Ricotta Pie Esperdy- a Lush and Delicate Easter Dessert

Known to the rest of the world simply as "Ricotta Pie," this luscious milky spring dessert can only ever be called ricotta pie Esperdy in my mind. My friend is fortunate in her culinary heritage- Spain and Italy, this delicious Easter pie I suppose from the latter. Sometime before Good Friday she would come down from the upper West side to visit us in SoHo, this finest pie in an aluminum tin in hand, a surer sign of Easter than even these:

These blossoming branches are in front of my house in Thessaloniki but there was a tree just like this
outside of the Grand Union supermarket on University Place. It was our first sign of spring.

The pie has a mildness that would make it a perfect with lemon zest, or orange, or cinnamon, or shavings of chocolate.... Try to keep it plain. Restraint is rewarded with a pronounced milkiness that is lush and delicate, just like spring.

I've adapted the excellent recipe for European measurements and a local ingredient, keeping I hope the essence of the pie. The pies I knew in New York had a traditional pastry crust, but I think there is some flexibility there- I made a crust much like the dough of my Hamentaschen recipe- making for a happy duo-holiday spring recipe. I also adjusted it for my baking tins, scaling it up a by half to make two quite large pies- tarts really. It's no more work to make two, and it's a shame to keep them to yourself. If my friend had, I'd never have tasted them, and now I cannot imagine Easter without.

These want a hot oven- 200 C/400 F.

For the crust, we will need -

250 g/ 1 generous C butter

120 g/ 2/3 C sugar

1 egg

2 ml/ scant 1/2 tsp. salt

A little vanilla (homemade here)

370 g/ almost 3 C flour

Beat together the sugar and the butter until fluffy. Add the egg, salt, and vanilla and beat again, then gently mix in the flour to make a sticky dough. These tart pans are 24 cm/ 9 1/2"- the dough comes away cleanly from the deep flutes of this pan if you oil it well. Divide the dough and put a half in each pan, pressing it very thinly on the bottom and thickly on the sides- making quite sure there are no cracks for the filling to seep out of. These are custard pies- the filling is liquid when it goes in and the bottom crust remains soft when baked; the ample crusty outer edge more than makes up for it.

For the filling:

700 g/ 24 oz. "Anthotiro" (farmer's cheese), or ricotta

250 g/ 1 1/4 C sugar

pinch salt

vanilla to taste (I used the seeds from one pod)

3 eggs

50 ml/ 3 T cornstarch

360 ml/ 1 1/2 C milk

Beat the cheese and sugar and salt together until fluffy, then add the cornstarch and the eggs, beating until smooth, then adding the milk.

Divide the filling between the tart shells and put them right away in the hot oven. If you have a large oven, place them both on a low rack. Otherwise, switch them top to bottom after about twenty minutes, leaving them in for 40-45 minutes total. A knife put in the filling will just come out clean, and the crust should be a rich golden color. They will be wobbly and puffy when they come out, but will set rather dense and firm, making beautiful slices when chilled. For such a milky dessert we are grateful to the sweet grasses of spring.