Take some time to smell the cheese - part one

Mmm.  I do like cheese.  And thus, where better to schlep my ass than Wanchai, for a cheese cooking class - bearing in mind that this involves going to Central on the ferry for 25 minutes waiting, 20 minutes in the noise and pollution for a bus, only to sit in traffic for a further 20 minutes; I nearly missed the cheese!  But boy.  Was it worth it.

That’s not to say I wasn’t a bit disconcerted when, upon being ‘escorted’ up two flights of steep stairs (clearly your man had taken a look at me and judged I wouldn’t be able to follow the instruction “go upstairs to the second floor”), I found twenty or so people seated round two tables, looking like they were about to be served dinner.  Where were the banks of lab-style desks, complete with individual hobs and recessed sinks?  Why had nobody told me to bring a pinny and some ingredients?  Ah.  Because it’s not a home ec class, you nincompoop.  One corner of the room was a kitchen and one person would be actually cooking: Massimo, the Italian chef.  The rest of us had paid to watch him and eat whatever he cooks.  Oh, ok then.  If I really must.  *Sigh*.

So we got down to business.  Clearly some people had been before as there was a stampede akin to that on an African plain of wildebeests when a lion enters their midst, as the area immediately in front of the kitchen counter was filled with cheese-hungry crazies, brandishing - and using as optimum-viewing-spot weapons - their recipe clipboards.  Sheesh. Being super-nonchalant and laid back as you know I am, I sauntered over, and just to add a touch of rebellion, I left my clipboard on the table.  I know.  I’ll let you know when I’m starting my revolution.

Turns out there was another reason why these women were desperate to be at the front.  (There were two men there, but their approach to the cooking corner fell more in to my ‘well-styled amble’ camp.)  And that reason would be the Italian stalion that was Massimo - or at least if they knew the phrase, I’m sure that’s what they’d have called him.

As he got the cooking underway, they bombarded him with inane or banal questions, initially about the food - "how much cheese would you use, 350 grammes or 700?" Er, the recipe you're clutching in your grubby little hand says 500 grammes, so how about you try that, hmm? - and then moving on to more personal matters - "do you have a girlfriend?"  "No."  "Ohh; do you have a boyfriend, then?" - Titters all round.  All the while they were simpering and fawning over him, poor chap.  It was hideous.

The first thing he cooked us was Fonduta di Formaggio - that's cheese fondue to you and me - and it was excellent. The girl next to me loved it so much that even when she'd run out of toasted bread cubes, she continued to use the toothpick (that had been stuck in each piece of bread) to scrape more creamy cheeseness into her mouth - we were given individual pots of fondue, by the way.  Fortunately, it was at this point that some dude appeared at my elbow to ask that ever-redundant question, "would you like some wine?"  Surprisingly, the wine was pretty damn fine (I just assumed we'd be fobbed off with something cheap as most locals don't drink - mind you, I'm not sure that most locals eat cheese, either!)  So good was it, that when we resumed our positions to watch Massimo prepare Smoked Scamorza wrapped in Speck, I took my glass with me.  For some reason, nobody else did this...

(Oh, I couldn't find any pictures online of the dish itself, so these are pictures of its component parts - scamorza cheese and speck ham.)

After 10 minutes in the oven (an odd manner of cooking given that 95% of Hong Kong kitchens are lacking such a device), the melty cheesey ham parcels were ready and was by far my favourite dish of the whole night.  

I also forgot to mention, the scamorza was passed round for smelling prior to cooking, and it smelled just like bacon tastes!  Genius!

Continued in the next blog posting...