Fontina

These gnocchi are also called malfatti (which translates to “badly made”) or gnudi (which means “nude”) because essentially these are ravioli without the pasta—they’re naked! No matter what you call them, I ADORE these delicate little cheese dumplings. They’re little bundles of spinach and ricotta sitting on top of melted Fontina mixed with heavy cream, mascarpone, and egg yolks. A little bit of this dish goes a long way—right to my booty usually!

Panade sounds kind of “chefy” but in truth, the dish, made from crusty bread and lots of cheese, is just a cross between a savory bread pudding and holiday stuffing. When mixed with eggs and cream, the bread softens so it becomes almost soufflé-like, with pillows of puffy goodness infused with chard and caramelized onions. If something can be peasant food and elegant at once, this is it! Pair this as a side with Whole Roasted Chicken with Plumped Raisins, Toasted Pine Nuts, and Arugula (page 142) or serve it with a simple green salad, and you’ve got dinner.

The great bonus about making Slow-Roasted Boneless Short Ribs is that you’ll have leftover meat to spin into this melt-in-your-mouth sandwich, panini-style. It hits the spot when you’re in the mood for some serious comfort food. The Tomato-Onion Chutney is so freakin’ good, you’ll want to put it on everything. For starters, try it as a condiment with Whole Roasted Chicken (page 142).

With only a handful of ingredients, this Tuscan peasant soup is deceptively simple, but tastes so rich and decadent, you’d swear there was cream in it. Heads up: blending the soup with olive oil is an important step to produce its velvety texture. The bread becomes suspended—almost like a custard—in the silky tomatoes; the basil adds a subtle perfume. Paired with nutty, gooey-smooth Fontina cheese sandwiches, this comfort food classic pushes all the right buttons.

This is the quintessential simple supper for many Italian families.

This creamy, cold-weather casserole with a golden, crunchy topping can be assembled ahead and baked when you’re ready.

What a versatile dish! You can use almost any kind of cheese (or go vegan—see our suggestions below), and you can add leftover vegetables to the filling. Stuff the tomatoes one day and bake them the next—they’re just as tasty!

This recipe is based on a Cuban sandwich traditionally made with roast pork, ham, pickles, Swiss cheese, and mustard. We start with the same main ingredient—the pork. It can be a loin, a ham, even a shoulder, but it should be roasted so that it retains some texture. Then we ratchet things up. In place of the ham, we have coppa, which comes from the neck of the pig and is cured and dried like prosciutto. Standing in for the pickle, we have a pickled pepper relish. The sugar in the recipe cuts through the spiciness and acidity, rounding out the flavors in the relish. Instead of the Swiss cheese in a Cuban, we use fontina. We press the sandwich just as you would a Cuban, and presto! We have what we have nicknamed the Cubano-Italiano.

This delicate little indulgence makes a marvelous treat; cut up into little squares, it’s perfect party fare. We were already considering creating a grilled cheese sandwich with fontina when one of our purveyors came to us with the white truffle fondue. Unlike many truffle oil products, this fondue is made with real truffles. We tried it . . . and loved it. It is the ideal complement to the mellow flavor of fontina and the fresh Pullman bread. We wanted to add some sautéed mushrooms, and chose the black trumpets for their low moisture content and springy texture. If you find them fresh—which can be difficult, even in season—rinse them well to get rid of all the grit.

This open-faced sandwich is similar in many ways to a Spanish tortilla. It’s best made in really well-seasoned cast-iron skillets that were passed down from your grandmother. And there’s a great side benefit: the dish is perfect for brunch guests, since it looks so good (and thus makes you look so good) when you’re serving it!

Late-night eating is one of those things that’s pretty much a fact of a chef’s life. Really late-night eating. And I often end up with friends at ’ino and ’inoteca, where they make the greatest panini in New York. One very late night, my cooks and I thought it would be fun to create a sandwich for the dessert menu. Here’s the result. The combination of chocolate with the tangy olives is addictive.

Even though this dish uses only zucchini, my grandmother called it Verdure al Forno, which means “vegetables in the oven.” (So it should really be called Zucchine al Forno, but there was absolutely no way anybody would tell that to my grandmother.) You could substitute eggplant, summer squash, potatoes, or even cauliflower for the zucchini, and make this your very own Verdure al Forno.

The literal translation of torta di pasta is “cake made of pasta.” What I particularly love about this recipe is that it makes for great finger food: All the ingredients bind together and can be cut up into easy little servings, and it can be served at room temperature. You probably won’t want to tell your guests that you’re serving them leftovers, and they’ll never know the difference.

Traditionally, this rich dish is served as a main course, and as a kid that’s the way I ate it. But it also works in our health-conscious world as a starter or a side with something fresher and lighter—say, grilled fish drizzled with lemon juice or grilled meat. A creamy, cheesy dish like this is just the thing to make you feel coddled, as if your dining room is the coziest spot on earth.

This is one of my favorite combinations; the salty prosciutto and creamy melted fontina cheese make my mouth water. It’s amazing how grilling the sandwich brings all the ingredients together, turning an everyday sandwich into the embodiment of comfort food.