Pizzoccheri della Valtellina (pasta with cabbage and potatoes) recipe

A dish for cold days when you’re active enough to justify double carbs. The traditional cheese for this is Valtellina Casera, which you can get online from onelivery.co.uk. If you don’t want the expense of delivery, use a mix of fontina and Parmesan.

Pizzoccheri (northern Italian buckwheat pasta) are available from melburyandappleton.co.uk. If you use buckwheat penne, you have to cook it separately (penne takes about 10 minutes) before mixing with the other ingredients.

If your grill is good (domestic grills aren’t what they should be), you can put the finished dish under the grill until it’s golden rather than baking it in the oven.

Timings

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 40 minutes

Serves

Four

Ingredients

• 300g savoy cabbage

• 100g butter, plus more for greasing

• 1 garlic clove, peeled

• 300g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

• 300g buckwheat pasta (preferably buckwheat noodles, about the same thickness as tagliatelle, but you can use buckwheat penne too)

• 125g fontina, cut into small cubes or grated

• 50g Parmesan, grated

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200C/190C fan/gas mark 6.

2. Remove any coarse outer leaves from the cabbage. Cut out the hard central core and cut the leaves into broad strips.

3. Melt the butter and gently cook the garlic until golden. Take off the heat and leave the garlic sitting in the butter.

4. Put the potatoes into boiling, lightly salted water and cook them for four minutes.

5. Add the buckwheat noodles and cabbage strips, and when the water comes back up to the boil cook for eight minutes.

6. Drain the pasta and vegetables. Transfer half of them to a buttered ovenproof dish, toss with salt and pepper and then sprinkle half the cheese on top. Warm the butter again, get rid of the garlic clove, and pour half the butter over the dish. Put the rest of the pasta and vegetables on top, season, pour on the remaining butter and then scatter on the rest of the cheese.

7. Bake for 10 minutes, or until melting and pale gold in patches, then serve immediately.