Kitchen in Aosta Valley

Not authentic cuisine has been as useful as today cuisine Healty, less simple, however, inspired by past practices, when our grandmothers used skillfully vegetables and wild herbs.

Indeed, in recent years, the kitchen "poor" has been reconsidered and the "green world" rediscovered. There are already many books on ancient recipes, passed from generation to generation, with the particularities of each village. The drift mountain cuisine meals for a very long time with ingredients of the zone according to local customs and traditions of different places, often influenced by people who have succeeded over time in the region of Valle d'Aosta has always been a poor region, based on a peasant culture devoted to agriculture and livestock. The presence of mountains and isolation of many small villages led to the creation of original cuisine of different places: the same food can be cooked not only differently, but can also bear a name different from valley to another. In sum, if one is careful, the kitchen can also tell the story of a place.

Poverty drives people to plan ahead and everyone tried to keep the different products when they were abundant in nature, so as to be available every day of the year. It is obvious that the most common products were such chestnuts, vegetables, corn and potatoes.
Even the most discerning palates will be satisfied by the Aosta Valley cuisine. Taste the delicious appetizers made from local meats, meat of cattle breed and Valdostan game, boiled potatoes with sausages and black pudding, homemade desserts and selection of eaux-de- vie, liqueurs and wines altitude. The cuisine of this area is a kitchen "mountain", where triumph and butter Alpine cheeses, various meats, the unforgettable polenta in all its variants, mushrooms and berries.

Today, finally, restoration Valdostan rediscovering traditional recipes using products Km 0 by focusing on product quality of a natural and healthy cuisine.

And to make you want to taste our products, why not try some of our most famous recipes?

Vapelenentse soup
Ingredients (serves 4): 1.5 liter beef broth, 1 green cabbage, 400g of cheese "Fontina", 500g of white bread sliced ​​campaign, sage, 150g butter.

Preparation:
Boil the cabbage in meat broth. In an oven dish, arrange in layers the bread, collard greens and cheese, ending with a layer of cheese. Add the broth over the bread and wait for any wilting, then add the melted butter flavored with a sprig of sage on the last layer. Place in preheated oven (200-220 ° C) and bake for 40 minutes, until cheese is golden and begins to crust. Serve hot.

Carbonada
Ingredients (serves 4):
500g walnuts beef with salt, onion 300g, 200g butter, 100g of bacon, 50g flour, 1 / 2 liter of white wine, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, salt, flour.

Preparation:
cook (not fried) butter, bacon and onion cut into strips. Then remove the onion and bacon. In butter, add the meat cut into tiny slices, high heat, let the only bleach (without batter) and season along with salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon and flour. Add wine. Wait until boiling and serve immediately with polenta.

Polenta concia
Ingredients (serves 4):
polenta, 850g of cheese "Fontina", 200g melted butter.

Preparation:
Prepare polenta. At first, cut the cheese into thin slices In a bowl, place a layer of polenta and cheese, continuing to alternate the cheese and polenta and ending with cheese. Pour the melted butter while frying. Bake for 10 minutes and serve.

Tiles Valdostane
Ingredients:
200g sugar 80g hazelnuts, 80g almonds, 60g butter, 60g white flour type 00, 1 packet of vanilla, 4 egg whites.

Preparation:
mix sugar, hazelnuts and almonds, add egg whites, room temperature butter, flour and vanilla. When dough is ready, stretch the tiles on a plate (covered with parchment paper) by giving them the typical form of thin disks. Bake at 180 ° C for 7-10 minutes.