I want to start with an example of the diversity of Italian cooking from region to region and town [...]]]>

It’s Easter weekend and that means there’s lots of Italian treats around. One of my favorites is fraguni. We made our fraguni yesterday, so I wanted to share the recipe and some photos with you.

I want to start with an example of the diversity of Italian cooking from region to region and town to town. My parents grew up about 5 miles apart in Calabria and in my dad’s family, “i fraguni” were made mostly with ricotta and sugar as a dessert, whereas in my mother’s family, they were made mostly of potatoes and salty ingredients. I haven’t tried the ricotta/sugar fraguni as my mother is the one that has always made them in our family (dad’s the sopressata guy) but I’m sure they are equally as good.

We made 40-50 fraguni yesterday and this is the ingredients we used:

For the filling:

• 8 lb of Russet potatoes
• 3 lb of ricotta
• 1.5 lb of sopressata and/or cooked ham (we used both)
• 5 hard boiled eggs diced
• 4 raw eggs
• 1 cup of grated parmigiano
• 3 cups of shredded mozzarella
• 2 tablespoons of salt

Dough for the Crust:

• 5 lb bag of all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup of oil
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• 2 cups of milk
• 1.5 quarts of water

We start by making the filling: Boil your potatoes with the skin still intact (do not peel them) until fully cooked. The reason you want to boil them with the skin is that you want the potatoes to be dry. The skin helps prevent the potatoes from absorbing water. Once the potatoes are fully cooked, then you will need to peel them. This can easily be done with your hands (I use the word “easily” loosely:)

Crush or mash the potatoes in a large bowl: We use a contraption that I don’t know the name of but it works wonders. If anyone knows what it is, please feel free to comment. Here’s a picture of it.

Add the remaining filling ingredients into the bowl and mix them all together. Set the filling aside.

Dough for your Crust: Mix the ingredients for your crust in a large bowl. If the dough seems too dry, add a splash of water. Once you’ve made your dough for your crust, you’ll be ready to roll (literally!)

Cut your dough into several manageable pieces and roll each piece out flat. It should be about 1/16 of an inch thick when it’s ready. The dough will be elastic but keep at it. Don’t worry about the shape of your piece of dough as you will need to cut out small circles. We use a tea cup saucer to cut our circular pieces of dough (see photo below.) Feel free to use anything you feel comfortable with as long as it’s about the same size.

Now that you have your circular pieces of dough cut out, you can add a scoop of filling (approximately 1/2 cup.) We usually cut 8-12 circles, fill them and then repeat as they won’t all fit in the oven at the same time (with 40-50 fraguni it takes up a good part of the day.)

Once you add a scoop of filling, pinch the edges of the dough all around to make a boarder (see below.)

Place your finished fraguni on a baking tray or cookie sheet with a piece of tin foil sprinkled with flour and put them in the oven at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Your fraguni should be a golden brown when they’re ready. We usually have 2 baking trays in the oven at the same time and switch the trays from top to bottom half way through. Enjoy and Buona Pasqua!