Cuccia of Saint Lucy, an original Sicilian recipe with ricotta and cooked wheat. Sicilian cuisine with its grandmother’s recipes is rich in traditional desserts and, above all, in ricotta-based sweets, often tied to the year’s most important celebrations, as in the case of the cassata or the cannolo, and other times connected only to culinary tradition, like Sicilian Cartocci or Iris.

The sweet cuccia with ricotta is a dessert connected to the Christmas period, specifically December 13, the day of Saint Lucy, and it is a traditional spoon dessert typical of western Sicily. Legend has it that in the mid-1600s Palermo was struck by a severe famine; people were dying of hunger and prayed for the heavens to provide food. It was so that on December 13, Saint Lucy’s day, a ship loaded with wheat arrived on the coast and people, unable or unwilling to wait for milling, began to cook it, enriching it with ricotta, honey, milk, candied fruit, cinnamon, cooked wine and everything they had available. Since then, by tradition, during the Feast of Saint Lucy bread and pasta are not eaten and only cuccia and arancine are consumed. In reality the authorship of the Cuccia of Saint Lucy is controversial; another legend tells that Syracuse in the mid-1700s suffered a severe famine and the arrival in that case, too, of a ship loaded with wheat on Saint Lucy’s day answered the prayers of hungry people, who did not wait to mill the grain but cooked it as it was, seasoning it only with salt and oil. Whatever the truth about the origins of Sicilian cuccia with ricotta, we know it is a creamy spoon dessert with a refined and delicate flavor that contains all the aromas of Sicilian tradition, a dessert good not only on Saint Lucy’s day but all year round, and you can also make it with precooked wheat.

Curious? Let’s head to the kitchen and discover how to make Cuccia of Saint Lucy. If you want to stay updated on my recipes, follow me on my Facebook page (here) and my Instagram profile (here)!

Also check these Sicilian recipes linked to the Christmas festivities:

Difficulty: Very easy
Cost: Very inexpensive
Preparation time: 20 Minutes
Cooking methods: No-cook
Cuisine: Italian

Ingredients

2 cups cooked wheat
2 cups sheep ricotta (dry and well drained)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
to taste orange zest
2 oz dark chocolate chips
1/3 cup candied fruit (mixed, candied melon or orange peel)
to taste chopped pistachios

Tools to make Cuccia of Saint Lucy

1 Bowl
1 Sieve

How to prepare Cuccia of Saint Lucy

You can prepare Cuccia with precooked wheat or cook the wheat yourself. I prefer the first option, which is very practical and quick, but if you want to cook the wheat yourself, plan at least 4 days ahead, because the wheat will need three days of soaking and frequent rinses. After these three days, rinse it thoroughly under running water, collect it in a large pot, add water equal to 5 times its weight and let it simmer for three hours or until the kernels are soft. Turn off the heat and let the wheat cool in its cooking water. If you have a pressure cooker, you can cook it for about 50 minutes, but wheat produces a lot of foam and from time to time, after letting the pressure release, you will need to stop cooking and clean the lid. Keep in mind that raw wheat almost triples its weight when cooked.
Once the wheat has cooled you can assemble the cuccia.
Drain the wheat and set it aside, then pass the sheep ricotta through a fine-mesh sieve several times so that it is dry and well drained. Then add the cinnamon, sugar, candied fruit, orange zest, chocolate chips and orange zest. Mix everything very well.
At this point add the wheat and stir. Fill your individual serving glasses and garnish with candied fruit or orange zest and chopped pistachios.
Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 24 hours.