounts of butter, cream and lard, but recently has been converting recipes to olive oil.
While in Luino we were invited into the kitchen at a local restaurant, where Nonna was still the boss. We learnt how to make polenta with loads of cream and cheese, a red wine sauce.,caramelised carrots with mashed potato to serve with donkey that had been marinated for over 24 hours and then slow cooked for for about 6 hours.
The days of thinking that all Italian food is tomato sauce based certainly went out the window that day. This pasta dish will certainly be on our Italian menu, it was so simple using just a few simple fresh ingredients and then loaded up with cream.
We had a lot of fun that morning, even though it was a tight squeeze in the kitchen. Nothing like a hands on cooking class to experience the authentic style of cooking. Thank you AlCantinone.