Easter-egg bread at Rocco’s Pastry Shop on Bleecker Street.
Recipe:
Asparagus with Warm Orange Oil
Easter for the lapsed Catholic is a hollow affair. If it weren’t for the huge amounts of food and chocolate bunnies, tons of relatives and friends, prosecco, and Chianti, it would be meaningless. Even when I was a child, it was all about the pizza rustica and the Rodda Peeps (I lapsed at a young age). I’m pretty confident in my lack of faith, but somehow Easter has a way of making me feel ever so slightly guilty, and gluttonous. And why is it that the weather is almost always cold, damp, and irritating, not the wacky bonnet, daffodils, white-patten-pumps sunshine it’s supposed to be? But on the other hand if I focus on the original, pagan meaning of the occasion, the rebirth of the earth, I can give early thanks for the upcoming local harvest and the beautiful ramps, asparagus, watercress, and strawberries that will soon be filling the stalls at the Union Square Greenmarket. In honor of my expectations, here’s a recipe for asparagus that will go very nicely with an Easter lamb dish or a pork loin (which is what my mother’s making) or a slow roasted side of salmon.
I’m also going to bake up a pastiera, the orange-flower-fragrant, wheat-berry-studded ricotta cheesecake that is a Neapolitan Easter specialty. I love this cake with a passion some people reserve only for their savior, and the good thing about it is that it’s so rich, so exotically flavor-packed, that I’m satisfied with a fairly small piece. I haven’t given you a recipe here because I usually just wing it, but I did recently find a good one, with all the right stuff in it (though maybe a little heavy on the candied fruit), at italianfood.about.com. It’s called Aironeverde’s Pastiera Napoletana. If you feel you need to stick to your diet during Easter, so as not to break the momentum, just make the asparagus. It’s delicious, and a beautiful harbinger of spring.
A word about the Easter-egg bread in the photo above: I’ve eaten these things every Easter for as long as I can remember. Every Italian pastry shop sells them, and some families make their own. Someone always drops one off at our house. It’s a ring pastry made from sweet yeast dough, usually braided, cradling day-glo eggs baked right into the dough. One thing I’ve never known was the actual Italian name for the thing. We always called it simply Easter bread. Every Italian-American I know calls it that. I phoned around to several Italian pastry shops, including Rocco’s, where I took the photo, but nobody could tell me an Italian name for it. When I Googled it, mostly it was referred to as Italian Easter Bread, but I did come across a little conversation about it on Chowhound.com where readers offered several names, among them pupacu ‘l’ova (that would be the Sicilian version), pina, and booba glove or buba glove, which may somehow be an Italian-American pronunciation of pupacu ‘l’ova. I always assumed it was a Neapolitan creation, but I suppose it’s Sicilian as well. If anyone out there knows the real Italian name for this funky pastry, I’d love to hear it. Thanks.
Asparagus with Warm Orange Oil
(Serves 4)
For the orange oil:
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
The grated zest from 2 large oranges
The juice from 1 small lemon
A small palmful of fennel seeds
1 garlic clove, peeled and lightly crushed
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A generous pinch of Aleppo pepper or a smaller pinch of cayenneFor the asparagus:
2 bunches medium thick asparagus, the tough ends trimmed and the stalks peeled
1 small orange, cut into thin half moons
A handful of small black olives (Niçoise are perfect)
A few large sprigs of fresh tarragon, the leaves lightly chopped
Place all the ingredients for the orange oil in a small saucepot over medium heat, and bring to a low boil. Turn the heat to low, and let simmer for about 2 minutes, making sure the garlic doesn’t get dark. Turn off the heat, and let the oil sit on the stove (this will allow the flavors to continue to gently mingle).
Set up a large pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Drop in the asparagus, and boil it until just tender, about 4 minutes, but that will depend on the spears’ thickness. Scoop it from the water with a large strainer spoon, and place on paper towels to soak up water. Arrange the asparagus on a pretty serving platter, and season it with a little salt and black pepper.
Reheat the orange oil gently, and then pour it through a strainer into a small bowl. Pour the oil over the asparagus, tossing it around a bit with your fingers to coat it well with the oil. Arrange the orange pieces around the asparagus, and scatter on the olives. Garnish with the chopped tarragon. Serve right away.
Erica De Mane 
[…] the original post here: To Hell with the Diet. Happy Easter. […]
The Easter Egg Bread Ring has been a tradition in my house since I came across the recipe/picture in Good Housekeeping magazine over 25 years ago. My mom was so surprised to see it, b/c she had forgotten the recipe. It brought back many childhood memories for her. As she and I baked the bread, she told me so many memories she had as a child. We shared an extraordinary holiday that year. Unfortunately, she passed away that July. As the story continues, when my son was to receive his First Communion a few years later, all the parents had to attend religious sessions. We viewed a film on the meaning of traditions, and lo and behold it was the story of an Italian family who bypassed the Easter Egg bread tradition. I had tears streaming from my face. A part of the story told the meanings of each of the eggs, but I never was able to absorb that information while crying that hard. My son, said MOM, that is the bread Grandma taught you about. He just climbed in my lap and cried along with me. Can anyone tell me the meanings of the eggs?
Hello Ann,
I wish I did know the meaning of the eggs in this Easter bread. Aside from the traditional Christian meaning that eggs have as a symbol of new life and the end the of privations of lent, I just haven’t been able to track this down. I hope one of my readers will write in with some history.
Happy Easter to you.
Erica
Hi Erika,
Not to get all pointy-headed here, BUT easter eggs originated with the Hebrew Passover, which is what early Christians celebrated. (They did not, it seems, celebrate Easter at all). The Passover Seder, includes “Beitzah”, meaning a hard-boiled or roasted egg in Hebrew, symbolizing Springtime, when the Passover story took place.
As for coloring them – conspiracy theorists on the far far floopy-bible toting “christian” right suggest sinister influences from the Egyptians, who colored eggs as sacrificial offerings to their gods at the onset of spring. Hey – maybe so – but remember that Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox – so – hmm – Happy Festival of Ra the Sun God to you!
Curtissimo,
It is true that the celebration of eggs dates back to pre-Christian rituals, but what Ann wants to know is the meaning for each individual egg baked into this particular Sicilian Easter bread, so if you or any of my readers can track down the answer to that, I’m sure she will be extremely grateful.
Erica
Erica,
Thank you for your reply. I baked the bread once again this Easter Holiday. It never fails that a visitor to my home is amazed how special the bread looks and esp. how it taste. One day I will find out the meaning of the eggs–my parish priest who is Italian and his mom makes the bread–did not know. I have my own special story to relate to this bread–how special the Easter holiday was 25 years or so ago, when my mom and I laughed and told stories while spending endless hours in the kitchen preparing for the upcoming holiday. Hopefully, that tradition will be continued when I become a Grandmother.
Best wishes
ann
Hi Erica, turns out I have been looking for that repie forever now, my dad used to bake the easter bread and I haven’t been able to find the recipe, which is driving me crazy I just would love to bake it for my nieces so they can have that easter flavour my sister and me were so fond of.
Do you think you could e mail it to me Thank you so much
Hi Andrea,
The truth is I’ve never actually made this bread, we just bought them. I don’t have a recipe at hand, but I think I know where to track down a good one. When I get it together, I’ll send it over to you.
Happy spring cooking.
Best,
Erica
Buba cu l’Uova ….My mother always called them this, and all my life, people have looked at me like I was crazy…but this is the name. Ours were more like small pastries, a little dryer and firmer than a bread, and sometimes sprinkled with sugar before baking. We have also always made pignolata for Christmas, which some people call struffoli.
Hi Cathy,
I have learned that the real name for this Easter egg pastry, which comes from Puglia, is scarcella. I never heard that word when I was a kid and everyone I knew just called it Easter bread. Personally I like buba cu l’uova better.
Happy Easter.
Erica
We make it without the eggs on top and it’s casatiello dolce. We just call it “gazadille”. Happy Easter.