Pizzoccheri della Valtellina (Traditional Lombard Recipe)

1. Pour the two flours into a large bowl, add a pinch of salt and gradually incorporate the lukewarm water while kneading vigorously until you obtain a firm and homogeneous dough. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest for 15 minutes.
2. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of about 3-4 mm and cut it first into strips 6-7 cm wide, then into pizzoccheri of about 1 cm width. Lightly flour and set aside.
3. Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes of about 2 cm. Remove the outer leaves of the savoy cabbage, wash it and roughly chop it into pieces of 3-4 cm.
4. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes first and cook them for 5 minutes, then add the cabbage and cook for another 5 minutes.
5. Add the pizzoccheri to the pot with the vegetables and cook together for 10-12 minutes, stirring gently to prevent the pasta from sticking.
6. Meanwhile, shave the cheeses thinly or cut into small cubes and keep them ready in a baking dish or a heated deep plate.
7. Heat the butter in a small pan together with the garlic cloves and sage leaves, letting them brown over medium heat until you obtain a fragrant brown butter, about 4-5 minutes. Remove the garlic.
8. Drain the pizzoccheri with the vegetables using a slotted spoon, pouring them in layers into the baking dish over the cheeses, alternating each layer with more cheese and drizzling with the still sizzling sage butter. Finish with an abundant grinding of black pepper and serve immediately.

Pizzoccheri are a short pasta made from a dough of buckwheat flour and wheat flour, cut into strips about one centimeter wide and a few millimeters thick. They belong to the gastronomic tradition of Valtellina, the long Alpine valley that crosses the province of Sondrio from west to east, and in particular to the town of Teglio, which claims its historical paternity with a Pizzocchero Academy founded specifically to protect the original recipe.

In the traditional dish, the pasta is cooked together with winter vegetables, typically cabbage and potatoes, and seasoned with melted butter and Valtellina Casera DOP cheese, often accompanied by Bitto DOP. The result is a dense, enveloping dish, with the bitter and earthy note of buckwheat that dialogues with the savory quality of the cheeses and the sweetness of the potatoes. Pizzoccheri are historically the dish of the Valtelline mountain in the cold months, consumed in peasant families as a substantial meal after the labors of the fields or the stables. Today they appear regularly in the menus of valley trattorias and are prepared on the occasion of village festivals, family gatherings and during Carnival season, when tradition encourages their abundant consumption.

The recipe of the Pizzocchero Academy of Teglio defines with precision the proportions and ingredients, yet leaves room for some variations that have become established over time.

• Variant with Casera only: in many families Bitto is omitted for reasons of cost or availability, replacing it entirely with Valtellina Casera, which still guarantees satisfactory melting.
• Variant with added spinach: some trattorias in lower Valtellina replace part of the cabbage with fresh spinach leaves, obtaining a more vivid color and a more delicate taste.
• Summer variant with green beans: in the summer months the cabbage gives way to fresh local green beans, keeping the rest of the recipe unchanged.
• Variant with onion: in some home versions the garlic clove in the butter is replaced by a small sliced white onion, with a softer and less pungent result.

Pizzoccheri call for beverages with enough structure and acidity to balance the richness of butter and melted cheeses.

• Valtellina Superiore DOCG Sassella or Grumello: the Nebbiolo of the Rhaetic Alps, with its fine tannins and ferruginous note, cuts through the fat and mirrors the slightly bitter quality of buckwheat in a coherent territorial pairing.
• Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG: for more important occasions, the wine from dried grapes offers depth and persistence suited to the richness of the dish.
• Artisanal stout or porter beer: the toasted notes of a dark beer of medium alcohol content find a direct affinity with buckwheat, creating a pairing through gustatory analogy.
• Sparkling water with lemon: for those who prefer non-alcoholic options, the bubbles and acidity of lemon perform a palate-cleansing function between bites.

• Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for a maximum of 2 days.
• Avoid freezing the dish once dressed: cheeses tend to separate and the pasta loses consistency.
• To reheat, warm in a non-stick pan over low heat with a tablespoon of water and a knob of butter, stirring gently until the cheese becomes stretchy again, about 3-4 minutes.
• Raw pasta not yet cooked can be frozen on a floured tray and then transferred to bags: it keeps for up to 1 month and cooks directly from frozen, adding 2-3 minutes to the cooking time.

Teglio, a village of a thousand inhabitants clinging to the Rhaetian slope of Valtellina at over 800 metres above sea level, preserves the most documented memory of this dish. Buckwheat arrived in the alpine valleys between the 15th and 16th centuries, probably brought along the commercial routes that crossed the Rhaetian passes towards northern Europe. In a land where wheat struggled to mature due to climate and altitude, buckwheat represented a concrete response to the needs of a peasant and pastoral population: it grew quickly, resisted the cold and provided flour dense in calories.

Pizzoccheri entered the daily diet of mountain families as the meal par excellence of the winter months, when the pantry offered little more than aged cheeses, potatoes stored in the cellar and vegetables from the garden. Butter, abundant thanks to cattle farming, became the generous binder of the entire dish. In 1996 the Accademia del Pizzocchero of Teglio codified the original recipe, defining its ingredients and proportions with the aim of preserving its identity in the face of the numerous interpretations circulating outside of Valtellina.