Casatiello napoletano

Casatiello napoletano is a savoury, oven-baked leavened bread from Neapolitan culinary tradition, with ancient origins. With its rich filling of cheese and cured meats, it's a special recipe that symbolises Easter in Campania.

INGREDIENTS

For the dough:

• 600 g strong (manitoba) flour
• 330 g water
• 25 g fresh yeast
• 140 g lard
• 10 g salt
• pepper

For the filling:

• 50 g salami
• 50 g mortadella
• 50 g cooked ham
• 50 g spicy provolone
• 10 g lard
• pepper
  
  
  Casatiello napoletano is a savoury, oven-baked leavened dish with ancient roots in Neapolitan culinary tradition. With a filling rich in cheese and cured meats, it represents a special recipe that symbolises Easter in Campania. While the name comes from the cheese-based filling, ‘caso’ (cheese in Neapolitan dialect), its shape recalls the symbolism of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. The circular structure represents the crown of thorns and, if decorated with eggs arranged in a cross, symbolises rebirth. Casatiello doesn't follow a single standard recipe, but varies according to the area of Campania and even differs from family to family. This means that during Pasquetta (Easter Monday), you can taste up to ten different variations of casatiello during the same picnic! This particular version of casatiello doesn't contain eggs, but if you'd like to add them, you should place them raw at four well-spaced points on the dough, after careful cleaning, and secure them with a cross of pastry before baking. As well as the savoury version, there's also a sweet variant of casatiello, with sugar icing and ‘diavulilli’ (colourful sugar sprinkles), similar to the Pigna di Pasqua irpina (an Easter cake from the Irpinia area).
  
  HOW TO PREPARE: NEAPOLITAN CASATIELLO1To make Neapolitan casatiello, start by putting the flour, lard, salt and pepper into a bowl, being generous with the pepper. Pour the fresh yeast into water at room temperature and stir until completely dissolved, then add it to the mixture. If you prefer, you can crumble the yeast with your hands directly into the bowl and then add the water. 2Start bringing everything together, working the mixture with the water using your hands. Keep kneading energetically until the dough begins to come together as one. 3Transfer the dough onto a work surface and continue kneading. Once the dough is well developed, that is smooth and elastic, leave it to rise in a bowl, covered with a tea towel or cling film, for at least 6 hours. Even better, leave it overnight, preparing it the day before. 4Cut the cooked ham, salami, mortadella and spicy provolone into small cubes. Once the rising time has passed, take the dough, which will have increased in volume. 5Roll out the risen dough on a work surface with a rolling pin, forming a rectangle about 1 cm thick. Brush the surface with more lard, and fill with the diced cured meats. 6Add the cheese and start rolling up from the longer side of the rectangle. 7You should end up with a sausage-like roll. Seal both ends. Then grease a casatiello tin (a ring cake tin will also work) about 24-26 cm in diameter with lard. 8Transfer the roll into the tin, joining the two ends perfectly together. Leave to rise, covered, for another hour and a half. 9Once the rising time has passed, brush the surface with egg yolk and bake in a preheated oven at 190°C for 30-40 minutes. For perfect baking, use a conventional (static) oven and place the casatiello in the lower-middle part of the oven. Towards the end of cooking, check your savoury bake with a skewer test before taking it out. 10Take the Neapolitan casatiello out of the oven and let it cool in the tin for at least half an hour before turning it out and serving.