This luscious recipe for fresh fluffy gnocchi over a soft cream of beloved Fontina cheese is the creation of Claudio Sadler’s Chic’n Quick Trattoria Moderna in Milan, a relaxed dining atmosphere located along the Naviglio Pavese next to Sadler’s other restaurant. The recipe showcases one of Italy’s most well-known cheeses, Fontina DOP, a creamy semi-hard cheese with notes of butter and roasted nuts. It is made at the feet of the Alps in the Aosta valley, where cows roam freely on green meadows allowing the milk to take on a soft character that is then translated into the Fontina which is matured in grottos for three months.
Chestnut Gnocchi Over a Fondue of Fontina DOP – Ingredients for 4 people
For the Fontina DOP d’Alpeggio Fondue
Procedure
Bake the potatoes in a preheated 190-degree oven for about 50 minutes on a baking sheet with a bed of coarse salt in a static oven; when cooked, peel and mash the potatoes and then arrange them in a heap on a work surface. Add both flours, eggs, grana padano cheese, salt and pepper and a grating of nutmeg. Last, add the chopped chestnuts. Knead everything until a smooth dough is obtained. Next cut and form the gnocchi, arrange and cut them on a baking sheet with baking paper and shape them.
For the Fontina DOP d’Alpeggio Fondue
Cut the fontina cheese into chunks, add it to the mixer together with the cream, operate the cooker at 70° for 10 minutes at speed 6. Finally sieve with chinoise.
For the chestnut powder
Place frozen chestnuts in a blender and blend hard, then spread on a baking sheet and let dry in an oven at 80 degrees until perfectly dry.