This is how the Neapolitans wish us a happy Easter!
ingredients for 8 servings (total cost about 10€ for with organic ingredients)
for the frolla dough
- 250 g pastry flour
- 100 g butter
- 65 g superfine sugar
- zest from 1 ½ lemon and ½ orange
- 1 egg
- 1 g salt
- 15 ml milk
for the cream filling
- 75 g raw wheat berries or 200 g already pre-cooked ones
- 150 ml milk
- 25 g butter
- peels from ½ lemon and ½ orange
- 1 pinch salt
- 250 g ricotta cheese
- 120 g superfine sugar
- 2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk
- 50 g candied orange peels
- 2 tsp orange blossom water
- zest from 1/2 lemon and ½ orange
- 1 egg for brushing
- icing sugar, for dusting
The Neapolitan pastiera is an ancient dessert, whose roots go back to the Etruscan era. Ever since, during the Easter period, in particular on Holy Thursday, in every Neapolitan kitchen, it is a tradition to make one, in order to consume it on Easter day.
This masterpiece – actually, I consider it the queen of tarts – consists of a frolla base and cream filling made with ricotta cheese, wheat berries and eggs, flavoured with orange candied peels, zest of lemons and oranges and orange blossom water, all working in a perfect balance. Pure poetry!
Like the Italian crostatas, the pastiera is decorated with a lozenge pattern. In this case, the stripes are meant to be 7, 4 above and 3 below, as the 7 initial ingredients of the pastiera, as well as the 7 main streets (decumani) of Naples.
In Italy, nowadays this tart is made with already pre-cooked wheat berries available in the Italian market, but elsewhere one can only find raw ones. So we need to cook them ourselves. Before cooking them, though, it is better to soak them in plenty of water for 2-3 days and changing the water twice every day (we keep in the fridge, during the whole soaking time).
The day before baking the tart, we prepare one portion of our basic frolla dough for Italian stuffed pastries, using lemon and orange as aromatics. In this case, we omit the leaveners (we do not want the base to swell). We let the dough chill in the fridge overnight.
We also need to cook the wheat berries. So, after we strain them well, we put them in a large pot and we cover them with plenty of water (at least 4 times their weight). We bring to a full boil and then we let them cook at a very very gentle heat for about 1,5 – 2 hours, without stirring at all. Then we turn off the heat and we let them cool inside the hot water. In the end they should become really tender (as in the following picture, to the right). We strain them well and we keep them in the fridge, until it is time to use them. Have in mind that we can keep them in the fridge for about a week.
The following day we begin by preparing the wheat cream. First of all we measure 200 g of cooked wheat berries and we immerge them (in order to soften them) in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then we strain them and we return them into the pot. We add the milk, the butter, the lemon and orange peels and we cook them over a very low heat, stirring constantly and “breaking” the berries with a fork, until they absorb most of the milk and they become a creamy mass (it should take about 20 minutes more or less).
We transfer the wheat cream to a bowl, we cover with cling film and we keep it in the fridge, until it cools completely. We also mix the ricotta cheese with the sugar, we cover them with cling film and we let them in the fridge, for the same time.
Once the wheat cream has cooled completely, we can conclude the preparation of the cream filling.
We add the eggs and yolk to the ricotta and sugar, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, until fully incorporated. We also add freshly grated zest from 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange, the orange blossom water and and the candied orange peels, cut in small dice. We finally add the wheat cream (after discarding the lemon and orange peels) and we mix well.
Now we are ready to proceed to the assembling of the pastiera. We remove the dough from the fridge and we cut it in two uneven parts (a 3/4 and a 1/4). We roll out the 3/4 part in a disc of 4-5 mm thickness, we line a 20 x4 cm tart tin, previously well buttered.
We pour the filling inside the pastry shell, making sure that we leave a half centimeter margin from the top of the border (because the cream will swell during baking). We then roll out the 1/4 part to a sheet and we cut 7 stripes of 1,5 mm width. We loosely place the stripes crosswise (4 and 3) on top of the tart, arranging them in regular distance, aiming to form a symmetrical lozenge pattern, as you can see in the photo below. We cut off the excess of the stripes all over the tart, by softly pressing them with our finger on the edges of the tin. Finally, we brush the stripes and borders of the frolla with a little egg, lightly beaten.
We bake the pastiera on the lower part of 160 Celsius degrees preheated oven (static function) for about an hour, or a little more. In the end, the tart should be well coloured and the cream filling, settled and well puffed (it will sink a little after it cools).
When ready, we remove the tart from the oven and we let it cool completely, before removing it from the tart tin. After it has cooled completely, we dust it with icing sugar.
Be patient, before consuming it! Believe me, the more the Neapolitan pastiera rests, the better it gets!
