The casatiello is a traditional Neapolitan preparation typical of the Easter period.
It is a kind of stuffed bread inside, a rustic pie filled with salami and cheese, with the characteristic “caged” eggs on the surface. Its name derives from “caso” meaning cheese. It is the typical picnic lunch for Easter Monday. The eggs trapped by a dough cross on the surface differentiate the Neapolitan casatiello from the tortano, where instead the hard-boiled eggs are part of the rustic filling. The traditional recipe with natural yeast also required 12 hours of leavening, in the following one, the use of brewer’s yeast will shorten the leavening times, simplifying the preparation, without compromising the taste.
Read how to make Neapolitan casatiello with the recipe you find below, as usual, right after the photo 😉
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- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 1 Hour 50 Minutes
- Preparation time: 25 Minutes
- Portions: 8 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Easter
Ingredients
- 4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cups water (lukewarm)
- 1/4 oz instant dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 3 1/3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp lard (+ extra for greasing the dough)
- 4 eggs
- 7 oz salami (diced)
- 5 1/3 oz provola (diced)
- pecorino (grated)
- 1 teaspoon salt
Preparation of Casatiello
Mix the flour with the instant dry yeast and sugar.
In a large bowl, pour the water, extra virgin olive oil, and 2 tablespoons of lard and mix.
Add the salt and then the flour mixture little by little, always stirring to avoid lumps, and when the liquids are absorbed, transfer everything to a work surface.
Knead vigorously until you obtain a smooth and elastic dough, place it in a bowl, make a cross cut on the surface, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap, sealing it at the edges.
Let it rise in a warm place away from drafts for about an hour and a half, until doubled.After the rising time, flour the work surface and roll out the dough, stretching it with your hands, until you form a rectangle.
Fold one-third of the dough from one of the edges towards the center of the dough rectangle, then the other edge over the first, making a “fold” that will strengthen the dough.
Roll out the new rectangle obtained with a rolling pin to a thickness of 1/4 inch, and obtain a new rectangle cutting the edges, keeping the cut strips aside.Grease the surface of the rectangle with lard and sprinkle it with salami and provola.
Cover with a generous sprinkle of grated pecorino and then roll the dough starting from the long side of the rectangle towards the opposite side, obtaining a cylinder that you will place in a 9.5-inch diameter ring mold.Place the raw eggs on the surface (they will cook with the casatiello). Cut smaller strips from those set aside when forming the dough rectangle and arrange them crosswise over the eggs to “bind” them to the dough underneath, wetting them with a little water on the edges to make them adhere.
Let rise covered with a clean cloth for another twenty minutes.
Meanwhile, turn on the oven in fan mode at 340°F and at the end of this second rise, bake your casatiello for forty to forty-five minutes.
Notes
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