A delicate pastry enfolds a mixture of eggs and spinach for a delicious hors d’oeuvre in Uruguay. “Pascua” means “Easter”

Torta pascualina is a traditional Easter dish of Italian origin. This delicious spinach and ricotta pie comes from the region of Liguria, in the north of Italy, where it can be traced back to the 1400’s or fifteenth century .

Imported into Argentina and Uruguay by Italian immigrants during the great immigration wave of the early twentieth century, torta pascualina is now part of the culinary heritage.

Torta pascualina is traditionally associated with the Easter holiday for several reasons. First, because it does not contain meat, it is often prepared during Lent. The eggs it contains are also, in the Christian tradition, one of the symbols of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some even see in the dough a reference to the passion of Jesus, since the phyllo dough version of pascualina is supposed to include thirty-three layers of dough, in reference to the age of the latter at the time of his death. Not all the pascualina recipes require phyllo dough, and some recipes use hard boil the eggs, while others incorporate the eggs raw to cook inside the pie. Some recipes use Swiss chard while others use spinach or a mixture of both. You can make it round like a typical pie shape or use a long rectangular pan, or even make individual tarts. You can serve it warm, or cold, and slice it as a pie or cut it in small squares for appetizers, the choice is yours. No matter how you eat it, you will love it!

When Paul McCartney ( a vegetarian) visited Montevideo, Uruguay in April 2012 and he fell in love with this pie. I hope you do too!

I am going to share with you my mom’s recipe. She didn’t use phyllo pastry but instead she made her own dough. Of course, if you don’t like to play with dough you could buy 2 already made pie crusts, but there is no comparison to the real home-made version which is always a great hit with guests!

Ingredients for the spinach filling:

I use 3 frozen spinach packages of 300 grams each (or 10 oz), you can also use 2 lbs of fresh spinach boiled or blanched and drained (totally squeeze all the water out) to make an amount of about 3 cups of cooked and drained spinach.
1 chopped onion
2 or 3 cloves of garlic chopped
12 pitted olives sliced (optional but a great addition to the flavor) You can also used the stuffed olives with red peppers.
1 roasted red pepper chopped thinly (optional but again, it goes great with this mixture)
1/2 a teaspoon (or a bit more depending on your taste) of nutmeg
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes if you like some heat (optional)
1 cup of ricotta cheese
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese (I sometimes use grated tex-mex blend of cheeses)
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese
2 eggs for the mixture
4 hard boiled eggs for the pie (optional) or more depending on the size of the pan
1 egg for the egg wash on the dough
some regular sugar to sprinkle all over the pie (about 1 table spoon) This gives the pie a delicious sweet tickle which beautifully compliments the savory filling.

Directions:

Saute the garlic and onion until soft and slightly golden in 2 to 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (I use grape seed oil). If you use a non-stick pan you need less oil.
Add the spinach and the roasted red pepper and cook for another couple of minutes. Season with nutmeg, salt & pepper, and red pepper flakes (optional)
Remove from heat and let this mixture cool completely.
Once the mixture totally cold, add the ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese with the 2 raw eggs, mix thoroughly and set aside.

Ingredients for the dough:

2 cups of all purpose flour
(some recipes use 2/3 cup of butter but I prefer to use olive oil instead) 50 ml or 1.7 oz of olive oil
1 cup of very cold water
1 teaspoon of salt

Directions:

Mix the flour with the salt and add the olive oil, once it’s blended add gradually the cold water until you get a nice doughy consistency. Then with your hands work it into a ball and dive it in 2 smaller balls , warp each one individually with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge to rest for 1/2 hour.
Then preheat the oven at 180 degrees C or 350 Fahrenheit.
Prepare the baking pan with a cover of oil and flour
Take the dough from the refrigerator and stretch it with a roller pin, flouring as needed so it does not stick to the pin and make it bigger than the size of the pan and let the dough drape over the pan.
Add the spinach and ricotta mixture.
With a spoon make 4 little dips in the spinach mixture and add 4 raw eggs (some recipe use hard boiled eggs but here we will let the eggs cook with the pie). Add a pinch of salt on each raw egg. (If you don’t like hard boiled eggs you can skip this and just make it a spinach pie)

Then add the top dough layer and pinch the edges together to seal the pie.
With a fork pick several holes on the dough to allow the steam to vent out when cooking.
Beat and egg and add a bit of water to brush the whole top of the pie with the egg wash.
Get some regular sugar and lightly sprinkle with the help of a small strainer a thin layer of sugar all over the egg wash.
Bake for about 50 minutes to 1 hour until starts to get a beautiful golden brown color.
Remove from the oven and let it cool for about 30 minutes (if you can wait that long!
Enjoy and let me know your comments!