In the last few years we were used to spend the Festival weekend skiing in Courmayeur, getting exhausted on the slopes and then watching RaiUNO until late in the night, me falling asleep at 10pm and waking up just in time for the dopofestival. It's a pity this year they are no longer broadcasting the dopovestival, it was the funniest part!
And somehow this year we even forgot to organise the weekend!
I decided to beat these Monday blues, and my hugely missing of Courmayeur and its slopes, by cooking a traditional soup, something I would usually have for lunch in a mountain hut restaurant. Easy decision as I still have a big chunk of fontina from the best cheesemaker in the valley, Fratelli Panizzi! They have 2 shops, one in Courmayeur city centre and the other next to the motorway junction near Morgex. The ladies there are always welcoming and helpful - even when we ask them to vacuum-seal the cheeses ahead of our flights back home.
Ingredients:
1/2 savoy cabbage
50g butter
500g fontina
2l beef stock
1/2 loaf of sourdough wholemeal bread
grated nutmeg
1 pinch of cinnamon
Preparation:
Stew the cabbage, slice the bread and toast it in the butter or just in the oven for a healthier option. Cover the bottom of a baking casserole with bread slices, then layer over cabbage and sliced fontina with a few knobs of butter on top (I've used a potato peeler to get quicker knobs!).
Repeat the layers until you run out of ingredients. Ideally you should end with a layer of fontina&butter. Pour over the stock, grate some nutmeg on top and dust some cinnamon.
Preheat the oven at 180˚ and bake for 40 minutes.
Tips: slice the bread as evenly as possible; don't pour the stock up to the edges of the casserole otherwise it will bubble out while cooking and you'll have the bottom of the oven cover in broth...
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