Gnocchi alla bava

Gnocchi alla bava

Duration: 1 h

Difficulty: Medium

Region: Valle d’Aosta

Typical dish of the Aosta Valley, gnocchi alla bava take their name from the strings of cheese that form when you take a gnocchi with a fork and bring it to your mouth. This cheese is none other than Fontina, a typical cheese from the Aosta Valley, also much loved on our tables precisely because of its particular taste and above all because it melts easily when cooked, blending perfectly with the ingredients it accompanies.

Ingredients

For 4 people:

• 1 kg of potatoes
• 200 g of flour
• 350 g of fontina cheese
• 1 clove of garlic
• Grated cheese
• Butter to taste
• Nutmeg
• salt

Typical product: Fontina DOP

How to Proceed

Boil the potatoes in a sufficiently large saucepan (keeping the skin on!!!) with plenty of salted water. Potato cooking times can vary greatly depending on the size of the potatoes.

Once boiled, pour them into a colander and peel them when they are still hot, being careful not to burn yourself, perhaps do it under the jet of fresh tap water. Then, once peeled, mash them with a potato masher to obtain a puree.

Pour the flour into a pastry board and then add the mashed potatoes, then a pinch of salt and grated nutmeg. Mix everything until you get a homogeneous and compact dough.

Divide the dough into several parts and roll each of them with the palm of your hands on the previously floured surface, so as to obtain cylinders the thickness of a finger.

Then cut the cylinders into many pieces in order to obtain the gnocchi. The length should not exceed two to three centimeters. If you like them rounder in shape, roll them lightly between floured hands. Transfer them once cut on a tray sprinkled with flour, so that they do not stick to each other.

Put a pot of salted water to boil for cooking the gnocchi, in the meantime cut the fontina cheese into many small pieces, removing the crust. Also, get yourself a small saucepan and fry the garlic in the butter. Once the garlic is lightly browned, remove it.

Boil the gnocchi in boiling water, when they are cooked you will see them come to the surface.

Remove them and put them in a baking dish gradually adding the flakes of fontina cheese and finally sprinkle them with the hot butter in which you had fried the garlic. Place the dish in a preheated oven at 180°C for a few minutes before serving, so that all the fontina melts well over the gnocchi.

Serve the gnocchi piping hot with the stringy fontina cheese.