Monday, April 08, 2013

An Immovable Feast


Sunday 31 March
We couldn't let Easter pass without a bit of celebration, so we asked Cathy and Eleni over to share the holiday dinner.  Accordingly Holt started baking the day before, since he saw a recipe for one of the hundreds of absolutely traditional torte di pasqua in La Cucina Italiana online.

The torta was made extra-high and filled with whole milk ricotta from Gibb's, their scamorza rather than mortadella, and eggs broken into the filling so they would bake whole inside the torta.
Holt also made a batch of his prize-winning pane pugliese to top with  drained yogurt and smoked salmon, while we drank the effervescent Vinho Verde Cathy brought, and snacked on Dean's Byzantine Antipasto olive mix and wasabi peas.


As soon as the bread came out of the oven, we threw in our late friend Bob's "savory" roasting pan, in which the 7-lb. Schad's half ham braised in a little wine on top of chunks of turnip, carrot, and shallot.  Julia in The Way to Cook actually writes that half hams braise for longer than whole ones, but we suspect that this is one of her rare typos, and 1 1/2 hours was plenty.   Then as soon as the ham came out, a panful of oiled and salted asparagus went in to roast.
We laid out everything on the table, populated for the occasion with bowling bunnies and (thanks to Eleni) a rich Côtes du Rhône standing by for the ham, and as Nadia G. says, we schkoffed.  For a couple of hours. 


Of course, dessert is essential, though it's usually just stale peeps and the tail of a chocolate bunny.  Instead, Holt baked David Warda's pistachio cake, whose cardamom flavor blended beautifully with Graeter's coconut chip ice cream and a few chocolate-covered strawberries.  Couldn't be sweeter, though it added even more pounds we're just going to have to work off in the coming weeks.

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