Blessed are the pies-makers...

...for they will be called children of grano cotto.

After watching Via Crucis live from the Colosseum on the TV last night (followed by a severely cut version of the two-part Jesus miniseries, the one from 1999 in which Detective Lupo plays Jesus, Miss Giovanna Goodthighs plays Mary, Lt.Provenza plays Livius, the boring lead from Will & Grace plays Mary Magdalene, Commissario Montalbano plays Peter, a dude I loathe plays Herod Antipas, Giulio Cesaroni plays Barabbas, Gary Oldman plays Pontius Pilate who plays Gary Oldman, and the Devil wears Armani…), my mother and I are getting in full preparation mode for Easter Sunday — which means thinking of cooking tons of food, even if it's just the two of us.

(in the end, mamma prepared melanzane alla parmigiana for tomorrow, and this afternoon I’ll be making a quiche or something, still unsure. Because it’s just the two of us.)

Italian cuisine is not a monolith, there are many regional differences, and even within the same region there are a multitude of sub-cuisines that sometimes have overlapping preparations and dishes which only differ by an ingredient or by cooking method or something.

Generally speaking, the common Easter pudding all over Italy is colomba, which might look just like a dove-shaped panettone, but it actually tastes differently, and, of course, chocolate eggs. But, like for Christmas, there also are a multitude of local puddings/cakes/pies/whatnot specifically prepared at Easter.

For example, in the Salento area of Apulia, for example, they traditionally prepare an agnello di pasta di mandorle (a lamb-shaped¹ pudding made with almond paste), which is also the reason why one of the most hilarious pages on Facebook exists…

Agnelli di pasta di mandorle brutti — via their very own FB page

Central Italy (especially Umbria and Marche) has pizza di Pasqua al formaggio, (cheese pizza) a savoury baked good which, despite the name, doesn't resemble a pizza at all…

Pizza di Pasqua al formaggio — image via Cookist

Beside claiming chocolate Easter eggs as their invention, people in Piedmont also make salame del Papa (Pope’s salami…) for Easter, a chocolate and nuts pudding in salami shape…

But if you've been paying attention, you already know my family doesn't originate from Rome. Both my parents arrived here in 1971 from Eboli, a town in southern Italy — yes, the very one Christ allegedly stopped at (no, he didn't, it's just the title of a novel by Carlo Levi). Eboli is in the province of Salerno, which is just south-east of the province of Naples, so that local cuisine is very similar. And in fact, we usually make pastiera napoletana at Easter.

As my mother was arguing with some stranger on Faceboomer (as one does) the other day, pastiera’s filling must be made with grano cotto (cooked wheat berries), and NOT with rice — beware of people saying that's traditional too, they're lying and will burn in hell for that the rice variation was probably created at some point for coeliac people or something.

We usually get Chirico’s grano cotto…

Me holding a can of Chirico's grano cotto during lockdown, Easter week 2020.

…but this year we got Annalisa's one instead.

Not this Annalisa.

And while I don’t even know if we’ll actually bake one this year, here's my recipe for…

✨Pastiera napoletana✨

Ingredients

For the dough (pasta frolla):

• all purpose flour, 250 gr (plus extra for dusting)

• cold butter (unsalted), 100 gr

• sugar, 100 gr

• egg, 1 (large)

For the filling:

• grano cotto, 210 gr

• ricotta cheese, 350 gr

• sugar, 200 gr

• eggs, 3

• chopped mixed candied fruit, 30 gr

• chopped dark chocolate, 50 gr (because mamma taught me so)

• orange blossom water (estratto di fiori di arancio), 15 ml

• vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon

• ground cinnamon, to taste (optional, which means mandatory to me)

Instructions

• For the filling:

Pour grano cotto in a bowl, together with its glaze (don’t wash it away!), and crumble it with a fork.
In another bowl, blend ricotta and sugar together.
In yet another bowl (live it up!), mix the eggs with the remaining ingredients in the “for the filling” list.
Now blend the three mixtures together, and set everything aside.

• For the pasta frolla:

Mix the flour, butter, and sugar together, until crumbly (you could use a food processor, if you want — I don’t, because that’s trickier to clean than a bowl…).
Now add the egg to the crumbly stuff, and work it with hands, until it forms a ball.
Wrap the ball in cling film, and set it aside in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C, and in the meantime you can go and watch an episode of Midsomer Murders.

Halfway through it, as Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby is still wondering whodunnit, go back in the kitchen, retrieve the dough from the fridge, and divide it in two pieces (roughly 1/3 and 2/3). Dust the table with some flour, flatten the larger piece of dough, then place it between two sheets of non-stick parchment paper and roll it out until it’s large enough for a 28 cm high sided pie/tart pan.

Butter and line the pan, then remove the top paper from the dough, dust the dough lightly before rolling it gently around the pin, then unroll it over the prepared pan, covering its bottom and sides. If there are any holes or tears, just cover them up with bits of dough, no probs.

Pour the filling in the dough-lined pan, cutting away any excess dough just above the filling.

Roll out the remaining dough (same method as before), and then cut it into strips — they don’t need to be perfect.

My 2020 lockdown pastiera, pre-baking…

Criss-cross lay the strips over the tart (don’t weave, no need to, moreover the dough is too malleable and would break!), and bake in the preheated oven for about 50-60 minutes (depending on the oven), until it’s golden brown.

Let cool completely, and then put in the fridge for at least 3 hours before dusting it with icing sugar.

And now you can stuff your face with it!

L-r: mamma's pastiere from 2017; my 2020 lockdown pastiera; a selection of three different pastiere (none of which made by either mamma or me) from last year, in Eboli.

Pastiera will keep in the fridge for about a week², but that’s just a guess, because it never lasts that long...

Happy Easter, buona Pasqua to all who celebrate, and happy Sunday to everyone!

---

In other news…

This coming Wednesday, 3rd April, I'm going to a Vivaldi concert at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia: Concerto italiano & Rinaldo Alessandrini will be performing L’Estro Armonico, which also includes this number:

(of course Concerto Italiano, which is a baroque ensemble, will be performing on non-electrified instruments…)

Can't wait!

1. The actual resemblance to a lamb depends on the baker's ability…

2. If you bake several pastiera pies and want to freeze them, remember to never defrost pastiera in a microwave oven, it would turn soggy — just let it defrost at room temperature.