Special Easter Recipes
i'm gianni and this is my north beach.it's easter time, so today i'm making torta pasqualina.these pies and cakes are very popular in italy. you've seen me make pizza rustica, a savorycake from naples, and pastiera, the wheatberry ricotta sweet cake.today i'm making torta pasqualina that was originally developed in liguria, the areaaround genoa. so there are basically three steps to makingthis torta pasqualina. there the crust. and for the crust i'm gonnause flour, olive oil and water. step two is to prepare one of the layers forthe torta pasqualina. it's sauteed greens. and today i'm using some swiss chard, somespinach, spring onion, marjoram, and i blanched
some off here and we're going to chop thisup and we'll sautee it. and step three is the second layer for thetorta pasqualina. it's ricotta, parsley, parmigiano, eggs, a little bit of grated nutmeg, and seasalt and black pepper. i'm gonna make the dough. it's very simple.it's gonna be two and a half cups of flour. and i'll just eyeball the half.three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. and one and a half cups of water.just a little bit of sea salt. now i'm just gonna mix this all together.and if it looks like the dough is too wet, i could always add a little bit more flour,which i think i'm going to do with this one. so this one's starting to come together.i think i'm gonna be able to work with this
on the board.so this is a wet dough. you saw i heavily floured my board here.and i'm gonna take the dough out and knead it on the board.you're gonna have to adjust if it's a little too wet, put a little bit more flour. if it'stoo dry, a little bit more water. so this one is very wet, so i'm gonna useflour so that it's not gonna stick to the board or stick to my hand.so i'm just gonna knead it for about a minute. make sure that it has a smooth texture, everything'smixed well together. just move the dough ball around. pick up someof this flour. and you should be able to pick it up and formit into a ball.
if it's still sticky, just add a little bitmore dusting flour. bench scrapers are really very handy toolsin the kitchen. you see me using this a lot. when i'm makingdough, i can use it to pick it up, move it around, make sure that i don't leave anythingon the board. it's also great for when you're mincing garlicor chopping onions or other vegetables. you can use this to pick it up and move itto the pan. i think we're in pretty good shape with this.i kneaded it for about a minute. i'm gonna wrap it in plastic film. and we're gonna letit rest for about a half hour. the first filling is going to be with greens.so i'm using some swiss chard and some spinach
and some scallions, some spring onion.just slice these up. use all the white and i'll use some of thegreen also. so i've got my cast iron skillet here. putthis on medium high. i'll add some extra virgin olive oil.in go the spring onions. and we'll just let these cook a little bituntil they get translucent. as these are cooking, i'm going to move overand chop the greens. so i blanched some swiss chard and some babyspinach. just bring water to a simmer in a big potand throw 'em in the hot water for about three minutes and they'll blanch.you want to be careful that you don't have
too much liquid left in these afterwards.so look how dry this is. so what you're gonna have to do is drain itand after it cools, you squeeze out all the water.so i'm just gonna do a rough chop on this. this is baby spinach, so if i was using olderspinach, i might do a little finer chop. but because this is so tender anyway, this shoulddo it for me. so the green onions are looking good. they'llcontinue to cook as i add the chopped spinach and chard.i like to break this up a little bit as i mix it with the green onion because with allthat squeezing and everything, everything gets clumped up together. but we want thispretty leafy.
some sea salt. and that will help draw outany additional moisture. you can see down here at the bottom of the pan, there's nota lot of water. so that's what we want. you don't want a soggy torta.i'm thinking we may need just a little bit more olive oil though.so i'm just gonna give it a drizzle. see those big clumps are all broken up? nowi got these loose leaves. perfect. so here are the greens.i'm gonna put them in this bowl because we want them to cool.marjoram is very similar to oregano. you need about a tablespoon of this. so i'm gonna picksome off. so just go against the stem, pull it off andif you get these little tiny pieces up top,
you can take the whole thing.and off the heat, we're gonna add the fresh marjoram to the sauteed greens.those greens are smelling good in the pan with the spring onions, but adding that marjoram?it's over the top. the second filling for the torta pasqualinais ricotta. so this is a pound of whole milk ricotta.so i'm just gonna put this in here. we're gonna add some parsley. and i'm gonnado a rough chop of this. right in the bowl. then we got two eggs here.just gonna break these up and they're gonna get mixed in there with the ricotta.it's good enough and they'll get mixed up some more.sea salt.
freshly ground pepper.parmigiano reggiano. always look for the stamp. and because this is gonna mix in there, i'musing this bigger grate. and then i'm gonna go on the finer grate.here's my friend the bench scraper. see how easy it is to pick everything up? throw itright in. i'm just gonna mix this together. break thericotta up. so you want to make sure it's nice and smooth.you don't want any lumps in the ricotta. and i'm adding some air. you see how thisis kinda fluffing up a little bit? and that's the consistency you want to achieve.so here's the dough. it's been sitting about an half hour or so.so here we're gonna do a little bit more flour
and i'm gonna cut this into four pieces becausewe're gonna have four layers of dough. and the other thing i'm gonna do is use myscale. so i'm gonna want two balls that are about10 ounces each and then two that are about six or seven.flour these up, make a little ball out of them.let me see what this is weighing. so that's about seven and three quarters.i'm going to go for the... that's about nine and seven eighths.that's about six, that'll be a small one. that's about five.so i'm gonna have to cheat a little bit from this one to make the second bigger one.that's better.
so make sure your board's well floured.and this tends to be a wet dough, so don't be afraid to add flour.this is gonna be as thin as i can get it. if you get holes in it, just pinch it up alittle bit. and i'm gonna use a ten inch springform pan.and this dough needs to cover the bottom and go all the way up the side.so i'm gonna want this to be about 13 inches and i want it round.okay, let me move this out of the way and we'll do the other three.some extra virgin olive oil in a springform pan.make sure you brush it all around including the sides all the way up.just gonna lay this over the top. see how
thin that is? those holes i'm gonna closeup a little bit. not to worry. and this is gonna get a second layer of doughanyway. so let it fall down into the pan.a little bit of the olive oil. brush it all around.then on top of that first one, i'm gonna put a second one.you want to make sure that the second layer of dough adheres a little bit to the first.another light brushing of olive oil. i'm gonna take my swiss chard and spinachfilling. get this all in here. and this is when you can use your fillingto help you make sure you fill the edges down here on the bottom of the pan.and right on top of the greens, i'm gonna
put the ricotta.and then we're gonna spread this evenly over on top of the greens.i'm making little indentations. one in the center and then you can do as many as youwant. four, i'll probably do five in a circle. and we're gonna, in those indentations, putan egg yolk. and save the whites because we're gonna usethe whites, too. set it right in the indentation and then fillthe rest of them. so that one broke, it's no big deal.a little parmigiano all over the top including on the egg.these are the egg whites. we just want to break these up a little bit.i'm almost there.
take this mixture of the egg white and justput it all over the top. not a lot. pick this layer. again, let it fall into thetop. before i put the last layer on, some moreolive oil. so we want to get rid of this excess.just roll your pin. so you end up with some excess dough here,but that's okay. i'll find another use for this.go around the edge and roll this down. this will give you a nice crust.and then you can go around with your fingers and crimp it.and then i'm just gonna finish it off with the tine of a fork.gonna put a little bit of olive oil around
that crust that i just formed.i got my oven going at 350. so i think that the torta pasqualina is all ready.it's looking beautiful in here. let's take it out.set it over here, we gotta let it cool for a little bit.and then we'll take it out of the springform pan.let me take a bite of the torta pasqualina. mmm.don't forget to subscribe, click here. and watch another episode.
