Saturday, September 21, 2013

Pasta Making Class in Parma, Italy - Il Filare - Part 3 (the dinner and surroundings)

What is an Agriturismo, you may ask. From About.com, it is a combination of Agriculture and Tourism. "An Italian agriturismo will usually serve foods to guests prepared from raw materials produced on the farm or at least locally. Some will allow the guest to actually participate in the activities surrounding the farm" 

Il Filare is an organic farm and bed&breakfast and cooking classes all in 1. They are situated in the middle of what they called a small plot of land (Which is really big by my standards), with a large rustic house surrounded by their farm crops. The owner is very hospitable and asked us to freely roam their estate, giving us tips on how to identify ripe berries and giving us free rein to pluck and eat as much as we want! It's a beautiful estate and as we finished the pasta class, the sun was just setting; we walked around the berry bushes excitably! 









For blackberries to be sweet and ripe, they should be entirely black and breaks easily from the stem with a light pull. If there is resistance, it means the berries are not ripe yet and will be sour.



They are super yummy sweet! It's an organic farm, so we could just pop them into our greedy mouths without washing!




After roaming around the berries, tomatoes, zucchinis etc, we were famished as it's almost 9pm by then. The italians sure have their dinners late! 

Finally, it's time for dinner, with zucchinis and tomatoes freshly plucked from their farms and rest of the ingredients used are all from neighboring farms. 

Parma Ham and Melon - superb combination! Fresh and sweety tomatoes paired with a dollop of ricotta cheese. 

Their home-baked bread from their own flours with another huge plate of marbled ham from a neighbor producer. Very good, chewy, crusty bread and fantastic flavors from the meats!

Woohoo, our ravioli, cooked quickly in salted water then sauteed with butter, salt and fresh basil. Bouncy with a bite!


The Gnocchi and Tagliatelle in the Ragu Bolognese. Wow. The ragu was rich in flavors, the pasta chewy and with just the right thickness. We were stuffed to the max but yet managed to finished all our food!

We could not stomach any more food and had to reject the dessert of frozen raspberries sorbet, another item straight from their farm. It was 55 euros very well - spent!

Leaving the land of good food!  



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