As a matter of fact, the Valrhona meeting, entitled Il Gelato sotto i riflettori or “Gelato Highlight,” was held at the Academia Barilla headquarters in Parma, Italy. Here, Valrhona shared with their clients their new selection of summer recipes: from gelato cakes to desserts served in a glass. Obviously, all of the recipes were based on chocolate!

Alain Chartier, Master Pastry Chef honored with the titles of best pâtissier in France and World Gelato Champion, demonstrated how to prepare the Valrhona treats in front of a full house.

But start at the beginning. The day began at 1 pm, when guests were welcomed into the Academia Barilla Training Room where, for the special occasion, Master Pastry Chef Gianluca Fusto arranged an appetizing buffet of macaroons, small soft coconut tarts filled with chocolate and fabulous little chocolates.

Selections of macaroons, coconut tarts and chocolates

Academia Barilla training room

After this sweet prelude, the meeting moved to the fantastic Academia Barilla Auditorium, where Alain took over the show, in front of numerous guests and Academia Barilla’s video cameras.
The demonstration lasted 3 hours, during which Alain made various chocolate preparations – all of which were truly fantastic.

A moment during the demonstration

For his first recipe, Alain presented a dessert called Mojito. Based on an original recipe, the treat is combination of lime sorbet and vanilla with a light white rum mousse with a chocolate gelato. The recipe took 40 minutes to prepare, but we can assure you that it was worth it! Alain demonstrated, with expertise and professionalism, all of the steps necessary for making a perfect Mojito. And here is the final result.

A hard shell of shiny chocolate containing lime and vanilla sorbet that surrounds a white rum mousse with a heart of soft and creamy chocolate. Beautiful presentation and sublime flavor!

Another recipe that Alain presented was Sante, a glass of sorbet composed of an orange-carrot mousse, carefully placed on a soft layer of Coeur di Guanaja, a delicious chocolate produced by Valrhona.

The dessert was presented in a glass glazed with Coeur di Guanaja with a small transparent strip so that you could see the contents. The finishing touches were very fine strips of dried carrot. Excellent work Alain!

To prepare the desserts for all of the guests, Alain was joined by Chef Marco Canevari and Chef Fabrizio Pantani, who also assisted him during the demonstration.

From the left: Master Pastry Chef Gianluca Fusto, Chef Marco Canevari, Chef Fabrizio Pantani and Master Pastry Chef Alain Chartier.

The meeting ended with a tasting session of all of Alain’s fantastic preparations and a toast to a job well done! Congratulations to everyone! Academia Barilla is very happy to have had you as our guests!

At this year’s Academia Barilla Film Awards, in place of red carpets and designer gowns, there were potato and onion frittata. The films nominated for an Academia Barilla film award included stories of chefs hard at work, a family of wine-barrel makers and even an impromptu cooking lesson.

On March 4th, a group of talented filmmakers gathered in the Academia Barilla auditorium to learn the results of this year’s competition for the best short film relating to food culture, and more specifically, to the role of the chef. For the fifth year in a row, a expert jury of culture, cinema and food professionals screened and judged all the nominated films in order to select the winner of the coveted Academia Barilla Storie di Cucina, or “Stories from the Kitchen,” Award.

The competition was fierce, but ultimately first prize was awarded to Vicenzo Cascone for his film La Variante Sultano about a Sicilian chef, Ciccio Sultano. Congratulations Vicenzo!
Vicenzo’s film and interview with Chef Sultano really captured the spirit of what it is like to work in a restaurant kitchen. If you have ever spent time stirring sauce as a line cook, or prepping vegetables late into the night, you know that the work of the chef is both tiring, yet rewarding. Nothing can compare to the satisfaction of a happy customer. But if one thing is for certain, it is the kitchen hierarchy.
As Chef Sultano explains, “cooking is one of the few professions left in the world where a real military hierarchy still exists. A young chef or cook’s assistant must take orders from who ever is on top, otherwise the system will break down.”

The film also captures the importance of the artisinal food producers. Without the natural salt miner, the cheese maker or the olive grower, Chef Sultano would not be able to do his job. The local products that he chooses to use in the kitchen are made with the same integrity he works with himself – and hopes to pass on to the rest of his kitchen staff.

And then, of course, there are the bread and pasta makers. The farmers, the millers and the bakers who transform flour, yeast, salt and water into something much more than its component parts.

Another interesting point made by Chef Sultano is that food should not be judged by a single forkful. In order to evaluate a dish, one must sit down at a table and eat it from beginning to end. Only in this way are you able to understand whether or not it is a success. “The food should not be difficult to eat. This plate itself should not be uncomfortable to eat from,” says Sultano. Attention should also be paid to the presentation and the colors on the plate.

Thanks Vicenzo and thanks Chef Sultano for giving insight into the life and job of a chef!

If you are interested in watching Vicenzo’s winning film, it is currently available on the Academia Barilla website, along with this year’s other winners and nominees. Buona visione!

While the Academia Barilla website is now completed, as well as all the new website features we invite you to explore, we are now working on the restyle/redesign of the Academia Barilla online store, that will be released in its new version soon.

We love our blog and we couldn’t stay away from it, so here we are again, back to blogging.

Since you can now discover gourmet recipes from the Italian regional gastronomic tradition at the new Academia Barilla website, we asked Barilla Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni to provide us with a recipe from our beloved region, Emilia-Romagna, and he provided us with a recipe for a classic dish: Veal Cotoletta alla Bolognese, that Chef Boni pairs with a side of Asparagus Tips and Cherry Tomatoes sautéed in Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!

VEAL COTOLETTA ALLA BOLOGNESE
A recipe by Chef Lorenzo Boni
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

- 4 Veal chops, 12 oz each
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups, freshly grated bread crumbs
- 4 slices, Academia Barilla Prosciutto di Parma
- 1 very thin cup, Academia Barilla Parmigiano Reggiano, shaved
- 1/2 cup, Veal demi-glace or concentrated stock
- 1 cup cream
- fresh white Truffles, to taste (jarred white truffles optional)
- few drops truffle oil, optional
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 2 tablespoon Academia Barilla Unfiltered extra virvin olive oil
- Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salt with Lemon Zest, to taste
- Academia Barilla Cherry Tomatoes, to taste
- black pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Pound the meat so that it is 1/3 inch in thickness, season with sea salt and pepper and dust with flour.

Dip each slice in beaten eggs and then cover in bread crumbs. Fry both sides of the chop in butter, discarding the excess.

Cover each chop with truffles, a slice of Academia Barilla Prosciutto di Parma, and Academia Barilla Parmigiano Reggiano.

Deglaze with a little cream and veal jus and place it in the oven to melt for a few minutes.

CHEF TIPS

Serve with vegetables on the side, we suggest asparagus tips and cherry tomatoes sautéed in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Sauté the asparagus and cherry tomatoes in the Unfiltered Extra Virgin Olive Oil over medium heat. Season with the Lemon Sea Salt and black pepper to taste.

Thank you Lorenzo for sharing your first recipe and chef tips of the year with us!

We will be back to blogging properly soon - in the meanwhile, we invite you to explore our new website and to keep an eye (or a click) on the soon-to-be-relaunched Academia Barilla online store!

As we get into 2009 and we move from a Christmas blog design to a Winter make-up, we want to share with you a delicious Season treat from Academia Barilla. We recently blogged about panettone, inviting you to bake your own one by presenting it as recipe of the month for the month of December. Today we introduce to you Academia Barilla’s lavish and exclusive version of the traditional Italian Christmas cake.

Academia Barilla and Master Pastry Chef Corrado Vicina are happy to introduce the Four Season Panettone (Panettone Quattro Stagioni), an exceptional combination of intense flavors that will make you discover, slice after slice, all the taste of four different ingredients in one panettone cake: chocolate for a Winter taste, cherries bring all the flavor of Spring, apricots stand for Summer and chestnuts to bring us back the autumn gourmet mood.

The presentation of the Four Season Panettone preparation included here above illustrates the process that requires Master Pastry Chef Corrado Vicina three full days of intensive artisanal preparation at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center in Parma, Italy. 

Chef Corrado Vicina, with the help of the Academia Barilla Chef Team, start processing the purest yeast with first choice quality ingredients, individually selected one by one.

The Academia Barilla Culinary Center has a Pastry Lab with professional, state-of-the-art bakery tools that allow creating the perfect dough for a mass yet limited production. Just few hundreds Four Season Panettones are baked each year, and they are available exclusively through the Academia Barilla Culinary Center in Parma, Italy.

Chef Corrado Vicina has a secret recipe for the Four Season Panettone, sorry we cannot share it - but we can tell you how the Four Season Panettone is made. 

As you can see from the slideshow, after processing the dough in the four flavor variations, the fours seasons merge together into a smooth hug after two days of leavening.

Before putting the cakes in the oven Chef Vicina puts his final Chef touch, a sprinkle of pure white almonds and a cloud of grains of white sugar. The panettone cakes are baked in transparent ovens, so the baking can be constantly overviewed.

After one hour of intense oven heat, the panettones get hung upside-down drying for an entire night, a 12-hours process that allows eliminating excess humidity and that will make the Four Season Panettone softer and fresher.

Academia Barilla’s Four Season Panettone gets a very simple yet elegant packaging: a protective inner plastic bag seals flavor and softness, while an hand-wrapped red wrap makes it perfect for a gourmet Season gift!

Happy New Year again from Academia Barilla and Italian Food Lovers!

Today we introduce four new Italy-in-a-Box Italian gourmet gift boxes: Food Lovers’ Classic, Cheese Lover’s Knife Set, The Ultimate Bruschetta Party and Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla.

All these luxury gift sets are included in the latest Academia Barilla collection of luxury Italian gastronomy gift boxes, a limited edition gift set series, and contain authentic Italian food specialties from the Academia Barilla gourmet food collection.

FOOD LOVERS’ CLASSIC

Food Lovers’ Classic is a refined gift set includes an exclusive assortment of classic products from different regions of Italy and serves as a wonderful, compact alternative to any conventional gift basket. An exclusive gift set to savor authentic Italian delicacies in countless ways.

Food Lover’s Classic Gift Box contains: • 1 Bottle of Extra virgin olive oil 100% Italiano
 • 1 Jar of Sicilian cherry tomato topping
 • 1 Jar of Spicy Sicilian cherry tomato topping 
• 1 Jar of Sapori Italiani, mix of capers, olives and oregano 
• 1 Jar of Sicilian sea salt with fresh orange zest 
• 1 Jar of Sicilian sea salt with fresh olives 
• 1 Jar of Pesto alla Genovese 
• 1 Bottle of “Aged” Balsamic vinegar of Modena 
• 1 Mini-Recipe

Academia Barilla Food Lover’s Classic gift set will be available at the Academia Barilla online store soon.

CHEESE LOVER’S KNIFE SET

The Cheese Lover’s Knife Set is a refined set composed of 3 knives designed specifically for cheeses, with different consistencies. Japanese steel, hand
forged blade with mirrored finishing, hand-sharpened. A perfect gift idea for cheese lovers!

The Cheese Lover’s Set contains: • Knife for grana cheeses • Knife for hard cheeses • Knife for soft cheeses

Academia Barilla Cheese Lover’s Knife gift set is now available at the Academia Barilla online store.

ITALIAN PARTY IN A BOX

The Ultimate Bruschetta Party Gift Box is a fresh and trendy gift idea! This fantastic set helps create delicious bruschetta, pasta, pizza party, and Italian aperitivo. This extraordinary assortment of products helps create appetizing plates that will surely add to the success of any party.

The Ultimate Bruschetta Party Gift Box contains: • 1 Bottle of extra virgin olive oil 100% Italiano 
• 1 Jar of Sicilian cherry tomato topping 
• 1 Jar of Spicy Sicilian cherry tomato topping 
• 1 Jar of Sapori Italiani, mix of capers, olives and oregano 
• 1 Jar of Sicilian sea salt with fresh olives
 • 1 Mini-Recipe

Academia Barilla Ultimate Bruschetta Party gift set is now available at the Academia Barilla online store.

DINNER WITH GIADA

An accurate selection of the best Italian products signed by Celebrity Chef Giada de Laurentiis and included in the Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla gourmet product line. The Essentials of everyday Italian cuisine.

Dinner with Giada Gift Box contains: • 1 Bottle of Extra virgin olive oil 100% Italiano
 • 1 Bottle of Balsamic vinegar of Modena
 • 1 Jar of Sicilian sea salt with fresh lemon zest 
• 1 Jar of Giada’s Tuscan herbs 
• 2 Glass cup 
• 1 Mini-Recipe

Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla gift set will be available at the Academia Barilla online store soon.

More Italy-in-a-Box soon! If you are too curious and can’t wait for the next post, we suggest you go have a look at the Academia Barilla online shop!