I am from a small town close to Naples and the Easter menu in family is similarto the Neapolitan’s Easter lunch but also a bit different. The typical Neapolitan Easter lunch is less rich than the Christmas lunch, but it still has a very rich menu, in fact in Naples festivities have always been characterized by “abbuffate” (binges” in English).
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ANTIPASTO: We start our lunch with Antipasto (Italian for starter). “Fellata” is the traditional antipasto for Easter lunch. “Fellata” means “sliced” and it consists of a platter of sliced (“fella” in Neapolitan dialect) cured meat such as prosciutto, salami, capocollo, but also cheese (fresh ricotta, buffalo mozzarella, ricotta salata) and eggs. Fellata is sometimes served with tortano, casatiello salato o pizza rustica (that are all a kind of stuffed bread). This year my fellata included freshly cut sopressata, prosciutto, cherry pepper stuffed with goat cheese with truffle and artichoke hearts.
PRIMO PIATTO: In Naples, Fellata is followed by minestra maritata (Italian wedding soup) but in my town Primo piatto is usually lasagna, risotto or tagliatelle with mushrooms. This year I prepared a sauce with a mix of wild mushrooms (yellow and cinnabar chanterelles and black trumpets) and Italian sausage to season eggless tagliatelle. I then topped it up with freshly sliced truffle.
SECONDO PIATTO: In Naples the main dish (secondo piatto) must be lamb (or young goat) and this tradition come from the Jewish Pesach. Lamb is either baked with potatoes or stewed with peas. My family and I love barbecue and for this reason we barbecue our lamb (this is my family’s tradition). Like every year, I followed my mum’s recipe and I marinated overnight the lamb in a mix of white wine, salt, pepper, rosemary, bay leave and onion. Then I pat dry before start to barbecue it over medium heat (because lamb is pretty fat, if the bbq is too hot, the surface of the lamb will burn). I served the lamb with roasted potatoes (seasoned with rosemary, pepper, salt and extra virgin olive oil) and mix greens.
In my family, it is not a real Easter lunch if we don’t have at least one artichoke each. Italian artichokes are smaller than Americans and for the Easter lunch we do barbecue them. My mum also makes stewed artichokes. This year I found the largest artichokes I have ever seen, and therefore I decided to stew them (each artichoke alone was a good meal).
DOLCE: The queen of Easter lunch is “pastiera”. In Naples “pastiera di grano” (a cheesecake made with ricotta and wheat germ) is the most popular, while in my town we also have “pastiera di riso” (pie stuffed with rice) or “pastiera di tagliolini” (pie stuffed with pasta). In addition, in my town we also make “casatiello dolce” that is a very aromatic yeast cake. This year I decided to not bake any traditional pie and instead I bought colomba (dove in English). Colomba is a cake popular e bit everywhere is Italy and it symbolizes peace.
After my light lunch I needed a nap. I hope you enjoyed discovering about Italian traditions for Easter! HAPPY EASTER