8881 Italian Easter Food

There are many Italian traditions involving food around Easter. It all starts during Lent time, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday, when there is abstinence from eating meat during many days and then fish (specially salted cod) and seafood are popular.
But there are many dishes specially cooked for the Easter banquet, which is a family tradition.
One of them is "Torta Pasqualina", from Liguria, which I already gave the recipe for, but I think that it would be worth repeating. Here we go:

TORTA PASQUALINA (Italian Easter Pie)

Ingredients:

1 Pkt phyllo pastry
Olive oil as needed
400 gr Spinach or Swiss Chard
400 gr Silver Beet
2 bunches of rocket
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 whole cloves
3 tablespoons Bread Crumbs
1/2 Cup Milk
1 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
Salt & Pepper
1 Pound Full Fat Ricotta Cheese
1 medium onion, diced and sautéed in some butter until transparent
1 jar artichoke hearts, quartered
6 Eggs

Preparation:

Cook the spinach, silverbeet and rocket in a large pot with water, lemon juice and the cloves.
Drain, squeeze dry and chop. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk, and then squeeze dry. Add the crumbs to the spinach in a bowl, and add the ricotta,Parmesan and onion. Add the quartered artichoke hearts. Mix well. Beat two eggs, and fold into the mixture.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
Brush a 25 cm baking dish, or, preferably, a spring form pan with a little oil, and drape the first sheet of pastry over the pan, allowing an equal amount to overlap the rim. Brush with oil, and continue to cover with another 6 layers, brushing oil between each one.
Put the filling into the pie pan on top of the layers, smoothing it evenly. Make four hollows evenly spaced around the filling, and carefully crack the remaining 4 eggs into the hollows.
Cover with 7 layers of phyllo pastry brushing with oil between each layer. Roll and press the edges inward. Brush the top with oil, and prick the top very carefully avoiding to pierce the eggs.
Bake for about 60-70 minutes, or until the pie is golden brown.
Serve warm, or at room temperature.

Some extra advice:

You can replace the raw eggs by hard-boiled eggs. The number of eggs you can use is for you to decide. Originally there were 12. one for each Apostle, or 13 (the central one representing Jesus)
My recipe has a mixture of greens, which I think that gives more flavour to the dish; however, others use spinach or silverbeet only and some ommit the artichokes. Again, it is a matter of choice.
I will give you more of my Easter recipes but please send us your own as it is great to share them.

Enjoy!

Category
Food & Drink

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 10:29

Grazie for the Easter recipe from Italy! I will try it this year!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 15:19

Lamb is very popular for the Easter menu because of its religious significance. I already gave this recipe in the Christmas thread, because it is suitable for both Christmas and Easter. Anyway, just in case you cannot find it, here we go again:

AGNELLO ALLA PASTORA
(Shepperd's Lamb)

INGREDIENTS FOR 4-6 PEOPLE (depending on how hungry they are)

1 kg (2 lb +) lamb pieces
500 gr (1 lb+) peeled and washed potatoes
3-4 tomatoes (peeled, seeded and cut in large chunks)
2 tbspns chopped parsley
rosemary to taste (dried or preferably fresh)
1 tspn dried oregano
1 large onion cut into thin slices
1 clove garlic (minced)
4 tbspns olive oil (virgin extra)
salt and pepper to taste
50 gr grated pecorino cheese (or similar)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 170 º C

Put the lamb and the potatoes together in a large oven tray
Put the tomato chunks, the herbs, onion slices, garlic, salt and pepper and the olive oil in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour over the lamb and the potatoes.
Sprinkle the cheese on top... (this is optional, sometimes I do not use the cheese, but see below)
Cover the tray with aluminium foil and allow to cook for a minimum of two hours.
If you decide not to add the cheese, remove the foil and put the tray under a hot grill for a few minutes to crisp.

Note: I always buy lots of herbs and spices whenever I am in Italy and sometimes I use a mixture from Gippo Naturali Aromi called MIX di prezzemolo, peperoncino, aglio instead of the usual parsley. In that case go soft on the pepper. You can get it at most supermarkets.

You can also barbecue lamb, simply basting it regularly with a mixture of lemon juice, rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic and a bit of extra virgin olive oil. Delicious! Well, this year Easter falls too early in the year, but the weather could be right for sitting "al fresco" and enjoying a barbecue.
Enjoy!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 02/29/2008 - 03:30

If you are looking for a typical Italian desert for your Easter table, nothing can beat the "Colomba Pasquale", which is a kind of Panetone baked in a special mould which reminds you of the shape of a dove, or "colomba".
Should you wish to have a go and prepare it yourself, here is a recipe with a photo to match, so that you can see what it looks like and the sort of mould you should get:

[url=http://www.pastrywiz.com/dailyrecipes/recipes/570.htm]Easter Dove - Colomba Pasquale[/url]

Personally, I prefer to buy it, as Italian bakers make these cakes superbly.

There is an old legend about this particular desert. They say that when the King of the Longobards, Alboino, conquered the city of Pavia, he requested that all the gold and treasures of the city should be given to him together with 12 virgins. The poor girls were sent to the castle to await their fate and they were all crying in despair. All, except for one, who asked to be given some honey, flour and dried fruits as she wanted to bake a cake. With these ingredients, she prepared a dough and gave it the shape of a dove and asked her guardians to have it baked. When she was called to see Alboino, she carried the cake on a tray. The king was surprised and thought that the girl wanted to poison him, so he asked her to taste the cake first. The girl ate a piece and Alboino, seeing that she looked so confident, did the same. He found the cake delicious.... possibly he had not been eating cakes during his campaign... so, as a reward, he ordered his guards to free the clever girl. Nobody knows what happened to the other eleven.....

Enjoy!

Oops! I forgot to say that the siege of the City of Pavia ended on the eve of Easter Sunday, hence the link between the cake and Easter celebrations.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/07/2008 - 05:25

We are currently during the Lent season and on Fridays, Catholics do not eat meat. Searchinf for recipes, I found many interesting Italian ones:

[url=http://www.virtualitalia.com/recipes/lent.shtml]virtualitalia.com[/url]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/12/2008 - 04:31

In the March issue of the Italian magazine CASAVIVA there is a very interesting article on how to organise an Easter picnic or lunch. One of the dishes they suggested, besides the [B][I]Torta Pasqualina [/I][/B]- for which you have a recipe in this thread (although theirs is filled with artichokess and eggs only) - is an entree with stuffed eggs, which I think it is an excellent idea and very appropriate for Easter. I am sure that you all know how to prepare them, simply give the fillings an Italian touch using, besides the egg yolks and mayonnaise, chopped [B][I]prosciutto[/I][/B] or anchovies, grated Parmesan cheese, olives, capers, etc. Serve them in a basket lined with some thinly sliced greens and [B][I]presto[/I][/B]!
They also give some recipes for lamb dishes and one which interested me was a [B][I]Lamb Ragu[/I][/B]. Now, there has been a very useful thread on [B][I][U]Ragu[/U][/I][/B] some months ago and you only need to substitute meats. The Lamb Ragu is served with pasta, such as tagliatelli.