Born in Pula, Istria—a peninsula that was part of Italy at the time and now belongs to Croatia—Lidia Matticchio Bastianich is an ambassador of homey yet elegant Italian cooking. And as a restaurant owner, cookbook author, star of her own public television cooking series, and matriarch of a large Italian family, Bastianich knows what it’s like to have a lot on one’s plate. So, when we asked her to create an Easter menu for Epicurious, she chose recipes that reflect her heritage, celebrate the arrival of springtime with fresh, seasonal ingredients, and—since they can be prepared almost entirely in advance—leave you with plenty of time to enjoy the holiday with your family.
Easter Bread
To start off this Lidia Bastianich Easter, make a sweet homemade bread called pinza. For adults, the bread was formed into a traditional round loaf, but for children it was often shaped into a doll called a pupi, with a colored Easter egg tucked into the head. “We’d swaddle the doll in a kitchen towel and carry it around like a baby,” she recalls.
Easter Bread Dolls (Pupi or Titola)Get This RecipeScallion and Aspargus Salad
It was traditional to take the bread, scallions, and boiled eggs to church to have them blessed. “Then when you came home, you opened this up on the tablecloth, put out a plate of coarse salt, and you had a snack before lunch,” Bastianich explains. “You’d dunk the scallions into the salt, and eat them with the eggs and the bread. The salt represented the earth, the eggs represented fertility, and the bread was for giving thanks for sustenance.”
To incorporate these symbolic ingredients into her menu, Bastianich created a fresh, seasonal salad of scallions and asparagus topped with salt and hard-cooked eggs.
Scallion and Asparagus SaladGet This RecipeBraised Artichokes
The day before, trim and braise the artichokes, but hold off on the last step of the recipe, which involves melting cheese over the dish. Prepare the polenta (or panelle), spread it onto an oiled baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate—don’t cut and fry it yet. Roast the lamb and make the sauce to go with it.
In her recipe for Braised Artichokes, Bastianich recommends using small, young artichokes, which are available at farmers’ markets in the springtime. “They’re the size of a Bartlett pear or a little larger than a rosebud,” she explains. These are easier to prepare than mature artichokes, but they still require some trimming: “Usually the outside leaves are tough or bruised, and there are prickly points. You want to pluck those away until you see a lighter green. Then, with a serrated knife, you cut off the top third of the choke and end up with something that looks like a stubbed rosebud.”
Dining and Cooking