Pizzoccheri della Valtellina

The specification connects pizzoccheri with the valley’s cultivation and use of buckwheat. It records pasta-making utensils in local inventories from the eighteenth century.

The familiar plate brings the pasta together with butter, cheese and vegetables such as cabbage and potatoes, drawing on the valley’s cooking traditions.

Both fresh and dried protected pasta use a flour mixture containing at least 20% buckwheat flour, combined with water.

Fresh dough is mixed, sheeted and shaped. For dried ribbons, extrusion is followed by rolling and cutting; the small concave gnocchetto format is extruded and cut without that rolling stage.

The specification documents a preparation with butter, cheese, cabbage and potatoes. Try that combination to accompany the buckwheat pasta; no single cheese is made obligatory by this cooking passage.

Look for Pizzoccheri della Valtellina, IGP and the Union symbol on the label. Buckwheat is part of a wheat blend; the protected recipe is not automatically gluten free.