Does anyone have a recipe for this Neapolitan specialty? It is a ricotta cheese pie made with wheat berries and yellow raisins or citron. The restaurant where I've had it uses an extract called "Mille fiori" in it as well.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Hi-

This pie is a staple amoung the Italian community here in the Providence area - this website has a recipe, scroll down for "Easter Grain Pie"...

Ottaviana's Italian desserts

Delicious!!!

Are you sure the restaurant doesn't use something called acqua di fiori d'arancio, orange flower water? That would be a common ingredient in this. Here's one that I just found:
pastiera-napoletana

But I've never tried this, so maybe someone will post one that is tried and true.

best of luck,
-Krista

Thanks so much for the suggestions and websites.

It's entirely possible that the restaurant does use what you mentioned, but they definitely do use this other extract, too. The chef told me she brings it back from Italy, but I think you can buy it here online. Her family owns a bakery in Monte di Procida (outside Naples) so she makes the best desserts!

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Hitt: Her family owns a bakery in Monte di Procida (outside Naples) so she makes the best desserts!

Ok, Mary, I have to ask - which bakery??? I actually live in Monte di Procida. (I just say "Bacoli" because it's easier to explain/locate on a map!)

I will look for my recipe, we just made it in Sonoma at the class I taught.. we used FARRO..

orange flower water is fabulous.. and it is also called mille fiori, don;t know if there is much or any difference.. but it is the secret.. to the fabulous flavor!

I use orange flower water in the filling, and I think it's an essential ingredient to produce the slightly perfumey, slightly exotic, sweet fragrance and taste. I've heard that some people use rose water instead , but I tried tasting rose water with a bit of the filling, and I don't think I'd like it as much. I haven't heard of mille fiori water, which would be a mixture of flower waters, probably orange and rose and I don't know what else. Could you possibly mean fiori di Sicilia extract? That's a combination of vanilla and orange flower flavoring that I've seen sold in the King Arthur Flour catalogue. I'd rather use orange flower water and good vanilla extract separately.

I'll try to find my recipe and post it. The filling I make is wonderful. BUT, I'm a much better cook that baker, so I have not attempted to make the proper crust. I know this may sound awful, but I use graham cracker crust, which actually tastes wuite good with the filling, though it is not at all traditional. What you should not use is regualr, ready made pie crusts (i.e. not crumb crusts); they are way too salty. The "proper" crust is a "pasta frolla," which is a tender slightly sweet (not salty) crust. You can find lots of recipes for it online or in cookbooks of Italian pastries or southern Italian cooking or Neapolitan cooking specifically. (Also lots of older generation, first generation Americans of Italian ancestry know how to make it, and sometimes the Italian stores that sell the wheat may have recipes that thaey give to their customers.) so, if you want to be autherntic, you can use my filling recipe, but make a traditional pasta frolla crust. If you don't mind having an American style crust, you might want to "cheat" and use the graham crust. (Or, you can alos just make the filling and bake it and skip the crust if you're being nontraditional.)

I found it faster than I expected:


Pastiera di Grano (Easter wheat pie)
CMT

hulled wheat grains (or one-pound can of presoaked wheat)*

1½ lbs. of the best quality whole-milk ricotta you can find

6 eggs (You will use 6 yolks and 4 whites.)

½ cup milk

1 ½ cups sugar

one tsp. salt

about ½ cup finely diced candied orange rind (the best quality you can find)

¼ to ½ cup finely diced candied citron (the best quality you can find)

about ¼ cup finely diced candied lemon peel (the best quality you can find) (Substitute this for some of the citron if you can find it.)

1½ to 2 tbs. orange flower water*

2 or more tsp. cinnamon

1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

1½ tsp. oil of orange peel*

very small drop of oil of lemon peel*

commercially prepared graham cracker pie crusts (See note.)

To start preparing the wheat, boil the hulled wheat grains in water until the grains burst open. Add more water and a little salt and boil covered for about 45 minutes. Then set it aside for about two hours. (If you use unhulled hard wheat, the steps are the same, but everything will take much longer, i.e. more than an hour boiling, and overnight soaking).

Drain the soaked wheat. Measure about two cups (or a little more), which will probably be a little over a pound, or squeeze out excess liquid and use about a pound or 1 ¼ pounds. Or, if you are not preparing your own wheat from scratch, open your one-pound can of pre-soaked wheat.

Boil ½ cup of milk, add a little sugar, and cook the wheat in this for a few minutes. Add a little salt.

Add the candied orange, citron and lemon peel and the orange peel oil (and optional lemon peel oil) to the wheat. Set aside or refrigerate to cool.

Prepare filling as follows. Mix 1 ½ lbs. ricotta with 1 ½ cups sugar until uniformly mixed. Add the orange flower water, vanilla extract and cinnamon and mix well.

Beat separately 6 egg yolks and 4 egg whites. (The whites should be beaten until very light and high.) Mix the yolks into the ricotta mixture. Mix the whites into the wheat mixture. Then mix the two parts of the filling together and blend evenly.

Spoon the filling into the graham pie crusts. This filling recipe is enough to fill one large, one medium and three mini commercial pie shells.

Bake in preheated 350 F. oven until the filling is deep tan (probably more than a hour).

Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Quantities for the flavorings are approximate and can be adjusted according to taste.

* Re: ingredients. The wheat grains may be available from Italian specialty food stores, especially around Easter time and in early December. They may also be available from “whole” or natural foods stores, but try to get the hulled wheat; hard unhulled wheat can also be used, but it requires a much longer soaking period in order to soften it. The canned wheat is usually available from Italian specialty food stores around Easter time. Orange and lemon peel oils are available in Boyajian brand from many stores specializing in “gourmet” cooking ingredients and from some mail order cooking and baking supply catalogues. Orange flower water is essential to this recipe; nothing can substitute for it. You can generally find it in “gourmet” food stores, Italian specialty food stores, middle eastern and north African grocery stores, and some old-fashioned toiletries shops like Caswell-Massey and Crabtree and Evelyn.

Note: The authentic sweet crust for this Easter specialty of Naples is called pasta frolla; it is not at all like graham cracker crusts. If you would like to make an authentic pastiera di grano napoletana, you can find recipes for pasta frolla in cookbooks containing traditional recipes of southern Italy. The filling recipe above will be very good with either the authentic pasta frolla or the graham cracker crust. Do not use standard pie crusts normally used for American fruit pies. They do not go well with this filling at all.

P.S. If you do a Google search or search a book index, you'll need the spelling. It's "pastiera di grano" (just one R in "pastiera").

Hi, Kim! Sorry to be replying so late. I believe that the name of the bakery is Pasticceria CATARI, or something similar. Do you know it?

I believe the bakery is owned by Anna's brother and his wife. I don't know the first name of Anna's brother, but her father's name is Giovanni Scotto di Santolo. However,Giovanni was a maritime captain, not a baker. I only give you his name in case it helps to find the son. They used to have a website,but I just tried it and the URL doesn't work.

Thank you to everyone for your help and suggestgions for my recipe request!