You make the pizzoccheri as you would any fresh pasta, but using 2 parts of buckwheat flour to one part regular wheat flour. (Buckwheat flour lacks gluten and needs some help to form a workable dough. Some recipes call for less regular flour, but the 2:1 ratio works well for me.) I use egg (and a bit of water) to bind the dough, but the original recipe (see below) calls for water only.

Roll out the pasta rather thicker than other kinds of fresh pasta (I use setting "3" on my KitchenAid pasta roller) and let the rolled pasta sheets dry on a towel. Once dry enough, cut the sheets into strips, as wide as fettuccine or tagliatelle, say about 1 to 1.5cm (1/2 inch) wide and about 5-7 cm (2-3 in) long. Allow these little strips to dry out further while you prepare the rest of the dish (see photo above).

While your pizzoccheri are drying, prepare the vegetables that will accompany them, typically potato and a leafy winter vegetable, most often Savoy cabbage. Slice or cube the potato, as you prefer (I like them sliced) and immerse them in cold water. Shred your cabbage and add it, too, to the water. Instead of Savoy cabbage, you can also use spinach, swiss chard leaves or—as I did this time when I couldn't find Savoy cabbage at the market—coste, or the stalks of swiss chard, trimmed of their leaves and cut into lengths about the same size as the pizzoccheri. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salt generously, and add your vegetables.

While the vegetables are cooking, melt a nice big piece of butter—at least 50g/2oz. per serving to which you add a clove or two of garlic and a sprig of fresh sage. Allow the garlic and sage to simmer very gently in the melted butter until the butter is infused with their flavors. Do not allow the butter to brown; the garlic should brown, if at all, only slightly. Remove the garlic and sage when you're done.

While the butter is simmering, either slice or shred some mild, semi-soft cheese, the most classic choices being the local cheeses bitto or Valtellina Casera. But since these cheeses are hard to find, even in Italy, outside their zone of production, fontina is often substituted. And if you can't find fontina, I'd recommend staying in the Alps and using either Gruyère or Emmenthal. Grate about half that amount of parmesan cheese or grana padano. I like to use a lot of cheese as well, say 50g/2 oz. per serving, although you can use much less if you prefer a lighter dish.

After the vegetables have been boiling for about 5 minutes, add your pizzoccheri and lower the heat a bit and continue cooking for another 5-7 minutes. Pizzoccheri take surprisingly long to cook for a fresh pasta—if you taste after about 5 minutes, you may see that although the pasta is already al dente, there is a raw quality to it, due to the particular qualities of buckwheat.

While the pizzoccheri are cooking, warm a serving bowl in the oven. When you are ready to serve, take your serving bowl out of the oven and, fishing them out of the water with a large slotted spoon, add a layer of well drained pizzoccheri and vegetables, then top with some of the cheeses, seasoning if you like with salt and pepper:

Working quickly, repeat until you have used up the ingredients, then pour over all the melted butter (which should be hot). This will partially melt the top layer of cheese. Then toss to mix the ingredients (don't overdo it) and serve immediately, while the pasta is still hot.