By Lisa Zanardo

Visions of hardened pasta and gluggy risottos are what every aspiring Italian chef's nightmares are made of. But serving up an authentic Italian dish is not as difficult as you think, nor does it involve reaching for a jar of Dolmio ready-made sauce from the supermarket shelf.

Italy is renowned for its fresh and simple ingredients in cooking and Italian restaurant Carluccio's has embarked on a campaign to promote the country's cuisine through a series of regional taste-tours.

The first region to feature is Veneto, in northern Italy, which is regarded as one of the formative regions of Italian cooking.

Surrounded by the Adriatic, Veneto's culinary traditions are steeped in marrying the fruits of the sea with grains harvested in the lush pastures of the Po Valley. Seafood is a staple on the menus around Venice, along with white polenta, which is only produced in the Veneto region. Milled from white maize, the flour has a more delicate flavour than the more common yellow maize and goes better with seafood.

Wine is also a major product of Veneto and accounts for more than 20 per cent of Italy's total wine production. So it comes as no surprise that it is often a key ingredient in sauces and dishes as well as being enjoyed alongside a meal.

Some of the more typical dishes of the region include moscardini (tiny octopus) with polenta, sardele in saor (sweet and sour sardines), tagliatelle with scallops, pasta e fagioli (a thick bean soup) and risi con bisi, which is risotto made with peas.

To inspire people to cook these 'authentic' Italian dishes at home, Carluccios has devised a series of informal cookery classes, taking a key dish from a specific region and demonstrating how to cook it in five easy steps.

At the forefront of the classes are Carluccio's Italian food specialist Valentina D'Aprile and executive chef Jennifer McLaughlin.

Jennifer has been with Carluccio's for more than eight years and trained under the auspicious eye of the restaurant's co-founder and word-renowned chef Antonio Carluccio.

"It has been an amazing opportunity to work with Antonio," Jennifer says. "He has tastebuds like no one I have ever known and his love for food is infectious. He loves just sitting and talking about food and ingredients. His passion never dies," she says.

But you don't have to be Italian or a chef to be able to cook good, tasty, authentic Italian cuisine, according to Jennifer, who originally hails from New Zealand.

"Everyone can cook, some people are just better at it than others, but it is definitely not something people should be scared of," she says. "A lot of key Italian dishes are so simple, but when you put the food in your mouth it's always tasty, because Italians rely on the natural flavours of key ingredients to give their cooking taste."

"I think convenience food has had its time. There is a slow reversion back to using organic ingredients and people in general are thinking more about what they eat."

In the first cookery class of a series, we feature risotto al radicchio, one of the Veneto region's key and most popular dishes. The Venetians make their risotto more liquid in consistency than in other parts of the country, with the dish being cooked until its 'all' onda', like a wave.

Valentina gets the ball rolling by sharing her expert knowledge of the region's produce and explaining the subtleties of key ingredients; in this case rice. Jennifer then takes you step-by-step through how to make the perfect risotto al radicchio.

Jen's top cooking tip: The secret to a good risotto is a good stock. It is essential the stock is kept hot before and whilst you are adding it to your dish, and don't forget to stir, stir, stir.

For more tips like knowing when the rice is ready, how to make it extra creamy, why you don't need salt and how to keep the risotto from sticking to the pan, watch our step-by-step visual demonstration.

For more information on the authentic taste of Italy or to book an upcoming cookery class go to www.carluccios.com

The next featured region: Emilia Romagna

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