 Crostata with honey and apricots | |
| Type | Tart |
|---|---|
| Course | Dessert |
| Place of origin | Italy |
| Main ingredients | Pastry crust,jam orricotta cheese,fruit |
| Variations | Crostata alla marmellata,crostata alla marmellata di albicocche,crostata allaNutella,crostata di frutta,crostata di ricotta, many other sweet or savoury variations |
Crostata (Italian:[kroˈstaːta]) is anItalian bakedtart orpie. The earliest known use ofcrostata in its modern sense can be traced to the cookbooksLibro de Arte Coquinaria (Book of the Art of Cooking) byMartino da Como, publishedc. 1465,[1] andCuoco napolitano (Neapolitan Cook), published in the late 15th century, containing a recipe (number 94) titledCrostata de Caso, Pane, etc..[2]
Crostata is a "rustic free-form version of an open fruit tart"[3] that may also be baked in a pie plate.[4]
Historically, it also referred to an "open-faced sandwich orcanapé" because of its crusted appearance,[1] or achewet, a type ofmeat pie.[5]
The name derives from theLatin wordcrustāta, the feminine past participle ofcrustāre ('to encrust'), and ultimately from the nouncrusta ('crust').[6] TheFrench termcroustade derives from it, from which the English termcustard derives.[6] The wordcrostata appeared in the earliest Italian dictionaries, included in the 1612 dictionaryVocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (compiled from 1591 to 1608)[7] by theAccademia della Crusca and theScuola Normale Superiore di Pisa,[8] and the 1617 dictionaryIl memoriale della lingua italiana: ridotto in ordine d'alfabeto per commodità del lettore by Giacomo Pergamino, in which it was defined as a type oftorta.[9]
Traditionally,crostata consisted of a base, usually three layers, offriable dough "flavoured with clarified fat and butter".[10] Today,shortcrust pastry is used instead. It is differentiated from a torta by its filling:crostata has an inconsistent chunky filling, whereas a torta has a consistent filling made of blended ingredients.[10]
Crostata can beblind-baked, filled with pastry cream (crema pasticciera), and then topped with pieces of fresh fruit; this is calledcrostata di frutta. In his 1570 cookbookOpera dell'arte del cucinare,Bartolomeo Scappi included a recipe for acrostata ofplums andsour cherries,[10] and others forquince andpears. A modern version iscrostata alla nutella, which hasNutella as the filling.[11]
Ingredients for a savourycrostata may include meat, fish or vegetables,[10] which are pre-cooked.[4]Opera dell'arte del cucinare included a recipe for a "crostata of crabmeat and shrimp", and also stated that to instead make a torta, the shrimp and crab should be crushed.[10] A popular sweet variant, especially in central and south Italy, iscrostata di ricotta, made withricotta cheese mixed with sugar and lemonzest, and which may additionally include cocoa orraisins.[12][13][14]
Scappi included many recipes forcrostata inOpera dell'arte del cucinare. For meat and seafood basedcrostata, there were recipes usingpork jowls orprosciutto,[15]crayfish,anchovies oroysters. Other savourycrostata recipes included acrostata with creamy cheese referred to as abutirata,[15] those withtruffles or field mushrooms,[16] one withartichoke orcardoon hearts,[16] and one with "the viscera of any sort of turtle".[17]
Media related toCrostata at Wikimedia Commons
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