Placenta (not what you think)!
Yeah, it's not like that. Placenta (pronounced Plakenta or Plachenta) is an ancient Roman dessert "cake" that was considered good enough to be sacrificed to the gods. It's just layers of filo dough and honeyed ricotta baked on top of oiled bay leaves. No afterbirth required.
This recipe has been stolen from Pass the Garum, which was one of my inspirations in creating this oft-neglected blog. But hey, I'll be posting more in the future. I just haven't cooked anything that would qualify as period lately.
Historical Accuracy: While this uses modern ingredients, it does so to make an ancient recipe accessible. The filo dough is certainly quite a bit different than the historical recipe. Let's call it a 7/10.
How's it Taste? In all honesty, I would have liked this better without the bay leaves and with some sort of sweet fruity topping. It's basically like if a cheesecake and baklava had a delicious baby. The laurel adds an oddly astringent flavor that takes some getting used to.
Difficulty: Filo dough isn't exactly easy to use in my opinion, but it's not super-hard. Call it a 6/10,
Ingredients:
270g Filo Pastry
This recipe has been stolen from Pass the Garum, which was one of my inspirations in creating this oft-neglected blog. But hey, I'll be posting more in the future. I just haven't cooked anything that would qualify as period lately.
Historical Accuracy: While this uses modern ingredients, it does so to make an ancient recipe accessible. The filo dough is certainly quite a bit different than the historical recipe. Let's call it a 7/10.
How's it Taste? In all honesty, I would have liked this better without the bay leaves and with some sort of sweet fruity topping. It's basically like if a cheesecake and baklava had a delicious baby. The laurel adds an oddly astringent flavor that takes some getting used to.
Difficulty: Filo dough isn't exactly easy to use in my opinion, but it's not super-hard. Call it a 6/10,
Ingredients:
270g Filo Pastry
250g Ricotta Cheese
Lots of Honey
Dried Bay Leaves
Olive Oil
Basically, mix honey into the ricotta until you're happy with the taste. Use 4-6 layers of filo dough as the outer crust (mine kind of erupted in the pan, as you can see). Cut the rest into rectangles after folding in half 3-4 sheets thick. Oil up some bay leaves and put them in the pan, then top with the outer crust.
Add a rectangle of filo, then top with the ricotta mixture. Keep this up until you have as many layers as you'd like, then wrap the whole thing up in the outer crust and top with a bay leave or two.
Place in a cold oven, then set it to 350F. Bake 45-60 minutes.
Obligatory Patreon Reference: I haven't done these lately. Well, I haven't posted lately. Cooking is expensive. But I have at least... Five recipes that will be coming up soon. Click HERE to toss some bread my way.
Add a rectangle of filo, then top with the ricotta mixture. Keep this up until you have as many layers as you'd like, then wrap the whole thing up in the outer crust and top with a bay leave or two.
Place in a cold oven, then set it to 350F. Bake 45-60 minutes.
Obligatory Patreon Reference: I haven't done these lately. Well, I haven't posted lately. Cooking is expensive. But I have at least... Five recipes that will be coming up soon. Click HERE to toss some bread my way.
