Torta Pasqualina

Storing and Planning Ahead

Refrigerated for 3 days and traditionally eaten cold. Do not freeze.

Making Torta Pasqualina

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1. Work the flour, oil, water and salt into a smooth soft dough, 8 minutes. Divide into 8 balls, cover and rest 45 minutes.

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2. Wilt the chard in a dry pan, drain, cool, then wring it out hard in a tea towel until no more water comes. Chop it.

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3. Soften the onion in the oil 8 minutes, add the chard and cook 5 minutes to drive off the last moisture. Cool.

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4. Mix the chard with the ricotta, parmesan, beaten eggs, marjoram, salt and nutmeg.

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5. Roll and stretch four of the dough balls as thin as you can, laying each into an oiled 26 cm tin and brushing oil between them.

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6. Spread the filling over and press 8 hollows into it with the back of a spoon.

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7. Crack a whole egg into each hollow, add a piece of butter and a pinch of salt.

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8. Stretch the remaining four dough balls, lay them over, oiling between each, and seal and roll the edges.

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9. Brush the top with oil, prick between the eggs only, and bake at 180°C / 355°F fan / 200°C / 390°F / gas 6 for 1 hour, until deep gold.

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10. Cool at least 30 minutes before cutting, so the eggs set.

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Related guides: Prep, cook and total time · Pan and tin size.

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Worth Knowing

• Wring the chard out in a towel. Draining is not enough.
• Oil between every sheet or they fuse into one pad.
• Prick between the eggs, never over them.

Behind the Recipe

The chard must be squeezed until it is genuinely dry — wrung out in a tea towel, not just drained — because any water left in it will soak through the base pastry and the whole pie goes soggy from underneath. The eggs are cracked into hollows pressed into the ricotta layer, and each hollow needs a knob of butter and a wall of filling around it or the whites spread flat and you lose the round yolk in the slice. Oil goes between every pastry sheet; that is what separates them into flakes instead of gluing them into one thick pad.

Good Alongside

A green salad · Vermentino · Eaten cold on a picnic

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Ciabatta, Citrus Fennel Salad, Fave e Cicoria.

Quick Answers

The Numbers per Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

Vegetarian when made with a hard cheese made without animal rennet in place of the parmigiano reggiano.

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