Recipe
Pizzoccheri with cabbage, potato, and fontina
I ate pizzoccheri for the first time at 1,800 metres, in a rifugio in the Valtellina, having walked up in trainers because I had misread the difficulty of the path.
The rifugio had one dish. Not a menu with one good thing on it: one dish, written on a piece of card by the door, served to everybody who came through it. A woman brought out a bowl of grey-brown pasta ribbons tangled with cabbage and potato and swimming in melted cheese, and put it down in front of me with the neutral expression of a person who has watched a great many people underestimate a mountain.
It is among the heaviest things I have ever eaten and one of the best. Buckwheat pasta, which has a nutty, faintly sour taste and no elasticity whatsoever. Savoy cabbage. Potato. Valtellina Casera cheese, which is local and difficult to find anywhere else. And a frankly indefensible quantity of butter, fried with sage and garlic and poured over the top. It is food designed by people who worked outdoors in the cold, for people who worked outdoors in the cold, and eating it at a desk is arguably a misuse of it.
But the desk is where most of us are, so here is the compromise. Fontina in place of Casera, which melts in the same way and is stocked in most supermarkets. Rather less butter than the mountain version, though still enough that you will notice it. And a portion sized for somebody who has walked to a bus stop rather than up a valley.
It reheats extremely well, which stands to reason, since it is already a dish of things bound together in melted fat.
Do not attempt this in July.
- Prep 15 min
- Cook 25 min
- Serves 2
- Cost €€
Method
- 1
Bring a very large pot of well-salted water to the boil. Add the potato slices and cook for 5 minutes.
6 min
- 2
Add the cabbage to the same pot and cook another 5 minutes. Everything cooks in one pot, which is the whole design of the dish.
5 min
- 3
Add the pizzoccheri and cook for the packet time, usually about 10 minutes. Buckwheat pasta is fragile, so stir gently.
10 min
- 4
Meanwhile melt the butter in a small pan with the garlic and sage over medium heat until the butter smells nutty and the sage goes crisp. Do not let it burn.
5 min
- 5
Drain everything, keeping a mugful of water. Layer it in a warm bowl with the fontina cubes and most of the parmigiano, so the cheese melts between the layers.
3 min
- 6
Pour the sage butter over, discard the garlic, and fold everything together with a splash of the cooking water. Serve with the rest of the parmigiano and a lot of pepper.
2 min
Variations
Taleggio, gruyère or any good melting cheese in place of fontina. Add a handful of chard or cavolo nero with the cabbage. A slice of speck fried in the butter makes it northern and meaty. For a lighter version, halve the butter and add more cooking water; it will not be traditional and nobody in Valtellina will know. Wholewheat tagliatelle is the best substitute if you cannot find pizzoccheri.