Italian’s Easter recipes

Today I would like to speak about Italian’s Easter recipes. I’m not a good cook 😀 but I can show to you some traditional dishes for this period, that is funny to cook with your family and friends, since we are all indoor!

Let’s start with the typical Easter dish for excellence: THE LAMB

There are many variations of this dish, in the different regions but I woul like to talk about the most simple and traditional:

Baked lamb chops with potatoes.

369 CALORIES PER SERVING

Difficulty: easy

Preparation: 20 min

Cooking: 50 min

Doses for: 4 people

Average cost

Note plus 2 hours of marinade

INGREDIENTS

Lamb chops 800 g

Thyme 2 sprigs

Rosemary 3 sprigs

Salt to taste

Black peppercorns to taste

2 cloves garlic

Extra virgin olive oil 40 g

Lemon zest 1

Potatoes 600 g

Black pepper to taste

To prepare the lamb chops in the oven, start cleaning the meat from excess fat, then make cuts between one rib and the other and with the help of your fingers push the meat downwards so as to free the bone as much as possible.Transfer the ribs to an ovenproof dish and season with salt and pepper. Also add sprigs of rosemary, thyme and peppercorns.Pour about 10 g of oil, add the freshly grated lemon zest, making sure to sprinkle all the ribs.Also add a clove of garlic divided in half, cover with cling film and leave to marinate for about 2 hours in the refrigerator. After this time peel the potatoes, cut them first in half and then into wedges. Transfer them to a bowl and season with a clove of garlic cut into 4 and the rosemary needles.Finally add the salt and about 20 g of oil. Place the ribs on a lightly greased baking dish (with the remaining 10 g of oil) and arrange the seasoned potatoes around. Wrap the bones with a strip of aluminum foil, so as to completely cover them and not to burn them in cooking. Then bake in a preheated static oven at 200 ° for 50 minutes (the use of the fan oven is not recommended because the ribs could dry out too much). Once cooked take out of the oven and serve your lamb chops in the oven.

Then I will start to explain how to cook the typical sweets during Easter period, very common in Italy.

We can start with the:

PASTIERA

Preparation: 50 minutes

Cooking: 1 hour and 20 minutes

Difficulty: Middle

Portions: 6/8 people

Cost: Middle

Ingredients for the pastry:

300 g 00 flour

150 g Lard (or butter)

90 g sugar

2 egg yolks

1 vanilla bean

for wheat:

300 ml Whole milk

350 g Cooked wheat

50 g Lard (or butter)

1 orange

for the cream:

400 g sheep ricotta

250 g sugar

100 g Mixed candied fruit

3 eggs

1 tablespoon orange blossom water

1 pinch ground cinnamon

to decorate: Icing sugar

Preparation:

FOR THE SHORTBREAD: Put the flour in a bowl and put the softened butter or the lard, the sugar and the yolks in the center. Add the inside of the vanilla bean and work the whole mixture until a smooth and homogeneous mixture is obtained. Put the shortcrust pastry to rest in the fridge covered with plastic wrap for about 30 minutes while you prepare the filling.

COOK THE WHEAT and PREPARE THE FILLING: Put the cooked wheat, milk, lard (or butter) and vanilla in a saucepan and light the fire. When the wheat has absorbed all the milk, turn off the heat and let it cool completely. Put the ricotta well drained from the whey, the rind of an orange and its juice, the candied fruit and the sugar in a bowl and mix well so as to mix everything. Separate the yolks from the whites and beat the egg whites with stiff steaks keeping them aside. Add the yolks, the orange blossom water and the cinnamon to the ricotta cream and mix.At this point, add the cooked wheat to the ricotta cream and turn well with a spoon until obtaining a homogeneous cream. Finally also add the egg whites whipped with gentle movements from the bottom up.

MAKE UP THE PASTIERA: Take the pastry from the fridge and spread it between two sheets of parchment paper so that it does not stick to the rolling pin. Make a base of about an inch with 2/3 of the shortcrust pastry and put it in a cake tin of about 22/24 centimeters. Pour the stuffing of the pastiera over the shortcrust pastry and level the surface.

With the advanced shortcrust pastry, create the classic strips of the pastiera and braid them over the filling. Cook the pastiera in a preheated oven at 180 ° for about 1 hour. Allow the pastiera to cool completely and then sprinkle it with icing sugar.

And finally I would like to show you the recipe to cook a typical sweet of my Region and in particular made in my city Reggio Calabria:

the CUDDURACI

Difficulty: Low

Cost: Cheap

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Portions: 1 kilo of biscuits

Cooking method: Electric oven Kitchen

Ingredients

1 kg Flour 00

250 g sugar

250 g.Butter

2 sachets Baking powder

2 sachets Vanillina

1 pinch Salt

4 Whole eggs

1 Yolk

1 shot glass Vermouth

Grated lemon peel

Milk (if necessary)

For decoration:

Some hard-boiled eggs

1 Egg (for brushing)

Colored balls

Preparation:

Put the butter to melt in a water bath and in the meantime in a bowl break the eggs with the sugar and whip them with the help of a whisk. When the butter is almost cold, pour it into the egg bowl. Then pour the sifted flour and all the rest of the ingredients. When you notice that the mixture cannot continue to be mixed with the electric whisk, proceed by hand. If necessary add a few drops of milk. The mixture must be nice hard. Wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 1 hour.

At this point the dough is ready to be modeled. Bring baking trays with parchment paper (about 4). Cut the dough into pieces and create shapes at will. You can visit google images to get some ideas. You can make shapes of doves, hearts, octopuses, braids, baskets etc … I composed these shapes because they are the ones my grandmother did. Create medium shapes because in the oven they will double their volume. In some you can insert the boiled egg in the center.
Turn on the fan oven at 200 ° C and while waiting for it to reach temperature brush the sweets with the beaten egg, finally sprinkle with sprinkles or colored balls.
The cooking time varies from oven to oven and from the size of the biscuits, more or less from 25 – 30 minutes and they must be browned. These Calabrian cudduracos are very good, especially in the morning with milk.

Thank you for you attention! See you soon!

Happy Easter from Italy!!

Fabiana