CIBO’s head chef, Andrea Sposini, is wooing diners with hand-made pasta that’s freshly prepared everyday. He bakes the pizzas over a heated stone in a clay oven. “Clay oven pizzas are more flavourful,” says Andrea, 44, a product of Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu, Rome’s oldest cooking school. Sposini also runs Alta Società, a food consultancy firm in Perugia, central Italy, that’s popular in the hospitality industry. He also teaches classic Italian cooking in Perugia. He plans to divide his time equally between India and Italy.

Sposini shares three of CIBO’s signature dishes with us.

Lasagne with vegetable ragu

Lasagna with vegetable ragu

(Serves four)

Ingredients
16 lasagne sheets 100gm zucchini, chopped 100gm green beans, chopped 100gm broccoli, chopped 100gm mushroom, chopped 250ml béchamel sauce 150gm mozzarella cheese 2 flakes garlic

Method
Sauté all the vegetables with the garlic. Keep aside. Now place the mixture in between lasagna sheets and sprinkle béchamel sauce. Top it with grated mozzarella cheese and bake it in an oven for 20 minutes. When done, cut into portions and serve.

Tortelli di ricotta burro e salvia

(Serves 4)

Ingredients
30gm spinach, blanched and chopped 10gm Ricotta cheese 10gm butter Salt to taste Pepper to taste 1 egg yolk A pinch of nutmeg 1 fresh sage, chopped 4 fresh, thin pasta sheets (Tortelli pasta)

Method
Roll out each sheet of pasta and put in a small portion of the prepared mix of ricotta, nutmeg, egg yolk and spinach. Close the sheet with the filling inside. Blanch the Tortelli pasta for three minutes and leave aside. Prepare the sauce in a pan by mixing butter and fresh sage. Garnish with salt, sauce, pepper and grated Parmigiano reggiano cheese.

Parmigiana di melanzane

(Serves one)

Ingredients
150gm eggplant 1gm basil 5gm Parmigiano cheese 5gm mozzarella cheese 40ml tomato sauce 1 sprig parsley 1 sprig basil
For the batter 1 cup refined flour 1tsp white wine 1 egg Salt to taste A pinch of white pepper powder

Method
Cut the eggplant into thick slices and set aside. Make a batter of refined flour, white wine, the egg, salt and white pepper powder. Now, dip the sliced eggplant in the batter and fry till crispy and keep aside. Prepare tomato basil sauce by mixing the sauce with crushed basil. Now, layer the fried eggplant with a slice of mozzarella cheese and tomato basil sauce in-between and top up with another slice of mozzarella. Now, bake the mixture in the oven at 220°C for 10 minutes. Serve the Parmigiana garnished with a sprig of parsley.