Cooking with Christina!

In my food class we have the pleasure of working with Christina, chef of Glass in Trastevere.  We have three classes with her- one for rice and pasta, one for fish and meat, and one for dessert.  This past week I had the second class, in which we learned how to cook fish and meat.  Going into the lesson I was not concerned at all since I often cook things like salmon and chicken at home.  However, cooking meat and especially fish in Italy is very different than in America!  The dishes she chose were an anchovy sandwich and veal marsala.  I've never worked with veal before, but it was very similar to working with meats like chicken.  My real problem was dealing with the anchovies.  Before we started cooking, we purchased our meat and fish from fresh markets around Campo Dei Fiori.  Little did I know, we would not simply be cooking fillets of fish, but actually taking the heads off and cleaning anchovies in order to make our sandwiches! It was quite a struggle for all of us at first to clean the anchovies!  Christina literally grabbed the fish with her bare hands, ripped the head off, then stuck her finger in the fish and slit it all the way down, taking the intestines and guts out of the fish.  First of all, we all demanded that we get plastic gloves.  Secondly, none of us ripped the heads off ourselves- we all used knives.  Even with these things, the process was very difficult and disgusting to all of us!  Christina was laughing at all of us and said that any Italian would have no problem doing this, as this is how they prepare most fish.  Once we got the hang of cleaning the anchovies after the first few it wasn't so bad!  We fried the anchovies and then put them on fresh bread with large chunks of mozzarella cheese and sundried tomatoes.  We all went into the cooking class with the expectation of hating the salty anchovies, but after trying the sandwich I was very surprised that I really liked it and ate the whole thing!  The veal marsala was also very good.  I'm not usually a big veal eater, but the meat was very tender and the marsala sauce gave it a great flavor.  I will definitely be trying these dishes out at home!

Anchovies

Veal Marsala