THEstale bread, freshly picked herbs (oh well, even from the market stall), mountain butter. Nothing but poor cuisine! Authentic, naturalthis yes, like the hand-crafted ceramic plates in nuances, the raw fiber napkin, the rustic table. Set out, if possible, in the warmth of a chalet.
INGREDIENTS FOR 4:
150 g bread for dumplings (online, in many organic shops. Otherwise, stale white bread, well dried, cut into cubes)
225 ml milk
75 g nettles
750 g spinach
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 onion
1 clove of garlic
salt, black pepper and a knob of butter.
For the sauce:
40 g grated mature cheese
60 g butter
black pepper
mixed dried flowers (marigold, cornflower, mallow, dandelion).
Procedure
Cut into cubes and moisten the bread with milk. Wash the nettles and spinach, blanch and drain, eliminating as much of the cooking water as possible. Finely chop and stew the vegetables with the chopped onion and garlic (chopped or poached, depending on the flavor you want to obtain) and a knob of butter.
Nettle and spinach dumplings. Recipe and photos by Manuela Conti, taken from “Until the last crumb” (Guido Tommasi Editore).
Blend everything until you obtain a homogeneous mixture, not necessarily too smooth. Once lukewarm, add the mixture to the bread and add the eggs. Season with salt, pepper and mix well. Add the flour and form small dumplings.
“Until the last crumb. The art of reusing bread” by Manuela Conti (Guido Tommasi Editore).
Boil in salted water for about 10-12 minutes. Stir-fry with melted nutty butter, sprinkled with grated mature cheese, pepper and dried flowers.
Virtuous reuse
Meatballs and desserts, dumplings and croutons. Bread is a miracle of versatility. The excellent food writer Manuela Conti knows this very well and demonstrates it in the little classic Down to the last crumb (Guido Tommasi Editore): recipes that revive, with bread, the ancient tradition of its reuse, typical of our countryside and mountains.
