Torta Pasqualina – Italian Easter Pie
A delicious (and simple) spinach and egg pie, traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday in Italy. At its best when served straight after it has cooled, with a nice glass of white wine.
Ingredients
- 800g of spinach
- 500g of ricotta
- 6 eggs
- 2 sheets of puff pastry
- salt
- black pepper
Method
- Wash the spinach leaves carefully under cold running water to get rid of any sand or grit.
- Shake off the excess water and put them directly into a large saucepan with a lid.
- Turn the heat on low, cover and leave to wilt for 15 minutes.
- Remove from the heat, drain and allow the spinach to cool completely.
- When the spinach is cool, put it into a blender and whizz for a few seconds to chop it into small pieces.
- Alternatively, you could do this with a knife. Then, in a bowl, mix the spinach with the ricotta cheese.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix in 1 beaten egg.
- Butter a deep 20cm loose bottom cake tin and line it with one of the sheets of puff pastry.
- Pour in the spinach mixture and put in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.
- Carefully make four large holes in the spinach mixture with a spoon, big enough to take an entire egg each.
- Then break 1 egg into each of the holes.
- Cut an 18cm circle out of the second sheet of puff pastry. Place it carefully over the top of the mixture, and use a sharp knife to score a cross in the pastry over the eggs so that when you come to cut the pie you will cut the eggs in half.
- Beat the remaining egg and paint the disc of pastry with it.
- Gently fold over the edges of the pastry lining to join up with the disk and seal the pie.
- Glaze the top of the pie with the beaten egg and put the whole thing in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
- Remove the pie from the fridge and, if you want to, score a pattern on the top of the pie with a sharp knife.
- Make a small hole in the centre of the pie with a knife, paint one final layer of beaten egg on the top, and bake for 1 hour.
- Allow the pie to cool completely before removing from the tin, and then cut into eight portions using the cross on the top as a guide.
Hi Julia
Sorry, I missed your comment (I was on holiday)
When you are on any webpage you can press Control + P (Windows); Command + P (Mac) to open the print dialogue and then save as a PDF, rather than actually printing.
Hope that helps.
This looks simple and tasty. It’s a shame there is no file for us to save the recipes we want to make/have made in
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