Make Bocca di Lupo's buckwheat noodles with butter, cheese and cabbage

Inspired by food from the slopes of Lombardy, this recipe from Bocca di Lupo is a fusion of Italian and German cuisine

Bocca di Lupo's buckwheat noodles

Published: Thursday 9th February 2017

Serves 2

Preparation time 30 mins

Cooking time 20 mins

Beloved Italian restaurant Bocca di Lupo is offering its diners something a little bit special– it's doing month-long regional takeovers, with February being dedicated to Valtellina Ski, on the slopes of Lombardy. Here, the kitchen shares the recipe for one of its dishes.

This is proper winter mountain fare – chunky noodles, doused in animal fat. It is a delicious exemplar of how Germanic Italian cuisine gets up north, and the pasta is one of the easiest to make at home, with little time or need for a pasta machine.

Ingredients

To make the pizzocheri (pasta)

  • 75g buckwheat flour
  • 75g durum wheat semolina or strong flour
  • Pinch of salt
  • 85ml water

To serve

  • 100g charlotte potatoes, peeled and diced into 1cm chunks
  • 200g savoy cabbage, roughly shredded about the size of the pizzoccheri
  • 50g butter
  • 16 sage leaves
  • 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
  • 125g bitto cheese (or aged gruyere)
  • 50g parmesan cheese, grated

Method

  1. To make the pasta, mix the flours and salt together, then add the water and knead to form a firm dough. Let it rest ½ hour, then roll out 2-3mm thick. Cut in strips 6-7cm long, and 1-2cm wide.
  2. Put a pan of well-salted water on to boil, and have a frying pan ready, too.
  3. When you are just about ready to eat, put the potatoes in the water. After about 5 minutes, when they are sort of edible but could use a touch more cooking, add the pizzoccheri to the pan.
  4. At this point, put the butter in the frying pan over a medium heat.
  5. As soon as the butter foams, add the sage leaves and garlic and take the pan off the heat.
  6. Around the same time, when the pizzoccheri are nearly done, add the cabbage to the water to join them.
  7. When the cabbage is crunchy, pizzoccheri al dente and potatoes tender, drain them, reserving some of the water.
  8. Add them to the butter along with the Bitto and half the parmesan. Return to the heat and sauté until the cheeses are melted, adding just a splash of water to emulsify.
  9. Season with lots of pepper, and serve with the remaining parmesan on top.

Recipe by Jacob Kenedy, chef and owner of Bocca di Lupo; boccadilupo.com

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