No, Naples is not all about pizza and the mafia. Much more important is a (still) little-known culinary delicacy: the so-called sfogliatelle – a delicate pastry specialty with ricotta filling that could compete with the French croissant.
For this you need:
For the dough:
- 500g flour
- 200 ml of lukewarm water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 20 g honey
- Flour for the work surface
For the filling:
- 400 ml of water
- 1 pinch of salt
- 100 g fine semolina
- 140 g ricotta
- 1 egg
- 100 g of sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla flavor
- 1 tbsp red jam
- 1 tbsp chopped chocolate
For the garnish:
That is how it goes:
1.) For the dough, first pour the flour onto your work surface in a cone shape. Then press a hollow in the middle and pour the water into it. Then add the salt and honey.
Knead the ingredients into a smooth dough and shape it into a ball. Wrap these in cling film and put them in the refrigerator for 3 hours.
2.) Now dust your work surface again with a little flour and roll out the dough thinly into a narrow oval. Then roll it up on a cardboard tube. Put the whole thing back in the fridge.
3.) Now carefully roll the dough piece by piece from the cardboard tube, pulling it out a little with your hands and also spreading it evenly with clarified butter. Then roll it back onto the cardboard. This allows the lard to spread out nicely.
Repeat the unrolling, brushing, and rewinding process two more times, each time making the dough a little wider.
Finally, cut the side edges off the rolling pin and let the rolled-up dough cool for 24 hours.
4.) For the filling, first bring the water to the boil and then salt it. Then add the semolina and stir it with a whisk for 5 minutes. Then you let the cooked semolina cool down completely.
Now put the cooled semolina in a bowl and stir it with the ricotta, egg, sugar and vanilla flavor.
Now divide the semolina and ricotta mixture into two portions: mix one with the red jam and the other with the chocolate.
5.) Now cut about 1 cm wide slices from the cooled rolling pin. Each slice is flattened and shaped into a kind of small bowl, which you then fill with the filling. Now fold one side over the other and seal the pastry into a shell-like shape.
6.) Now the sfogliatelle are placed on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and baked in the preheated oven for 30 minutes at 180 ° C in fan-assisted mode.
Before serving, you can dust the pastry with a little icing sugar.
You have to be patient if you want to make the ricotta bags yourself, but it’s worth the wait. It won’t be long before the whole country is in Sfogliatelle fever!
You can find the second recipe here.
