Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese
Buckwheat ribbons boiled with cabbage and potato, layered with cheese and burnt butter.
Not vegetarian — contains fontina whose rennet the source does not name, parmesan whose rennet the source does not name.
Ingredients
- 300 g buckwheat flour
- 100 g plain flour
- 200 ml warm water
- 400 g savoy cabbage, in wide strips
- 300 g potatoes, in 1 cm slices
- 300 g Valtellina casera or fontina, in thin slices
- 80 g parmesan, grated
- 150 g butter
- 4 garlic cloves
- a few sage leaves
- 2 teaspoons salt
Method
- Make a dough of both flours and the water. Buckwheat has no gluten, which is why there is wheat flour in it at all — without that quarter it will not hold together.
- Roll it 3 mm thick and cut ribbons 1 cm wide and 7 cm long. Short and wide, not spaghetti.
- BOIL THE POTATOES, CABBAGE AND PASTA IN THE SAME WATER, in that order: potatoes 5 minutes, cabbage 5 more, then the pizzoccheri for 4. One pot, and the starch from all three is part of the dish.
- Lift everything out with a slotted spoon, draining well but not obsessively.
- LAYER IT IN A WARMED DISH: pasta and vegetables, slices of casera, parmesan, and repeat. Do not stir. The cheese is meant to melt in strata rather than disappear into a sauce.
- BURN THE BUTTER. Heat it with the garlic and sage until it is genuinely brown and smells nutty — further than you would take it for anything else — then pour it over the top while foaming.
- Cover for 2 minutes, then serve from the dish without mixing.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Italy · All recipes