Potted colomba, salty colomba, casatiello-calzone, casatiello-pizza, organic casatiello, pastiera-cannolo, highly digestible and vegan party desserts.
These are some examples of how even Easter, whose gastronomic traditions are historical, has taken the rising trend of 'variants' that has already infected many other dishes of the festivities.
Although the foods that make up the Easter meal each have a load of religious meanings that have always been handed down, even the traditional recipes adapt to the territory, to the comfort food typical of the different cities, to the new food 'creeds', to the most disparate tastes and the desire to experiment with original flavors to celebrate the religious occasion, spring or the desire for rebirth.
In fact, Easter 2022 is not expected to be the same as last year, which passed quietly, nor that of 2020, which passed into the 'red zone', closed at home.
The desire to celebrate it is high, so pastry chefs, pizza chefs, renowned chefs and food-influencers offer menus, sweet and savory, 'broken down', revisited, corrected, mixing surprise ingredients, offering ideas to those who want to experiment even at home.
The new variations on the tradition are numerous.
Colomba in pot cooking:
same ingredients but cooked in glass, vacuum packed.
For a lighter result.
The idea comes from Casa Manfredi in Rome but can be replicated.
“In general in my small laboratory I like to experiment.
For big holidays, like Christmas and Easter, I feel the need to bring out the tradition, always with some innovative touches.
Tradition is combined with 'lightness' so also leavened desserts are characterized by high digestibility, which arise from a great research work on doughs and leavening.
Even the classic pastiera is made with the addition of custard for a more delicate and light final result ”, says Giorgia Proia, pastry chef at the pastry shop in Viale Aventino in Rome.
Colomba without butter, with extra virgin olive oil
: the classic colomba is reinterpreted with the use of oil, instead of animal-derived fats.
It is proposed by the Palazzo di Varignana resort, in the Bolognese hills.
The proceeds from the sale also go to the Sant'Orsola Polyclinic Foundation to help families who are victims of the war in Ukraine.
Colomba 'French style':
The Milanese boulangerie Egalitè, (in Milan) presents this year “La Colombe”, a new version of the Italian dessert.
The dough is that of leavened butter brioches, garnished with praline hazelnuts and gianduia cream and combines the Italian tradition with the French one.
For each leavened product sold, part of the proceeds will be donated to the Odyssey of Peace association which organizes the shipment of basic necessities to Ukraine.
Salted Colomba:
The colomba also turns into a salty version, with a dough similar to that of a donut.
It can be done at home: “It is also beautiful as a centerpiece idea, - explains food-influencer Giorgia Di Sabatino in the special Easter of La Cucina Italiana.
The recipe includes as ingredients eggs, internal white yogurt, extra virgin olive oil, milk and flour, together with grated parmesan, yeast for pies, smoked scamorza, bacon, cooked ham, egg white, almonds, salt and pepper.
This version is followed by other variants.
“The dough can also be enriched with other cured meats, for example salami and mortadella and instead of scamorza you can use provola.
To give even more flavor, replace the Parmesan with pecorino ”specifies the expert.
Salted dove recipe
Ingredients
3 eggs
125 g of internal white yogurt
100 g of extra virgin olive oil
100 g of whole milk
300 g of flour 00
2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese
1 sachet of instant yeast for savory pies
100 g of smoked scamorza cheese
100 g of diced bacon
100 g of diced cooked ham
10-15 almonds
1 egg white
salt and pepper to taste
Method
In a bowl, beat the eggs with the yogurt, milk and oil, using a hand whisk.
Then add the Parmesan, salt and pepper, always stirring, and then the sifted flour with the baking powder.
Add more than half of the total quantity of cold cuts and chopped scamorza with a knife and mix.
Pour the mixture into a dove paper mold and level the surface well.
Pour the almonds into a bowl in which you have lightly beaten an egg white and then arrange them on the surface of the dove.
Bake in a static oven at 180 ° for about 45 minutes.
Pastiera-cannolo:
“The pastiera cannoli are based on wafer with buckwheat, icing with milk chocolate, flakes of almond and orange peel.
The filling contains pastiera-flavored ice cream, with buckwheat cooked in milk, sheep's milk ricotta, cinnamon, orange and lemon ".
It is the creation of Maria Agnese Spagnuolo, ice cream master of Fatamorgana, an artisan ice cream parlor in Rome recently awarded with 'three cones' in the Gelaterie d'Italia guide, 2022 edition, by Gambero Rosso.
The dove with ice cream:
it is now almost a classic offered by all the renowned ice cream shops.
The historic Fassi ice cream shop in Rome (a city institution since 1880) prepares the artisan colomba from Forno Roscioli (another famous place) and fills it with almond and chocolate parfait.
Also in Rome at Fatamorgana's, it is filled with gluten-free ice cream, in lemon cream flavors with Thaiti vanilla and pistachio.
The calzone also varies in the special edition 'casatiello' for the week of Easter.
Just conceived by Alessio Muscas, pizza chef from Sbanco (in Rome) who explains: “the ingredients are those of the traditional Easter savory pie, the dough is light, soft but with a crunchy side”.
The calzone-casatiello contains salami, provolone, pecorino, boiled egg, lard and pepper, as required by the Roman Easter tradition.
Vegan Colomba:
The boom of do-it-yourself recipes available online is accompanied by the choices of the most renowned chefs who relaunch them on Instagram.
Like Antonio Cannavacciuolo who on his Intagram profile (@antoniochef) recently proposed the recipe for the 100% vegan version defining it as "completely vegan, without any ingredient of animal origin. Instead, with chocolate and cocoa, I abounded, as usual. The result is a delicious and particularly light dessert ".
Among the alternative ingredients to those of animal origin are margarine, soy milk, extra virgin olive oil, cocoa butter, wheat enzymes and soy lecithin.
Calzone-casatiello
: It is a special edition by Alessio Muscas, pizza chef from Sbanco (in Rome), a well-known pizzeria recently awarded with the three cloves which explains: "the ingredients are those of the traditional Easter savory pie, the dough is light, soft but with a crunchy part ".
The calzone-casatiello contains salami, provolone, pecorino cracklings, hard-boiled egg, lard and pepper, the consistency is crunchy, different from the thin Roman dough as from the high Neapolitan one, while the flours are excellent.
