Torta Pasqualina (Easter cake)

Mr El
01. Apr 2015
0

spring, Easter, main dish, cake, spinach, eggs, vegetarian, italian

"Who is it?" Mr El calls downstairs. "Buon giorno monsignore! Itsa me, Giovanni!" the italian visitor replies. The last time Giovanni often visits Ms Aitch and Mr El. That's because he will be in Italy during the Easter weekend and maybe even longer.

But first he's going to show them what is beeing served traditionally in his home country at Easter. Torta Pasqualina a kind of pie made of spinach, ricotta cheese and eggs. Mr El stumbled upon a recipe in the ZEIT Magazin and was keen to test it out for a long time. Ms Aitch has been sceptical about hard boiled eggs in a pie. She couldn't get friends with such an imagination. In diplomatic words.

Once they were talking about that topic and Giovanni shouted: "I'll show you! Basta!". And now it's Easter once again...time to test the Torta. A good combination: Eggs and spinach. Also Ms Aitch and Mr El never made eggs in the oven. In the end everybody was amzed. "Arriverderci Giovanni! Buona Pasqua!", Ms Aitch and Mr El are standing in the doorway and winking.

Ingredients

For 4-6 persons:

For the dough:

250g spelt flour

120ml olive oil

1 tsp salt

100ml cold water

For the filling:

1 onion (chopped)

1 clove of garlic (mashed)

250g fresh spinach

salt, pepper, ground nutmeg

50g grated Parmesan

250g ricotta

3-4 eggs

springform pan (⌀18cm)

Instructions

Wash and clean the spinach. Sauté the chopped onion and the mashed clove of garlic in olive oil. Add the spinach and sauté for about 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and let it cool down in a bowl or a sieve.

Mix flour, olive oil and salt with the hand mixer, use the dough hooks. Pour the cold water little by little and stir until you have a smooth dough.

Mix the Parmesan, the ricotta and one egg in a bowl and add the spinach.

Preheat the oven to 190°C (top-/bottom heat).

Divide the dough into halves and roll out one half. Put it in the springform pan and make sure that the dough reach beyond the edge. Add the filling and dig 2-3 hollows with a spoon. There you put gently the eggs into and be careful to not hurt the yolk. Roll out the other half of the dough and cover the cake with it.

Bake the Easter cake about 50 minutes.