The savory Colomba with peas and mortadella is a delicious rustic dish, easy to make, perfect as an Easter appetizer or for an Easter Monday picnic. An extremely easy recipe that is made simply by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl with a spatula, without needing a stand mixer or other equipment, and it allows us to achieve a very soft, flavor-rich brioche, which we can prepare as an alternative or in addition to traditional Easter cakes like casatiello, tortano, torta pasqualina, or savory babà. We used the base recipe from the savory plumcake with mortadella and peas that we have been making for many years, and it always brings great satisfaction. It’s a very simple dough to prepare by hand without much effort. Just mix all the ingredients, and when they are well combined, pour everything into the mold. In just over an hour, it will have risen enough to be baked, resulting in a fabulous savory Colomba that will delight everyone! We used peas and mortadella as a filling, which has always been a popular combo, but of course, you can fill this Colomba in many ways using vegetables, cheeses, or cold cuts of your choice.
The preparation is very simple: mix the flour with the eggs, softened butter, yeast dissolved in warm milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl. Add the peas, mortadella, and grated Parmesan to the dough and quickly incorporate them. Pour the dough into a Colomba mold and let it rise for about an hour or until it doubles in volume. Bake in a preheated oven at 356°F for about 40 minutes.
Surely this savory Colomba with peas and mortadella is perfect as an appetizer for the Easter table, it’s ideal for the Easter Monday picnic, but it’s great to enjoy at any time of the year, also because this soft and lightly worked dough can be baked in a regular cake, loaf, bundt or muffin pan. You just need to save the savory Colomba recipe and try it as soon as possible!
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- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very economical
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 10
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Easter, Spring
Ingredients to prepare the Savory Colomba
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup milk (warm)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 oz fresh yeast
- nutmeg
- salt
- pepper
- 10 oz peas
- 7 oz mortadella with pistachios
- 1 cup grated Parmesan
Tools to prepare the Savory Colomba
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Oven
- 1 Mold
Steps to prepare the Savory Colomba
To prepare the savory Colomba with peas and mortadella, start by cooking the peas in salted boiling water for 5-6 minutes. Drain them and let them cool completely.
Cut the mortadella into cubes.
Prepare the dough for the savory Colomba by first dissolving the fresh yeast in warm milk.
In a bowl, add the flour and combine the eggs, softened butter at room temperature, and the yeast dissolved in milk.
Mix all the ingredients until they are well combined and you have a smooth and soft dough. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg and mix.
Incorporate the peas, mortadella, and grated Parmesan into the dough and mix quickly.
Pour the dough into a 750 ml Colomba mold and let it rise, covered, for at least an hour or until it has doubled in volume.
Bake the savory Colomba in a preheated oven at 356°F for about 40 minutes, always performing the skewer test to ensure the Colomba is cooked through and not moist inside.
Remove the savory Colomba with peas and mortadella from the oven, let it cool or warm up, and serve.
Simo and Cicci recommend
You can store the savory Colomba for up to 4-5 days at room temperature, well sealed in a food bag or airtight container, or freeze it.
If you don’t have a Colomba mold, you can use the same dough to make a savory cake, a bundt cake, a savory loaf, or alternatively muffins.
You can enrich the base of this savory Colomba with other ingredients or substitute them, for example, by using zucchini, mushrooms, asparagus, olives, cooked ham, speck, salami, or cheeses like provolone, provola, or emmental.
