The "Pastiera napoletana"

Today is Palm Sunday and I have celebrated it preparing the
"Pastiera napoletana".
Eggs and wheat berries are the key ingredients of this Easter
recipe, because they represent the beginning of life so they
are also symbolic of resurrection.
I started preparing the pastry, that is very similar to the one
I make for the crostata, only difference is: more eggs!
Then I prepared the filling mixing the grains with ricotta and
eggs. Usually it takes a long time because you have to cook the
wheat berries first, but this time I was lucky enough to find
them pre-cooked at an Italian gourmet shop close to my house.
If you leave outside Italy and in an area where there are not
too many Italian products available then you have to prepare
the wheat in this way:
soak overnight 450 grams of dry wheat berries in water , then drain
and cook them covered with water till soft (45 minutes).
Drain excess water and let them boil in 1/2 cup of warm milk for 5
minutes or till milk is absorbed. Cool it down.

Following you will find the full recipe!

PASTIERA NAPOLETANA

Ingredients for pastry
(it's enough for 2 big pies):
3 sticks of unsalted butter (400 gr)
800 gr flour
4 yolks + 2 eggs
2 TBS liquor (Martini)
2 TBS water
peel of 1 lemon

Ingredients for filling:
1 1/2 pound of ricotta (750 gr)
1 tin of pre-cooked wheat
(or 450 gr of dry one to be cooked)
1/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
peel of 1 lemon
half candied citron (or candied lemon peel)

To prepare pastry, dispose flour on a wooden board, make a hole in the middle,
add sugar, eggs, water, liquor and lemon peel and start mixing taking in little
by little some flour.
Add butter at room temperature and mix with the rest of flour in order to form
an homogeneous dough.
Cut dough in two parts, cover with cling paper and let it rest in fridge for
30 minutes.
To prepare filling, boil cooked grains in milk for 5 minutes (if you have
cooked grains at home you can skip this step). Transfer grains in a bowl and
cool them down.
In another bowl mix ricotta with sugar, egg yolks, lemon peel and candied citron.
Whip egg whites to transform them in soft peaks.
Mix well wheat berries with ricotta mixture, then fold in the egg whites little by
little.
Prepare pastry flattening dough with a rolling pin.
Butter a round baking tin and add in pastry. Fill pastry with half filling, then
on top form a grid with thin dough stripes.

Bake "pastiera" in oven at 375 F (or 200 C) for 1 hour. If top it's not brown yet
leave it for other 15 minutes.

Serve it cold with a sprinkle of powder sugar!