Scarpinocc di Parre
A meatless stuffed pasta from Parre, in the Val Seriana above Bergamo, shaped like the cloth shoes the village shepherds wore. A spiced cheese-and-breadcrumb filling, dressed the only way it should be: butter and sage.
Scarpinocc come from Parre, a village of shepherds' families at the mouth of the upper Val Seriana. Meat was scarce in the high pastures, so the holiday filling was built from what the malghe gave in plenty, grana, stale bread, eggs, and milk, warmed with garlic, parsley, and the sweet spices that make the filling unmistakable. The name is Bergamasque for the cloth shoes the pasta resembles, and the production of Scarpinocc de Par is protected by a disciplinare of the Bergamo Chamber of Commerce.
Only a few ingredients
Grana Padano
Grated, the body of the filling, and the finish showered over the top.
Toasted Breadcrumbs
Stale breadcrumbs give the filling its compact, crumbly body.
Parsley
Chopped fine, the flecks of green that dot the pale filling.
Garlic
Grated raw into the mixture, a sharp edge against the sweet spices.
Mixed Spices
The warm spice mix, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a hint of the rest, that makes the filling unmistakable.
the twistEgg yolk
Binds the crumbs and cheese together.
Whole Milk
Just enough to bring the mixture to a workable, moist paste.
Butter
Melted in a wide pan, gently foaming.
Sage
Torn leaves crisped in the butter, then poured over the pasta.
burro e salviaThe dressing must not compete.
Scarpinocc are filled with a warm-spiced cheese mixture, so the dressing has one job: to frame it. Melted butter with crisped sage and a final shower of grated grana is the whole dish, no tomato, no ragù, no cream. Anything stronger buries the spiced filling that makes the pasta worth making.
Scarpinocc
Little shoes of pasta, filled and sealed by hand.
Ready to cook?
These sources we trust. Each one makes it correctly.
Other sauces from the same region
Paccheri alla Vittorio
Paccheri in a silky tomato-butter sauce, made famous by the three-Michelin-star Da Vittorio in Bergamo. The tomatoes are cooked, blended, and sieved to velvet, then mounted with cold butter and Parmigiano.
Pizzoccheri
The mountain dish of Valtellina. Buckwheat ribbons, potatoes, and savoy cabbage boiled in one pot, layered with Casera cheese, and drowned in hot garlic butter. Gooey, nutty, and built for a cold valley evening.
Maltagliati al Mascarpone
Irregular diamond scraps of pasta in a velvety mascarpone-and-egg sauce. A Lombard dish from the Po Valley, built from nothing wasted: five minutes, five ingredients, and a sauce that coats like nothing else.