Zuppa alla Valpellinense

While farmers were preparing their soup with rye bread and vegetables in season, the gentlemen loved to taste the soup broth enriched with meat, cheese and butter. Among those zuppe the most famous is the " la Zuppa alla Valpellinese " Even the bread was not the same for farmers and for the first signori. The wealthy ate fresh white bread. He poor people the black bread. The black bread was prepared once a year involving the entire family, while the women kneaded, the men took care of the wood stove in the country.
The cooking was careful and meticulous, and when the bread came out of the oven was a great feast.
Once dried, it became very hard and was used to cut the "Copapan", a kind of iron knife that can still be found in craft shops. Placing it for a few minutes to soak in the soup, milk, or, if on the other, water, and then softened this bread.

Ingredienti (per 4 persone)

• 1 litro e mezzo di brodo
• 1 verza
• 4 etti di fontina
• mezzo kg di pane bianco (casereccio) tagliato a fette
• cannella in polvere
• 150 grammi di burro.

Preparazione

In una pirofila, disponete a strati il pane e la fontina, terminando con lo strato di fontina.
Fate bollire la verza nel brood. Aggiungete il brodo sul pane e attendete che il tutto si ammorbidisca, aggiungendo poi il burro fuso (molto caldo) sull’ultimo strato. Spolverate con cannella; passate in forno già caldo (200-220°) e lasciate cuocere per circa 40 minuti, fino a quando la fontina non diverrà dorata, iniziando a formare una crosta. Servitela calda.

Ingredients (serves 4)
• 1 and a half liters of broth
• 1 cabbage
• 4 ounces fontina
• half a kilogram of white bread (homemade), sliced
• cinnamon powder
• 150 grams of butter

Preparation
In a baking dish, arrange layers of bread and fontina, the layer of fontina.
Boil the cabbage in the brood. Add the broth over the bread and wait until it all softens, then melted butter (very hot) the last layer. Sprinkle with cinnamon; past in a preheated oven (200-220 degrees) and cook for about 40 minutes, until golden fontina is starting to form a crust. Serve hot.

Regional italian cooking classes

Buon giorno,

The new section of Learn the Italian through the love of food is ready to start. We open our class with Aosta Valley Cuisine. This cuisine is rustic and simple, which are mainly soup, game and cheeses. The soup has very ancient origins and is often made with rye bread slices, cheese and cabbage, as the soupe a la Valpellinenze. We start to prepare this recipe as our first course.

Being in the mountains, cannot miss the classic fonduta prepared with the traditional Val D’ Aosta cheese: Fontina, whose name originates dall’alpeggio Font. We prepare it with flan of cabbage. A typical dish of meat is the Soca, cooked beef with fontina cheese and cabbage. The idea is to learn different dishes using 3 or 4 regional ingridiens such as Fontina cheese, Verza and Mele. For dessert we are going to prepare the Hockiene better known as Fritelle di mela

I just got back from Italy and with the help of the time zone I have a few more minutes in the morning to think. Wake up with the colors of dawn when even the kids are asleep, relaxes my mind. I go to sleep and I get up with the same delemma my cooking classes? Enthusiasm sometimes falls but the will remains. My little space in the Big Apple. Sometimes I wish I had the recipe in my hands. A little salt, extra-verigne oil and so on and if you use the right ingredients with the right dose is the result guaranteed. In life instead becomes more complicated. You must find the hidden ingredient that changes an idea into a business.
In December, having completed the first course to learn Italian attravero food. With my 5 or 6 more or less devoted students the basic course is taken off. The second step, the course should be moving through the Italian regions following a path from North to South . To use seasonal ingredients I thought I would start from the regions of Northern Italy. Then move on to spring with the regional recipes of the center and finally conclude with the recipes of southern Italy in the summer..

The appointment is 'planned for mid-January and I would like to visit the Val D'Aosta. I hope and I wish that my class gets bigger.