Farmhouse, cheese factory, farm shop, large tables and starred restaurant. At La Fiorida the Valtellina tradition is tasted in a sandwich or in a tasting menu, without betraying the zero km. To eat well in Valtellina, dishes like taroz. Classic or revisited? Both
La Fiorida is located in Valtellina in the valley floor, where the Orobie Alps meet with the Rhaetian Alps one step away from Lake Como. Accessible by car, from the SS 38 to Rogolo or even by bike along the Sentiero Valtellina. The company has 200 Bruna Alpina cows, 250 pigs and 80 goats. Milk and meat are processed in the dairy and slaughterhouse inside the company, used in the two restaurants and sold in the large company store. You work at closed loop and short chain, respecting the environment and animals. It has cozy wooden rooms, the Quattro Stagioni restaurant with four rooms, conference rooms and a wellness center. The dairy produces fresh and mature cheeses, both from raw and cooked milk. But the only case of its kind, this agriturismo also has a gourmet restaurant, baptized in Valtellina dialect La Preséf (The manger). In the kitchen there is Gianni Tarabini, Valtellinese, and from 2013 shines a Michelin star.
Eat from 5 to 110 €
La Fiorida is a unique place, because you can eat a sandwich, a cheese board (€ 12 or € 17.50), an ice cream in front of the fireplace in the farm shop for a few euros, order a la carte in the restaurant or rely on a path of the tradition for € 45. The lunch of Sunday all-inclusive costs € 37, with a set menu, or dinner at the starred restaurant, even with tasting menu for € 110. The ingredients are all self-produced, absolute quality, where you sit is more a matter of personal taste or occasion than quality.
The chef Gianni Tarabini
Born between these valleys and with the dynamics of the mountain already in the blood, it is the right man at the right time. At the reins of the kitchen of La Fiorida that begins to attend the kitchen of Massimo Bottura during "culinary excursions" outside the Valtellina area. Go home with ideas like a review of the five consistencies and maturing of Parmigiano Reggiano in a Veltellinese version with a variation of Casera: Casera 084 – Consistencies and temperatures of Valtellina Casera DOP, seasonal jam. Today serves the Taroz and its evolution, with potatoes, Valtellina Casera DOP, green beans, onion and sage. How do you revisit a traditional dish? "It's easier than you might think. These products are mine, you play with an ingredient you know, with recipes you've done well a thousand times and wrong a thousand times. When you know all the nuances, it's easy. A feature of our kitchen is that we put two or three ingredients, but of high quality. We are not vain but confident in the raw materials and despite this local cuisine, all butter and bitto cheese, we make a light cuisine .
The taroz, classic or 2.0
The taroz it is a typical dish of the Valtellina that could be defined as: a rich, very rich potato mashed with cheese, bacon and other vegetables. At least today it is a rich dish: once it was a way to put together the dinner with the available vegetables and some scrap. It is a poor dish and its goodness is here due to the quality of the raw materials: potatoes, butter, cheese. Strictly Valtellina Casera DOP. The name taroz derives from the tool used to cream vegetables with butter or cheese (in dialect the operation is called "tarare", from which also the "polenta taragna"). «At the starred restaurant we use the same raw materials as in the other restaurant, but work with different techniques, for a new interpretation and new consistencies. For the taroz we cook the potatoes in a saucepan with water saturated with salt, to keep all your tastes. Then peel, are roughly broken and make a base with a pasta bowl. Green beans become a gourmet sponge, pancetta is a crispy waffle, sage is a powder. To complete, the dish is finished with a cheese fondue . For the classic version? "If the potatoes are good, the cheese is good, the butter is good and you are not in a hurry, the dish is good".
The classic taroz recipe
Ingredients for 4 people
400 g of potatoes
300 g of green beans
220 g of Valtellina Casera PDO cheese 180 g of butter
150g Nostrana bacon stretched
1 onion
Salt and pepper and common sage q.b.
Method
Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water 10 minutes after cooking them, add the fresh green beans, while preparing the lash with the butter, onion and bacon, finally add the sage. Everything must be beautiful "lashed".
Drain the potatoes and green beans from the water, coarsely mash them, add salt, pepper, bitto or casera, cover with a lid, let stand for a couple of minutes and add the nice hot whisk, mix well and serve
This recipe has already been read 140 times!