PIZZOCCHERI, Black flour tagliatelle with vegetables, flavoured with a fried mixture of butter and formaggio grasso d’alpe:
Original Recipe of the Academy of the Pizzocchero of Teglio
Ingredients (doses for 4 persons)
Ingredients (doses for 4 persons)
400 g of buck wheat flour - 100 g of white flour - 200 g of butter - 250 g of Valtellina Casera Dop cheese (Protected Denomination of Origin) - 150 g of grana cheese for grating - 200 g of cabbages - 250 g of potatoes – a clove of garlic - pepper
Preparation
Mix the two flours, paste with water and knead for about 5 minutes. With the use of the rolling pin stretch the dough up to a thickness of 2-3 millimetres from which one can derive some strips of the length of 7-8 centimetres. Place the strips one over the other and cut them in the direction of the width, obtaining tagliatelle about 5 millimetres wide. Cook the vegetables in salted water, the cabbages cut in small pieces and the potatoes in cubes, add in the pizzoccheri after 5 minutes (the potatoes are always present, while the cabbages can be substituted, according to the seasons, with chards or small beans). After about ten minutes gather the pizzoccheri with the strainer and pour a part of them in a well heated baking pan, cover with grated grana cheese and flakes of Valtellina Casera Dop; continue by alternating between pizzoccheri and formaggio. Fry the butter with the garlic leaving it in until is gets a good colouring, before pouring it on the pizzoccheri. Without mixing serve the pizzoccheri boiling with a sprinkle of pepper.
SCIATT, Small pancakes made of black flour with a filling of:
Ingredients (doses for 4 persons)
450 g of buck wheat flour - 220 g of white flour - 450 g of Bitto cheese - 1 small glass of grappa – mineral water - beer - salt - pepper – frying oil
Preparation
Cut the cheese in cubes. Mix the two types of flour, the grappa and mineral water and beer in a terrine to obtain a very smooth batter. Heat an abundant amount of oil in an iron frying pan. With the help of a spoon put the cube of cheese first in the batter and then in the boiling oil. Fry till small pancakes of a brown colour are obtained. Drain on absorbing paper. Serve with a seasonal salad.
CHISCIOL, small bun of bread made of black flour and old cheese, butter or lard and a drop of grappa in the mixture:
SIt is a type of flat loaf or pancake which is very tasty, for the preparation of which we are reproducing the recipe as dictated by an inhabitant of Tirano doc.
Ingredients (doses for 4 persons)
200 g of black buck wheat flour - 250 g of white flour - 250 g of medium-fat Casera cheese Dop – a pinch of bicarbonate of soda (or other rising agent) – a small glass of grappa or half a glass of beer – oil – salt.
Preparation
In a soup dish prepare the dough with the flours, a little bit of water and the beer, till you get a mixture similar to a rather dense béchamel. Add also the grappa. Stir again and leave the dough to rest for at least one hour. Then using a spoon pour spoonfuls of the dough in a frying pan containing boiling oil in a way as to form small flat loafs of about 12 cm in size. While these are being fried on one side, place on the other side, some thinly sliced pieces of Valtellina Casera medium fat cheese Dop whilst still soft. Then turn the flat loafs one by one till they become crispy. Serve them warm with green salad.
“PESTEDA”,typical seasoning of the Grosio zone::
Fruit of the inventiveness of the mountainous populations of Media Valtellina in times when the food, poor in tastes, included few tasteful ingredients: chestnut flour, buck wheat, rye. In the absence of meat and nourishing food, the taste was furnished with this additive, made up of spices easily found in the territory: pepper, salt, garlic, red wine, juniper, the “peverel” and with the addition of a “secret” ingredient, jealously guarded as such by our “ancestors”. At the moment on the restaurant tables the “pesteda” accompanies the typical plates of our culinary tradition, such as the pizzoccheri and the polenta.
BISCIOLA, A dry sweet with a basis of figs and walnuts typical of the Christmas period:
Ingredients (doses for 4 persons)
100 g of whole milk - 2 eggs - 40 g of butter - 40 g of sugar - 200 g of white flour - 1/2 a packet of yeast - 1 pinch of salt – grated lemon rind - 100 g of walnuts - 20 g of pine nuts - 100 g of sultana raisins - 60 g of hazelnuts - 150 g of dry figs.
Preparation:
Pour the milk, an egg, the softened butter, the sugar, the flour mixed with yeast, the salt in a bowl or in the kneader. Mix till you obtain a smooth dough, homogenous and soft enough.
Add the lemon rind, all the dry fruit cut in small pieces and mix well. Pour the dough on a table covered with flour, knead well and give it a longish form and place it on the baking dish covered with butter. Carve the bisciola longitudinally, so that during the baking it opens and can cook better. Brush the sweet with the beaten egg and place in the oven at a temperature of 160°C - 180°C for thirty to forty minutes. The slices of bisciola may be accompanied with whipped cream or, as some time ago, they may be only just dipped in the grappa.