As for second courses, one cannot claim to know the cuisine from Val d'Aosta without trying the popular fondue, melted fontina cheese, butter, eggs and milk eaten very hot with small pieces of brown bread. It is ideal in winter and served with very thin slices of truffles, during their season, is excellent.
It is one of the typical dishes of the Alps, especially due to the caloric intake (particular helpful after an excursion in the mountains at high elevations) and its peculiar taste.
It matches well with a strong, red wine , with an intense, aromatic taste.

400g fontina from Valle d'Aosta, a garlic clove, milk, homemade bread slices, a knob of butter, 4 egg yolks, toasted bread slices

Remove the crust of the cheese, slice it and then make very thin dice. Put everything in a bowl with a garlic clove, slightly crushed. And cover it with cold milk. Let it rest for a couple of hours in a fresh environment, but not in the fridge. Drain fontina cheese removing the milk and put the cheese in a casserole with butter. Cook at very low heat: it must not boil, so it is better to cook it in a bain-marie. Stir, without stopping, with a wooden spoon. When the fontina cheese becomes stringy, add one yolk at a time, stirring quickly; when everything becomes smooth and creamy, pour the fondue in warm bowls.

  more than two hours

What would the cuisine from Val d'Aosta be without the fondue? It is hard to find an answer, since this extremely tasty and flavoured cheese is in many traditional recipes, and it is also served in the sandwiches in the chalets on the ski slopes and on the chopping boards of the chalets at high elevations.
Maybe someone does not know how this excellent product is made: some rennet is added to milk, usually brought to the dairy in the typical metal containers called brente, to make is become harder and obtain a dough which is processed with the so-called lira (a stick with some thin threads) and then separated from the serum; finally it is put into moulds where it is compressed until all the serum comes out. The round cheese is then left in environments with constant levels of humidity throughout the day; they are turned every day and salted and brushed every other day for at least four-five months, to make it season.
The crust is hard and thin, the cheese is quite soft with a few holes, straw-yellow; the fontina cheese must have a pleasant and sophisticated flavour, sweet and persistent taste, with a slight bitter aftertaste and, as the name reminds us it must "melt" in our mouth.

The Arnad lard , tempting and extremely tasty, is one of the most renowned pork salted meat in Valle d'Aosta. Its unique taste is the result of a particular way of feeding the pork (with vegetables, flour and chestnuts), and the processing.
It is indeed produced using typical local herbs (those who do not know it feel only the taste of the rosemary, but there are many more herbs) and then seasoned in big chestnut wood containers with pickle. It must be cut in very thin slices to fully enjoy it: some like it hot, with two slices of crisp, brown bread; some others eat it with some butter and chestnuts.

Dishes from Val d'Aosta have the same history as what is normally referred to as "poor", mountain cuisine. First courses are mainly soups, and the perfect example is the Valpellinentze soup, of very ancient origins, made with stale, wholemeal bread sliced and soaked with meat broth with diced fontina cheese. It is a dish with astrong, peculiar taste, which sometimes, during the winter, is replaced with the even more filling chestnut soup, with a unique taste.

1 Savoy cabbage, 300g fontina cheese, beef broth, grated nutmeg, butter, salt, pepper, wholemeal bread

Clean the Savoy cabbage and stew it in salted water; when it is just done, remove it form the fire. Take a bowl, grease it and cover it with a layer of toasted bread, the stewed cabbage and the slices of fontina cheese, spread another layer of bread and some knobs of butter.
Pour half a litre of beef broth, some grated nutmeg, salt and pepper; cook in the oven at around 170°C for no more than 30 minutes.

  an hour