Recipes

Pasqualina Pie

July 3, 2015

Ingredients

Sifted flour type 00
1 kg
Wild chard or spinach
1 kg
Ricotta cheese
600 g
Butter
100 g
Eggs
10
Parmesan cheese
To taste
Breadcrumbs
2 large slices
Milk
1 glass
Salt and black pepper
To taste

Recipe

Mix the sifted flour with enough water to make the dough firm and elastic. It needs to be kneaded for at least 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into 18 pieces of the same size, flour the pieces lightly and let them rest covered with a damp cloth for about an hour.

Wash, clean and boil the wild chard or spinach and once ready, wring out well.

Meanwhile, soak the two slices of bread in the milk.

Take the veggies and season them with the Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, the squeezed out breadcrumbs, the 4 beaten eggs and finally the ricotta cheese.

Knead the mixture as much as possible: it should be soft and smooth, then taste and season it with the salt and pepper and grated Parmesan cheese, as is needed.

Let the dough rest at room temperature.

After the dough has rested for an hour, take each of the 18 layers and work them with a rolling pin until they become very thin sheets.

Get a large pan and grease it with olive oil and line it with the first layer of dough which should adhere perfectly to the bottom and the edges of the pan. It’s important for the dough to overflow out of the receptacle.

You need to overlay this first layer of dough with another 10 very thin layers, which need to adhere well to the edges and the bottom and will need to be moistened with olive oil before it is overlapped by the next layer.

Pour the ricotta and spinach mixture (covered with olive oil) on the last layer.

Make six holes in the stuffing and add a piece of butter in each and one whole egg (be careful not to break the yolk). Sprinkle with cheese, salt and pepper.

Roll out the remaining layers over the filling (always taking care to add olive oil to each layer).

Place the remaining butter in small pieces on the edge of the pie. Seal the edges and remove the excess dough.

Brush the surface of the pie with olive oil and make holes in it with a fork. Bake at 190 degrees for about an hour.

Worth knowing

The queen at Easter and on Easter Monday picnics is undoubtedly the Pasqualina pie.

The Pasqualina pie is a symbol of the Ligurian cuisine, especially around the Genoa area.

It’s a pie made up of many layers that can be served hot, warm or cold.

The dough is made from flour, water and extra-virgin olive oil and the pastry layers that make up Pasqualina should be, by tradition, 33 like Christ’s age.

Of course, you can make it with a lot less layers, the important thing is that the layers need to be extremely thin.

The main ingredients for the filling are wild chard or herbs (spinach will do fine if these can’t be found), eggs and ricotta cheese.

Some recipes also include artichokes, but in our recipe we will keep the preparation very similar to the traditional one.

The preparation is somewhat long and the dough is very delicate but the beauty and taste of this pie is unparalleled.

Which wine would we suggest to pair it with?

Well let’s just say a good bottle of Dolcetto should definitely be placed in your wicker basket :-)