COOKING Italian style is a family affair, writes SARAH HUDSON

Italians are famous for their cooking, but they're also infamous for not following a recipe.

Instead, their culinary secrets are passed from mother to daughter.

"I remember helping my grandmother in the kitchen and it was always a handful of that and a teaspoon of this," recalls Hilda Inglese, who operates the family-run Italian Al Dente Cooking school in the Yarra Valley.

So while Hilda was raised with cooking in her veins, it was only when she married in 1972 and was living with her mother-in-law that she realised she needed to finesse her Italian culinary skills.

"Like my grandmother, my mother-in-law was a tall woman with large hands, so there was no way of knowing what a handful constituted.

"When I was young, I wasn't serious about cooking but when I got married I realised I needed to get it right.

"So my husband (Laurie) suggested the only way to work it out was to buy all the ingredients, starting off with them unopened and when the cooking was finished, to deduct what was left from the original.

"I didn't even have kitchen scales in those days, but the minute I got those recipes, it all worked perfectly."

In this way, centuries-old recipes, from apple pie to gnocchi, were finally scribed for posterity.

And it is these recipes that are now used at the cooking school, much to the delight of students who take part in the one-day classes.

On offer are about 15 seasonal menus, each of which includes local produce in three courses, such as Nonna's Favourite - a roast vegetable and baby spinach salad, home made gnocchi and a lemon cheesecake; or the flavours of Italy - bruschetta, followed by ravioli and panna cotta.

It is a testament to these recipes that the school, which was opened by Hilda and her daughter Melissa in December 2008 in Melissa's Lilydale kitchen, cannot keep up with demand.

"I'm still in shock. I never expected it to be so successful," Hilda, 61, says.

"At our first class we had two people and I thought, gosh, we won't get more than that. Then the next one we had eight and it just hasn't stopped since."

By December 2009, just two months after the birth of Melissa's first child, the mother and daughter were forced to expand to keep up demand, opening a kitchen in a former cellar door of The Oaks Winery in Yering.

Melissa says from the outset, the aim was to impart an Italian's love and ritual of food.

"People were always telling mum to write a cookbook, but we decided that to really impart certain recipes you need to look at someone cooking. You learn much faster that way," Melissa says.

"Cooking for Italians is also a very social event. We cook together and share stories and have fun. And because we're wogs we always over-cater."

She says by far the most popular request is how to make gnocchi.

The secret, according to the mother and daughter, is to have a good potato ricer or mouli, use red, waxy potatoes and ensure the right balance between wet and dry.

"Too wet and the gnocchi will be hard, and if you don't add enough flour it will be too soft. They should be soft, fluffy pillows, not rocks or mush," Melissa says.

"It takes practice. That's where a cooking school comes in. You get the feel of the gnocchi so you can replicate that back home. You don't get the sense of feel from a cookbook."

Melissa attributes the popularity of the school to the MasterChef syndrome: people want to learn hands-on cooking.

"These recipes have been passed down from generation to generation and they are also very regional, so you won't find these anywhere else or in any cookbook."

• Al Dente Cooking, The Oaks Winery, Melba Hwy, Yering, www.aldentecooking.com.au or ph: (03) 9735 1798 or 0409 178 012.

SECRETS TO GOOD ITALIAN COOKING

• Don't be scared to use olive oil and salt for seasoning. Hilda says people tend to leave oil and salt out for health concerns but they are essential to flavour. (She adds that the healthy Mediterranean diet is reliant on oil).
• Keep it simple: "good clean cooking".
• Use fresh, local produce; it will make a big difference to your cooking.
• Don't be scared to try different versions to suit your tastes. Experiment.