There are so many different excellent cheeses in Italy. One of the best is “taleggio” a creamy cheese born in the  homonym beautiful village of Taleggio stoned in the nature near Bergamo in north of Italy. In this recipe I will use the harder part of the fennels (I separated and put away in the recipe “bitter fennels”).

If you are not able to find the taleggio you could use another creamy cheese of your taste.

If you don’t like fennels use boiled potatoes instead.

 

 

 

 Ingredients: (6-8 persons)

half-pound of taleggio

few fresh fennels (or their fronds)

three pounds of codfish

3/4 of liter of milk

one handful of capers (for this recipe the capers under salt  or fresh are better than under vinegar)

marine salt 

and…………………………… that’s it ! 

 

 

 the fresh fennels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 cut and discard the hardest part of the bottom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

take off the biggest fronds:  if you like, you can use the whole fennel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 These are the parts we are going to use now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Usually what I do is to keep the tender parts for other preparations like “bitter fennels”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cut in big pieces each fennel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with the pieces that you have cut you make a layer inside an oven baking-pan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fill all the bottom…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

spread a pinch of salt around

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

spread half glass of milk around, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

put in the oven at 660 Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) for 10 minutes: the fennels doesn’t have to cook now, only to fade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Prepare the “taleggio” cheese cream in this way:

 pour half-liter of milk in to a pot, warm it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

clean the external part of the cheese: take the quantity of cheese you need: I will cut two pieces  of it for a total of half-pound

 

 

 

 

 

 

cut the cheese in pieces half-inch thick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

put the pieces of cheese to melt in the milk: use “bagnomaria” to melt the cheese (keep the pot on the top of another pot where there is boiling water)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 take the capers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 wash under running water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 chop the capers small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 drop in the milk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 keep stirring the milk until it starts to boil, then take out from the fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

clean, wash and cut the codfish in generous pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

after taken the fennels out from the oven cover them with the pieces of codfish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

after this spread well on the top the milk-cheese-capers mix, a big spoon is helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

drop in small quantities on the top of the codfish, do it slowly with kindness using all the milk-cheese-capers mix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 this is the final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 put in the oven to cook 25 minutes at 660 Fahrenheit (350 Celsius)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is ready!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Look! this dish is so beautiful… plus its original and delicious!

Give one piece or more to each one of your guests………..