Recipes: Pascualina

The Netherlands doesn’t have many of our cherished recipes from Uruguay, so I have to cook them myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Some substitutions might become necessary as we can’t find the same ingredients. It takes some iterations to make the recipe come out really great and that’s what I’m publishing! Today we are going to learn how to cook an awesome pascualina in the Netherlands.

Regarding recipes in general: of course you can find many pascualina recipes online. My version has a few advantages: no ads, cookies or other annoying popups; no storytelling; and specific products to use that are available in the Netherlands.

Ingredients and utensils

Important: These ingredients are for a round quiche pan with a 27 cm diameter.

• Fresh spinach, 800 g (this is a substitution because chard is very hard to find here).
• Chili flakes, 4 tea spoons. These are awesome and what I use. You could substitute this with fresh red bell pepper or whichever type of pepper you like more, but be mindful that this is just to add a bit of spike to the taste, the pascualina should not taste spicy at all.
• Salt, 4 tea spoons.
• Ground nutmeg, 4 tea spoons (optional).
• Eggs, 9.
• Ricotta, 250 g. I like this one.
• Shredded mozzarella, 150 g (probably optional).
• Pascualina is a tart, so you need dough. I use two of this one (make sure to get the round one). The size is perfect for the pan I have. Keep it in the fridge until you will use it, it’s easier to use if it is very cold.
• Some cooking oil
• Shallot, 4 small ones, finely minced. You could also use 1 large onion instead.
• You will need a large frying pan and a large bowl.

Steps

1. Assuming your oven takes a while to heat up, get it running to 220 celsius.
2. We need 6 boiled eggs. It takes some time, so you might want to get it started at this point. I assume you know how to boil eggs :).
3. Cooking the spinach: I recommend to do this in 4 batches, so you will do the following four times:
   1. Heat up some oil in your pan
   2. Fry 1 shallot portion for a minute, then add 200 g. of spinach plus 1 teaspoon of chili flakes, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tea spoon of nutmeg. If you are using fresh pepper or chili, then fry it with the shallots as well.
   3. Give it time and cook the spinach evenly until it loses all its water and becomes a shriveled green mass, much much smaller in volume than the original fresh spinach; then put it in the bowl.
4. Once all your spinach is cooked and in the bowl, add the following ingredients to the bowl:
   1. All the ricotta and shredded mozzarella
   2. 3 eggs
5. Mix everything in the bowl thoroughly until it becomes a homogeneous paste.
6. Put the first round dough on the quiche pan.
7. Cut your 6 boiled eggs in half, longidutinally, then place the flat side of the halves directly on top of the dough, evenly distributed in a circle, about 2 cm from the edge of the pan (see helpful diagram).
8. Pour the spinach + egg + cheese paste on top of the eggs and distribute it evenly. Try to not push the eggs around while doing that.
9. Cover with the second dough. Roll the edge of the two dough pieces together around the pie, so it will remain closed when baking it.
10. Bake until well cooked. I assume you know how not to burn a pie in your oven.
11. Let it cool down.

The final product:

Serve

Pascualina is best eaten at room temperature so you will want to prepare it a few hours in advance of eating.

I like to cut it in 5 cm squares and bring it to the table in large platters so people can see the eggs inside.

Hope you like it!