Pastiera Cilento style
Antonietta 06/02/2021This recipe was given to me by an elderly woman from Palinuro (Salerno) whom I sincerely thank her. The particular and different from the usual ingredients are: dried white figs from Cilento, sheep’s milk ricotta and lemons from Cilento which are very difficult finding. I hope you will understand everything I wrote here and in the subtitle, my English is not very good but I’ve done my best, so enjoy and have fun.
We needed:
- 370 grams of sugar,
- seven egg whites,
- seven egg yolks,
- 500 g of sheep’s milk ricotta,
- 80 g of butter,
- 5 or 6 dried white figs from Cilento,
- 2 lemons del Cilento,
- 150 g of rice,
- 500 milliliters of milk,
- a pinch of salt,
- 2 tablespoons of vanilla extracte,
- powered sugar to decorate,
Shortcrust pastry
- 500 grams of shortcrust pastry made with:
- 350 g of flour 00,
- 100 g of sugar,
- 120 g of soft butter,
- 1 egg,
- 2 or 3 tablespoons of warm water.
Direction:
pour the milk into a pot and bring to a boil, with a pinch of salt, also add 20 grams of sugar (a tablespoon more or less), pour the rice when the milk starts to boil, stir often and cook the rice al dente or in any case 1 minute less than recommended on the package. 
When the rice is ready, stir in 80 g of butter and add the vanilla extract then mix well and let cool. 
Meanwhile cut 5 or 6 dried figs into small pieces by removing the stalk,
take the zest of 2 lemons with a very sharp knife and the juice of 1 lemon.
Pour the lemon juice into a pot and also pour the zest, add 50 g of sugar and caramelize all over low heat, remove from the heat when you see the sugar bubbles then add to the cooled rice and mix all togheter until they are well distributed, at last add the pieces of dried figs, and mix well. 
Separate the yolks from the whites and whip the egg whites for 3 or 4 minutes, until they must be frothy and add about 100 grams of sugar to the whipped egg whites and continue whipping for another minute, then whip the yolks with the remaining sugar until they will be frothy and clear. 
Pour the rice into the whipped egg whites and mix gently, also add the ricotta cheese and finally add the whipped egg yolks and mix well until everything is perfectly creamy. In the meantime, prepare the shortcrust pastry (mixing all ingredients) and divide it into 2 pieces (40% and 60%) let it cool in the fridge for 15 minutes, and turn on the oven (170°C).
Then grease the springform pan with butter, lay the parchment paper on the bottom, roll out the shortcrust pastry (60%) and place it on the springform pan, prick it with the prongs of the fork, at last mix the pastry and pour onto it.
Roll out the other shortcrust pastry and cut out strips then decorate the Pastiera with the shortcrust pastry strips forming a kind of shortcrust pastry grid.
Then put the Pastiera in a hot oven (170°C) and let it cook for about 60 minutes – 75 minutes, until the surface of the Pastiera is golden.
When the time is right, turn off the oven and let it leave for another 15 minutes with the door open, then take the cake out and let it cool, so you can cut a slice to eat. If you want you can add some powdered sugar to decorate.
