Pastiera napoletana soup

Pastiera is one of my favourite cakes and one day, when cooking the wheat in the milk, I decided to use beer instead. The result was excellent, in my opinion, and ricotta seemed the right ingredient to balance everything. Moreover, not to give this dessert its classic form, I decided to make a soup out of it. The pearls of pastry, the candied fruit and the cinnamon sauce finally bring all the traditional flavours.

Pastiera napoletana soup, cooked in Birra Moretti La Rossa

Recipe for 10 people

INGREDIENTS
for the pastry
250 g butter
200 g sugar
1 dl eggs
grated citrus
1 vanilla stick
15 g honey
500 g flour

for the cinnamon sauce
500 g water
200 g sugar
30 g cinnamon
3 g xantana

for the liquid pastiera
580 g wheat
250 g Birra Moretti La Rossa
500 g ricotta romana
500 g sugar
1 millefiori vial
1 vanilla stick
200 g milk

METHOD
Prepare a syrup with water and sugar, add the powdered cinnamon and mix with the xantana. Leave to cool and put into a sauce bottle until needed. Cook the wheat in the beer in a vacuum pack with some water at 70°C for 24 hours. At the end of the cooking, leave to cool and mix with the other ingredients in a jug, including the wheat with the beer. Blend all the ingredients in a Thermomix at the highest speed for 5 minutes.

For the pastry pearls, make a flour well and put the butter mixed with the sugar and honey in the centre. Gradually add the eggs, the yeast, the grated citrus fruits. Knead until you obtain a smooth dough. Wrap it with cling film and keep it in the fridge for half an hour. Create some small pearls and put them into a baking tin covered in baking paper. Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes. Place the cream of pastiera with beer on the base of a dish, add the pastry pearls, the candied fruit and finish with the cinnamon sauce and some powdered sugar.