THE GRUB REPORT: Ingredient of the week: Ricotta cheese

This week's choice was actually inspired by my last pie escapade.

(I had enough crust dough for two pies, so a few days later I made one of my favorites, the one that the pie crust recipe I used actually goes with.)

Ricotta cheese shows up in many Italian favorites of mine. Manicotti. Ravioli. Lasagna. Cannoli.

And it played a supporting role in an the Ingredient of the Week recipe for fresh figs a few weeks ago.

It's a very flexible ingredient that pairs well with many different flavors, savory and sweet. But it is the star of the show in this week's recipe, Ricotta Pie.

Oddly enough, this dish was added to my repertoire after being mentioned on The Sopranos many years back.

Ricotta Pie (prounounced ri-goat, apparently, by authentic, or psuedo-authentic, Italian-Americans) was one of the standard features in the family's -- or is that Family's -- menu. So we decided to make one of our own. From the first bite, it became one of my favorites.
It has tinges of the familiar cheesecake taste, but with a decidedly different texture, far less creamy. And it just tiptoes onto the sweet side, like its cousin the cannoli, another ricotta-based pastry. The original recipe I found (and as usual have forgotten exactly where) had chocolate shavings included in the filling, but we've since opted to forego those, finding they didn't add much to the final product.

The crust is one of the more unusual I've made. It's very tender, to the point that you have to take great care when transferring it to your pie plate. But the result is a subtly sweet crust much more like a crisp, delicate pastry than the solid crunch of a typical pie crust.

Here's the recipe:

Ricotta Pie

Ingredients
(Crust)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
(Filling)
1 1/2 pounds ricotta cheese
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

5 eggs beaten

Directions
(Crust)
Place flour in large bowl. Cut shortening into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix in the one beaten egg, milk and vanilla extract, stirring just until combined and dough forms a ball. Separate 1/3 of the dough.

On well-floured surface, roll out bigger portion into a 12-inch circle; transfer carefully to 9-inch pie pan. (I've found that the usual method of rolling the dough onto the rolling pin to transfer to the pan does not work well with this fragile dough. I fold the circil in half, then in half again and transfer to the pan, then unfold.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Retrieve smaller portion of dough from refrigerator, and roll into a rectangle. Cut into strips, and reserve for top of pie.

(Filling)
In a large bowl, mix ricotta, sugar, salt and five beaten eggs. Spoon or pour into pie shell. Use strips to form a lattice on top.

Bake in preheated oven for 90 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the filling comes out clean.

Cool before serving, and keep leftovers refrigerated.

Originally posted to The Grub Report by Patricia Gibson on September 9, 2007 07:55 PM