< PreviousContinued overleaf › Ricotta & wild cherry pie Crostata di ricotta e visciole The Jewish Ghetto in Rome is one of its most fascinating neighbourhoods for many reasons. One of them is that it’s impossible to speak of food in Rome without running into Jewish traditions that are still palpably present in this part of the city. As is the long history of atrocious injustices against the Jewish community. The Catholic Church officially confined the Jewish population to the ghetto in the 1500s, where they were effectively consigned to live as second-class citizens. These systematic discriminations eventually led to the raid by the Gestapo in 1943, which saw 1023 Jews deported to Auschwitz from those very same streets where artichokes are still fried and kosher trattorias abound. Only 16 of those people survived. In the eighteenth century, a papal edict forbade Jews to trade dairy products. Legend says that to hide the ricotta filling in the pies from the papal guards, they would cover the pies with another shell — as opposed to a lattice top — and hence the famous crostata di ricotta e visciole was born in the ghetto. Whether this legend is true or not, a little bakery in the current ghetto neighbourhood, called Boccione, has gained fame for just such a pie, heavily stuffed with ricotta and visciole jam, and covered with an almost burnt top. Their recipe is jealously guarded and hard to replicate, especially that burnished top. The visciole are wild cherries. They have a brief season, and their flavour is somewhere between classic cherries and sour cherries. As an Iranian obsessed with sour cherries, I suggest that in the absence of visciole jam, you use sour cherry jam; otherwise, regular cherry jam will do. Makes a 20–22 cm (8–81/2 inch) pie 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) good-quality ricotta 50 g (133//44 oz) sugar 300 g (1011//22 oz) sour cherry jam, or visciole preserve Leave the ricotta in a fine-meshed sieve over a bowl to drain for at least 4 hours. (You could leave it overnight in the fridge, too.) Don’t skip this step, or the pie will be watery. To make the crust, toss the flour in a bowl with the chilled butter, then pinch the butter between your thumbs and index fingers until the texture looks ‘sandy’. (You could do this with a few pulses in a food processor if you prefer.) In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until well combined, then add to the flour mixture with the baking powder and salt. Bring the dough together, but do not overwork it. 268 Pomegranates & ArtichokesContinued overleaf › Ricotta & wild cherry pie Crostata di ricotta e visciole The Jewish Ghetto in Rome is one of its most fascinating neighbourhoods for many reasons. One of them is that it’s impossible to speak of food in Rome without running into Jewish traditions that are still palpably present in this part of the city. As is the long history of atrocious injustices against the Jewish community. The Catholic Church officially confined the Jewish population to the ghetto in the 1500s, where they were effectively consigned to live as second-class citizens. These systematic discriminations eventually led to the raid by the Gestapo in 1943, which saw 1023 Jews deported to Auschwitz from those very same streets where artichokes are still fried and kosher trattorias abound. Only 16 of those people survived. In the eighteenth century, a papal edict forbade Jews to trade dairy products. Legend says that to hide the ricotta filling in the pies from the papal guards, they would cover the pies with another shell — as opposed to a lattice top — and hence the famous crostata di ricotta e visciole was born in the ghetto. Whether this legend is true or not, a little bakery in the current ghetto neighbourhood, called Boccione, has gained fame for just such a pie, heavily stuffed with ricotta and visciole jam, and covered with an almost burnt top. Their recipe is jealously guarded and hard to replicate, especially that burnished top. The visciole are wild cherries. They have a brief season, and their flavour is somewhere between classic cherries and sour cherries. As an Iranian obsessed with sour cherries, I suggest that in the absence of visciole jam, you use sour cherry jam; otherwise, regular cherry jam will do. Makes a 20–22 cm (8–81/2 inch) pie 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) good-quality ricotta 50 g (133//44 oz) sugar 300 g (1011//22 oz) sour cherry jam, or visciole preserve Leave the ricotta in a fine-meshed sieve over a bowl to drain for at least 4 hours. (You could leave it overnight in the fridge, too.) Don’t skip this step, or the pie will be watery. To make the crust, toss the flour in a bowl with the chilled butter, then pinch the butter between your thumbs and index fingers until the texture looks ‘sandy’. (You could do this with a few pulses in a food processor if you prefer.) In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until well combined, then add to the flour mixture with the baking powder and salt. Bring the dough together, but do not overwork it. 268 Pomegranates & Artichokes›› Little ‘chestnuts’ that are really almond cookies Castagnelle Mariangela and I first met on Instagram through a discussion of wonderful travel experiences to Iran. She had been there a few years previously and had returned to Rome laden with goodies (many of which ended up as props for the photos in this book), bagfuls of barberries, Iranian black pepper (don’t ask me why; I’ve never known Iranian black pepper to be special in any way), and even the seeds of a Persian melon (Odessa melon) now planted in her lush organic garden. This recipe for simple almond cookies, known as castagnelle, was first passed on to me by Mariangela as a video showing her mother making heaps of them for Christmas. Her family is from Puglia, a region famous for white stone villages and crystal-blue seas, thousands of acres of ancient olive groves rooted in rust-coloured soil, and amazing food — including almonds. Not to be confused with castagnole — which are fried balls of dough rolled in sugar, a classic festive sweet known by many other names throughout Italy — castagnelle has its etymological roots in castagna, which literally means chestnut. In other words, these almond cookies flavoured with cocoa powder and lemon zest are ‘little chestnuts’. They remind me of another almond cookie, named after a totally different fruit. Toot, the name of an Iranian marzipan cookie, literally means ‘white mulberry’ in Persian. Both toot and castagnelle have disarmingly few ingredients: the first uses ground blanched almonds and sugar, flavoured with rosewater and sometimes saffron and almond extract; the latter has ground toasted almonds and sugar, a dash of flour, lemon zest and cocoa powder (or espresso coffee, depending which town in Puglia you’re from). Both are named after a fruit that they do not contain. Toot, being a marzipan, does not require cooking, and is often served during Norouz (Persian New Year) or at weddings. Castagnelle should spend only a few minutes in the oven, and is often baked for Christmas. For the crust 211//22 cups (375 g) plain (all-purpose) flour 200 g (7 oz) very cold butter, cut into cubes 4 egg yolks 150 g (511//22 oz) sugar 11//22 teaspoon baking powder a pinch of salt For the egg wash 1 egg, beaten with a splash of water Divide the dough into two portions, one-third and two-thirds. Flatten each into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. (You can leave the pastry overnight, and leave at room temperature for 5 minutes before rolling out.) Once the ricotta has fully drained, add the sugar and whisk very well, using an electric mixer or by hand, until the sugar has dissolved and the batter is smooth. For an even smoother result, push the mixture through a fine-meshed sieve with the help of a spatula. Leave to chill in the fridge while working with the dough. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Roll out the larger pastry portion between two sheets of baking paper, until it’s barely thicker than 5 mm (1/4 inch). With the help of the baking paper, transfer the pastry to a 20–22 cm (8–81/2 inch) spring-form cake tin, then peel off the top layer (save this for later). Leaving the bottom sheet of paper on the pastry, use it to line the bottom of the cake tin, making sure it comes at least 5 cm (2 inch) up the side. The pastry being very flexible, you can just tear off excess bits and paste them in where needed. Spread the jam over the bottom, then smooth the ricotta cream over the top. Leave in the fridge while you proceed. Roll out the remaining pastry portion between two sheets of baking paper (including the piece you saved earlier), making it a bit smaller than the cake tin. Remove one sheet of paper and flip the dough onto the top of the pie with the help of the other sheet, then peel it off. I then like to fold the sides up and over the top sheet of pastry, but choose how you’d prefer to seal and pinch all the pastry edges together. Chill for another 10 minutes in the fridge; the chilling helps immensely with the pastry’s friability. Brush the egg wash all over the pie, then bake for 45–50 minutes, or until the pastry is deep golden on top. Remove from the oven and leave to rest in the tin for at least 1 hour. I prefer to slice the pie in the tin, as it’s tall and heavy. It will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days. 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