Summary

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 350 g flour
• 0.5 teaspoon ½ salt
• 125 g butter
• 100 ml water

For the filling:

• 300 g smoked bacon, air-dried
• 500 g potato (s), waxy, pre-cooked
• 2 large onions
• 300 g leek, only the white
• 2 apples
• 2 pear (s) or quince
• 300 g mountain cheese
• salt and pepper
• 1 egg yolk
• 20 g butter for fryin

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Instructions

1. Knead the flour with the chopped butter and salt until the flour becomes crumbly. Then gradually add water until a smooth dough is formed. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes in cling film.
2. Dice the bacon. Peel the pre-cooked potatoes and cut into thick slices. Dice the onions, cut the white of the leek into fine rings and grate the cheese. Peel the fruit, remove the core and cut the pulp into slices.
3. First fry the bacon cubes in a little butter until crispy. Then take the cubes out of the pan and slowly fry the onions and leek in the frying fat until soft. If necessary, add a little more butter. Season the vegetables with salt and pepper.
4. Divide the dough in half and roll it out thinly on a floured surface. Line a buttered baking dish with a piece of dough. The edges should ideally protrude at the edge so that they can be folded over the filling afterwards. Lay in the filling in layers: First the potato slices - salted and peppered - then the onion and leek mixture, then half of the cheese, the fruit, the diced bacon and on top the rest of the cheese. Fold over the edges of the dough and moisten with a little water. Place the second sheet of dough on top and press it on. Cut a small hole in the middle to allow moisture to be removed. Prick the dough several times with a fork. Whisk the egg yolks with a little water or milk and spread them on the surface of the dough. Bake the pie in the oven preheated to 200 degrees for 50 minutes. If the pie gets too dark, cover it with aluminum foil or a suitable lid.
5. The dish is suitable both as a warm starter and as a main course. There are also regional vegetarian variants that simply lack bacon.
6. The strange name of the dish is often explained by its origin during a cholera epidemic, when the residents of the Valais tried to leave their homes as rarely as possible and to prepare dishes only from the ingredients in stock. Alternatively and for me more convincing, the name is also traced back to the anteroom to the bakery, in Schwyzerisch Cholära from Chola or Cholu for coal.