Easter Grain & Ricotta Pie | Kitchen on the Cliff with Giovanna Bellia LaMarca

Traditionally made for Easter, Pastiera di Grano features a delicious filling of ricotta, cooked wheat berries, candied fruit, Fiori di Sicilia (my favorite extract to bake with!) all nestled within a homemade crust.

Thank you for watching and let us know if you make this pie and tags us in your recreations 🥧 ✨ #KOCShareWithMe

Crust for 2 pies:
4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 small eggs or one large egg (you can also use egg yolks only)
1/2 cup white wine

Wheat grain:
1 jar cooked wheat grain
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar

Rest of filling:
2 lbs ricotta
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon Fior di Sicilia, Orange Blossom Water, or Vanilla

Optional:
1/2 cup citron, cut in small cubes
1/2 cup red and green cherries

Dust with powdered sugar, if you feel so inclined!

Filming and Video Editing by Francesca Sacco

MY NEWEST BOOK: Sicilian Feasts https://www.amazon.com/Sicilian-Feasts-Illustrated-Authentic-Hippocrene/dp/0781814332

The Cooking of Emilia-Romagna: Culinary Treasures of Northern Italy https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-cooking-of-emilia-romagna-giovanna-lamarca/1135644595

Language and Travel Guide to Sicily https://www.amazon.com/Language-Travel-Sicily-English-Italian/dp/078181149X
Available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other book vendors.

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/giovannabellialamarca/
MUSIC: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/ELSIIWCNqG/

My name is Joana and I welcome all of you to my kitchen on the Cliff today we’re going to make paser de granot that wonderful pie that you remember remember your grandmother making erter or other times of the year it’s made with cooked wheat and ricotta candied fruit sugar and we’re going to use pure dilia which is a wonderful wonderful flavoring that you can use

Instead of vanilla in just about everything for the crust of this wonderful pastiera we’re going to use flour sugar shortening or butter eggs and white wine this will make a wonderful tender flaky crust that is delicious for any tart actually you can make a fruit tart you can make a custard

Tart any kind of tart you like The Filling is going to be the wheat which we buy prepared you could find this in any Italian grocery store and we’re going to add to that ricotta this is not rotta from the supermarket not that the Rota from the supermarket is not

Wonderful and delicious it is but for this recipe and for many recipes that I do we need a ricotta that is denser and drier this too you could find in a good Italian store we’re going to start by heating up the Grano with a cup of milk

This is our cooked wheat grain it’s the whole grain we’re going to add the sugar and a cup of milk we’re going to turn the heat to Loaf and start heating it up as we continue to mix I used to make this with grain that I bought and cooked but you

Have to soak it overnight to cook it and it never seems to cook right so when I found this in the supermarket a few years ago I simply buy this and I use it all the time I have the heat on high to let it come to a boil quickly and once

It comes to a boil we’re going to lowerer to a simmer remember the milk Burns easily so watch this take the time to keep it company all right we let it come to a full boil now we lower it to the lowest possible setting that maintains the simmer right now we’re

Going to let it simmer certainly for 15 minutes and then you look at it again hey Siri please set the timer for 15 minutes 15 minutes counting down thank you we’re going to measure four cups of flour half a cup of sugar half a cup of shortening or

Butter I’m going to cut the shortening into the flour and I’m going to add the eggs one at a time I’m measuring a half a cup of wine half a cup now at this point if the dough doesn’t form then you can add more wine one tablespoonful at a time you

Want to be very very careful not to make the dough too soft and we’re going to take it out the dough should not be sticky it should be quite dry but soft okay now we’re going to knead it lightly let’s shape it into a ball we’re going to cover it and let it

Rest for 30 minutes our wheat has cooked for 15 minutes and we’re going to check it this is after 15 minutes of cooking as you can see there is still a fair amount of liquid on top okay so we’re going to give it another 15 minutes now

Why don’t we simply cook it for a half an hour because this has to be watched so 15 minutes without watching it is admissible but more than that you know you can burn it you can overcook it you can undercook it so you you know you

Give it 15 minutes and we’ll check it again later a few moments later our grain which has reduced and absorbed all the milk is Cooling and Meanwhile we’re going to start rolling out dough this is our dough R we’re going to divide it in half and we’re going to divide this into

A smaller and a larger piece the larger piece will be for the bottom the smaller piece will be for the lattice on top now we’re going to take some flour for the bench the dough feels very nice okay to transfer a piece of dough we simplify this way roll it on

And now we don’t pull we sort of allow it to go down into the pie plate right we don’t pull because we don’t want to break it okay we’re going to trim it all around if you have something tears you to fix it with a piece of

Dough all right we’re going to put it aside for a minute now we’ll do the second one we gather all these trimmings we need it and this will be for the lattice we’re going to shape this again into a balll we flatten it we sprinkle with flour top and bottom

And we start rolling it out all right try to keep the circle cuz this has to fit a circular dish you can kind of control this you know as you do this at the beginning you can shape it into a a rectangle or a square or a circle so you kind of

Accentuate what you’ve already got yeah I already have the circle and now I’m just accentuating the circle see now I have a circle do it slowly there’s no hurry that’s pretty circular all right so I’m going to take the dish that’s more than enough remember how we

Transport a sheet of uh dough We Roll It on the rolling pin we pick it up perfect so now we’re not going to pull and stretch the dough we’re going to pick it up all around this plate and let it sit to the bottom of the dish

Just let it settle into the dish so that it touches the bottom the dough is very nicely rested it’s not pulling back this fits the plate very well and I didn’t stretch it any more than necessary so now I’m going to trim it I’m going to add this to the rest of

It and that will become the lattice so I’m just rading it so that it all sticks together well and I’m going to put it under the bowl this is one of the many uses of the bench scraper now we’re going to finish the filling this is most wonderful ricotta

You know you can eat it just like that with a spoon and it’s delicious after using this container for so many years I know more or less how much is 2 lb just by looking at what’s left over so this I’m sure this is if not absolutely

Exactly it’s about 2 lb we’re going to incorporate our weat with the ricotta let’s add the sugar this is a half a cup of sugar that goes into the filling there’s already a half a cup that I put into the grain so we have one cup of sugar totally we’re using four

Eggs now we’re going to put our flavoring it’s called Fury dilia or flowers of sicile and it is one of the most fragrant flavorings I’ve ever come across when I was teaching at ice at the Institute of Culinary education I would pass the the top around for the student

To smell it it’s just it’s like perfume you could put it behind your ears but we won’t we just put it in the food so we’re going to put two teaspoons well a good teaspoon of filia I normally just put it in but I’m scrupulous about giving measurements

When I do the videos you don’t have to beat the eggs separately you know I try to dirty as few things as possible this bowl is a little too small so okay now we’re going to put the fruit so we start with Citron and I bought the Citron

Already cut you’ll forgive me I generally buy a Citron hole and the reason for that is I like to decorate cakes with citon in which case I want to cut it myself and I want to take advantage of the curve of the fruit to get interesting slices and then I make a

Pattern on top of the cake this time since I knew that it needed to be cubed I bought it already cubed this is Citroen it’s a huge lemon with a with a very very thick skin okay here we have a half a cup you know the eye has to have

Something too I’m going to use a half a cup of cherries and that will add all this wonderful color and I half a a cup of green cherries sometimes I cut the cherries in half just to bread them more but I’m leaving it alone this time this is done

Smells wonderful I wish you could be here so now we’re going to fill our two beautiful shells I smell the fur Cil I’m going to knee this again okay I’m going to divide this again since we’re doing two always put the dough back under the bowl or under a

Towel remember always a sprinkling of flour top and bottom again I’m trying to keep to a circle this is my mother’s wheel she used it as we were growing up and then I got to use it all right I start in the middle I’m going to put a little bit of water

On the perimeter start with the middle okay so we’re doing a center strip and two on each side now Americans weave it and Italians don’t weave it they just put the top layer at an angle so not necessarily A 45° angle but an angle so we’re going to put two on each

Side Lovely isn’t that lovely now what do you do with these you put them in the pan next to the pies and these are for the children to eat as soon as they come out of the oven little cookies delicious so now we take a fork and we’re going to press okay now

Trim and let’s do the second one and then we’ll make some cookies for the kids or for the adults who want to have a snack immediately in Italy Easter Monday is a national holiday and everybody takes whatever’s left over of the Easter feast and they go on a picnic

Or if they have a summer house they open the summer house this of course is served at room temperature I’m not fond of it out of the refrigerator but if you like chilled food then that’s fine so on Easter Monday you would take one of these pies or you would take both of

Them or you would take the leftovers and enjoy a wonderful day in the country that’s it’s called paseta in Italian which means little Easter so everybody goes out to to the country either for a picnic or to their vacation house okay beating an egg to glaze the lattice on

The pies and while we’re at it we will also glaze the the cookies for the children just paint the egg doesn’t matter if some egg goes on top okay we’re going to decorate them little sprinkles these are perfectly respectable cookies so these are the leftovers there

Are no leftovers in our cookie these are cookies perfectly fine cookies so we’re going to put them in this pan because they will probably need to come out of the oven sooner than the pies and these are going to be the treat for the cooks

And the children and the pets and if you want to give one to a pet I don’t know but we have dogs and they’re delicate and uh I’ve been prohibited from feeding the dogs anything other than their proper food okay so let’s put them in the oven

Okay we always put something that has a possib ability of cooking over boiling over in a pan always that way it’ll catch the drips and it doesn’t make a you know a fire and and get your oven all dirty so we have preheated the oven to

375° hey Siri set the timer for 15 minutes 15 minutes counting down thank you okay I’m going to check the cookies in 15 minutes because that’s probably all they need the pies need to cook for 1 hour and I always check them at 45 minutes you want to see if the top has

Browned the cross should be golden brown see you in an hour this is our pastiera the Grano ricotta or the wheat and the ricotta pie for Easter but you could make it any time of the year and we do I wish you were here m it’s delicious the candied fruit is

Wonderful there’s Citron and cherries and just heartwarming it just looks like a pie but it tastes like something that you’ve never had before this would be equally delicious with vanilla if you don’t happen to have filia but buy some f the Cilia and it gives it a special very special

Fragrance an that is authentic and wonderful you will become addicted to it and even if you if you make an American Pie and you use fur chil or a cake you will be pleased so these are the leftover pie crust remember we don’t throw anything away but they’re quite

Good try one see what you think of it I me it’s like a shortbread cookie they look beautiful of full of colored colored suar I guess sprinkles they’re not just for children uh-oh you’re smelling them you’re smelling them you you eat my hand now that you know

How to make p de Grano make it make it often because it’s delicious and your guests will enjoy it too we thank you if you you’re already a subscriber but if you’re not do remember to subscribe and a very happy Passover celebrate with delicious food this is one of

Them we’ll see you in the next Video