Celebrate Easter Sicilian-Style on Pasquetta

Author Giovanna with her finished scaccia.

This year, take a Sicilian approach to your spring or Easter celebrations with a recipe by Sicilian Feasts author, Giovanna Bellia La Marca. Her Sausage and Ricotta Roll is certain to satisfy appetites after a day filled with Easter egg hunting!

Pasquetta ("little Easter") is celebrated on the Monday after Easter which extends the Easter holiday in Italy. This Sausage and Ricotta Roll is a filled bread recipe made for Pasquetta,  a special day when families and friends gather in their summer houses or plan a picnic to share delicious food that everybody prepares and brings for the occasion. Slices of this scaccia are filling finger food, and equally delicious hot or cold.

This is admittedly a rich dish and is traditionally made with lard in the dough and filling, as a sort of reward after weeks of fasting during the Lenten period. Although Crisco is used here you can choose the more traditional method if you celebrated Lent, or if you just want to enjoy a very hearty meal! 

Sausage and Ricotta Roll

Scaccia cu' ricotta e sausizza 

Prepare the dough:

4 cups flour

1 tbsp SAF Instant Yeast

4 tsps KA Bread Improver

2 ozs Butter Flavored Crisco

1 cup warm water

Assemble the roll:

Risen dough (above)

1 1/2 lbs fresh Italian Deli ricotta

1 1/2 lbs Italian sausage

2 ozs lard at room temperature,

1 egg, beaten for glazing

Giovanna rolls out the dough.

Place a tsp of King Arthur bread improver in each measuring cup, fill with flour, even out the top and place in the food processor. Add the yeast, salt, and shortening, and process until the shortening breaks down and mixes into the flour. Add the water and process until the dough forms. Remove to a counter, shape into a ball, coat with a few drops of olive oil, cover with an inverted bowl and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Roll out the dough into a long rectangle. Spread the lard on the surface, dot with ricotta and sausage in a checker board pattern along the center length of the rectangle.

Filled and ready to start folding!

Fold the two short ends over the filling, then fold one of the long sides towards the center, brush with beaten egg, and fold the second side over the first.

Cover the filling with one side, brush with egg, fold the other side over the first. Shape into a horse shoe, place in a baking pan seam side down. Then brush with beaten egg, prick the surface with a fork along the two sides, and bake in a preheated 375º oven for 50 minutes, cover loosely with aluminum foil and bake another 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, cover with a towel and let cool for 30 minutes before cutting and serving.

Buona Pasqua!

For more recipes like this one, purchase Sicilian Feasts on our website, or your local bookstore. For updates on upcoming cookbook releases, as well as recipes and information on our current catalog connect with Hippocrene Books on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

Giovanna Bellia La Marca was born in Ragusa, Sicily. She came to the United States at the age of 10, and has since then kept alive her love of the island with frequent trips there. Retired after a career as an art and Italian teacher, she now teaches cooking classes at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City and leads culinary tours of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. La Marca is author of Language and Travel Guide to Sicily and The Cooking of Emilia-Romagna, both published by Hippocrene Books. She resides in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.  


For a Sicilian dessert for your Easter or spring celebrations, find Giovanna's recipe for a sweet and colorful Cassata Siciliana. 


Learn Sicilian!
Here are a few terms in the Sicilian dialect. 

Buona Pasqua!	Happy Easter!
formaggio	cheese
pane	bread
pasta ri pani	bread dough
Pasquetta	little Easter
primavera	spring
sausizza	sausage