Passport & Plate - Pastiera di Riso
Italy | Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 4 photos
Ingredients
3 cups long grain rice
1.5 Litres of whole milk
50g knob of butter
3 cups sugar
2tsp Vanilla extract (or 2 vanilla beans)
300ml of cream
50g Glace Citron cut into pieces
2 Glace Clementine s cut into pieces
1 orange zested
3 lemons zested
60 ml of Strega liqueur or Galliano
12 eggs
1x 500g tub of ricotta
How to prepare this recipeWash the rice until the water runs clear. Cover with cold water and bring to boil on the stove. Reduce to a simmer and cook until ¾ cooked. Drain then return to the pot and add 1.25 L of milk, the sugar, butter, cream, vanilla, and glace fruits. Stir it and cook until its rice pudding consistency. Take off the stove and cool until its blood temperature.
Once cool, turn the oven onto 180 degrees C. Add the zests and Strega (or Galliano). Mix well.
In a separate bowl, mash the ricotta until smooth. Crack in the eggs and whip with a whisk until its smooth. Pour this mix into the bowl with the rice mix and combine well. Add the remaining 250ml milk. It should look like custard. If it’s too thick, add more milk.
Get a very large round baking tin or deep paella dish. Spray the tin/dish with cooking spray. Turn on the largest element of your stove. Place the tin on the stove and add 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. It needs to get hot. Turn the heat to medium and then, with the help of someone else because it’s heavy, pour in the mixture. The point of this is to make a crust on the bottom of the cake. You will know it’s ready to transfer into the oven when you see the oil along the side of the cake sizzling and bubbles forming in the batter (like you get when you make pancakes).
Once this happens transfer into the oven and bake for 1.5 – 1 ¾ hours or until the top is golden like a crème brulee color. You might have to turn the tin at times in the oven to make sure that it browns evenly. It will still have a wobble in it when you take it out. When it cools it will set.
Wait until completely cool before you cut it and dig in.
The story behind this recipeAs a child, Good Friday was a drag. My mother forbade my brother and me from watching TV. She told us that if we dared to switch on the TV we were effectively crucifying Jesus before his time in church that afternoon. To keep us occupied she kept us entertained by helping her cook Pastiera di Riso, a Neapolitan specialty that can only be made and eaten during Easter. I doubt we helped much beyond taste testing the batter before it hit the oven, but it gave my brother and I something to look forward to if we were good and behaved in church during Easter time.
Since experiencing Naples, I have learned that the city is a contradiction of Italian stereotypes. It’s a city of boisterous streets where families spill out of churches. Some join the masses to make gluts of themselves on the coffee and sweets in the many pasticcerie. Others might choose to adopt a skull at the city catacomb and leave it offerings to help make its afterlife more comfortable.
Naples is a city where life revolves around religious feasts. Each feast day has its specific delicacy that can only be made to be eaten that day. However, the pagan roots of the city never left and continue to exist in the city’s cuisine. For example, the trinity of Neapolitan flavors are orange, lemon and vanilla. They are found in the local spirit called Strega, which translates in English as Witches Brew. The brew is advertised across town in Art Nouveau posters.
The liquor is an essential ingredient in the Good Friday Pastiera di Riso. Strega must be generously poured into the rice custard batter, along with 12 eggs to represent the 12 apostles, and the holy trinity of flavors. I always found it odd that a cake representing the crucifixion, something so sacred to Italians, was laced with Witches Brew. During my time in Naples, I learned that contradictions like these are normal. No one thinks twice about contradictions. It’s just the way things are, and will always continue to be.
