Harry’s Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pie
©2008 Harry Kenney
How I came up with this dish has an odd little road to it. A couple months ago I had friends coming over for a get together and I had my cooking itineary planned, complete with an Italian dessert. No, not one of my own. I do do other people’s recipes at times too. Sometimes I make so many changes that they end up turning into something different and my own, but this was one of those times I was going to pretty much go along with the recipe I had. (At least that had been the initial plan.)
Listen up, this will teach you the value of reading something first, and all the way through and thoroughly. I was going to make this chocolate ricotta dessert (forget what, maybe was a cake, I seem to think it was going to be one of those custard things in ramekins. I had read the recipe throught and even did the two hour prep (again this was a while back, Iwrote down the recipe, but I didn’t write down this story, so bear with my fuzzy memory.)
The important thing was, I never apparently read to the bottom of the recipe. (There’s a lesson in there for both me and you!) It said now chill for six hours in the fridge. I could scream. I knew the cooking was to take an hour, the prep two hours, but now if I went ahead the stupid dessert wouldn’t be ready for six hours? Damn I was annoyed at myself. And a tad frantic. The plan was dinner was to be served in an hour and a half, and dessert needed to be ready in two. No time to run the market or the bakery. So I rushed up to my computer and started searching for “chocolate” and “ricotta” everywhere, and looking for something that would be servable in two hours. In short I found an Emeril recipe for Italian Easter Pie that met my criteria and looked delicious and set on that.
When I printed it out and took it downstairs though, I did what I hadn’t expected at the time doing … changing things around. I didn’t like this. I liked that. He had a flour pie from scratch. This I could have done as I had two premade pie crusts in the refrigerator. I didn’t like that it was a normal crust. I also didn’t like that it was two, one on bottom, then a second one making it a covered pie. I knew I also had in the cupboard a premade shortbread and another chocolate crust. Hey, nothing like chocolate in the filling and as the crust I thought.
It was after Thanksgiving and I had sweetened dried cranberries lefover. I knew from past experience this would not only go very well with the other ingredients but would give it a totally new dimension. Long story short, by the time I was done, the look and the taste were so very different from the original that this very much became my own version. As said, that was two or three months ago. I didn’t take photos of what I was doing as it wasn’t originally going to be my recipe but someone elses. I did write down my new recipe afterwards, but no photos. Ah well, it was a great pie, and I knew I would do it again and take the pics at that time. Which I just did.
Ok, so this came from a mistake I made misreading the initial recipe. And then changing around Emeril’s. Thing is, when doing my research for this recipe here, the background, it seems another mistake was made by Emeril. I wanted to see what was the deal with this Easter Pie concept. So I looked around the web and the first thing I came across was how this was supposed to be a savory, not a sweet pie, in Italy. Huh? Seems after the old conservative Catholic fasting of meat during Lent, the idea was to make a cheese and meat pie. Ok, that made sense. But still could the big E get this wrong or what? There must be sweet variations too.
More digging around and nope, couldn’t find any. So I went to see if the three most famous Italian chefs in America had versions of this and were they sweet or savory; all three, Mario Batali, Giada De Laurentiis amd Lidia Bastianich, had only savory versions of Easter Pies. Yep, other than Emeril’s there wasn’t a single sweet one to be found anywhere. Hmm. So, no idea where he got the idea from, but, that said, it doesn’t matter. I’m not calling this any kind of holiday pie, I’m just calling this what it is, which is delicious!
Whatever the case then, a big tip of the hat to Chef Lagasse for the inspiration and for “version 1.0″ of this dish. And to you folks, I think you will love this “version 2.0″ emmensly. For now, I’m leaving it with the store bought crust in the recipe but I’ll make a version 2.1 at some point and tell you how to make the pie crust from scratch at some point, til then enjoy. I am 100% once you’ve made this pie, you will make it over and over again as one of your favorites.
Harry’s Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pie
©2008 Harry Kenney1 premade 9-inch chocolate pie crust
1-1/2 lbs ricotta cheese, drained well
3/4 cup sugar
5 large eggs
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup shaved almonds
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salteggwash (one egg and two tbsps water)
Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly brush eggwash over premade pie shell and place in oven for five minutes. Remove and let cool.
In the bowl of an electric mixer (note I used my handheld for this, but you can use your big stand mixer if you wish), beat the ricotta cheese with the sugar until combined; this should take 3-4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, approximately another 2 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix in for anoterh 2 minutes. Pour into pie shell.
Place pie on baking sheet (optional). Bake until golden brown, roughly 50 minutes. Let cool on counter for 10 minutes, then place in refrigerator (suggest atop a diviot) and allow to get firm for at minumum 60 minutes, and preferrably 90-120 minutes. Serve. Makes 6-8 slices.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Nomally I love to eat bluberry cheese pie but I never heard Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pie before and never taste it.Thank you for your sharing.
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