A savory Genoese tart: a shell of thin pasta matta pastry — flour, water, and olive oil, without lard — filled with rice cooked in whole milk and bound with eggs, Parmigiano, and prescinseua, Liguria's own tangy fresh-set curd. Sold by the slice in Genoa's sciamadde street-food shops alongside farinata and focaccia. Distinct from the Easter torta pasqualina in its rice-and-dairy filling.
The torta di riso is built around two hyperlocal Genoese ingredients. The first is prescinseua — a soft curd made by coagulating fresh milk with rennet, with a consistency between yogurt and ricotta and a distinctly acidic note. Prescinseua is a PAT product; it first appears in historical records from 1383, and by 1413 a law of the Genoese Republic designated it as the sole permitted gift that citizens could present to the Doge, underscoring its cultural prestige. The second is pasta matta, a lean dough of flour, water, and olive oil without the lard used in most Italian short-crust pastry. The tart was traditionally a product of the sciamadde — informal Genoese eating shops whose names derive from the flames of their frying fires — where it was sold by the slice as an affordable all-day food.
A gently firm, milky rice interior with a faint lactic tang from the curd — mild, nourishing, barely savory. The thin pastry provides a papery-crisp shell. Best eaten at room temperature the day it is made, or even the day after.
Rice starch gelatinizes between 62 and 80°C as it absorbs the milk during cooking; upon cooling, the amylose chains partially retro-grade, setting the filling into a cohesive, sliceable structure. Prescinseua's lactic acid lowers the filling's pH, which moderates the rate of egg protein coagulation in the oven, producing a more tender, custard-like set rather than a rubbery one. Parmigiano's free glutamates provide savory depth without dominating the delicate dairy profile. The pasta matta, containing only a small amount of olive oil, dries and crisps rapidly in the 200°C oven as surface moisture evaporates.
Variations
When prescinseua is unavailable outside Liguria, a blend of stracchino and a tablespoon of plain yogurt approximates its tang. A sweet torta di riso — with sugar, lemon zest, and no Parmigiano — exists in broader Italian baking tradition but differs substantially in character. The same pasta matta shell is used for the Genoese chard-and-egg torta pasqualina.
On the Palate
Where Torta di Riso Genovese sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
7 steps · 20 min
- 135 min
Make pasta matta: combine 200 g plain flour, a pinch of salt, 2 tbsp olive oil, and 80 ml warm water. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Cover with a damp cloth and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- 220 min
Bring 500 ml whole milk and a pinch of salt to a gentle simmer in a medium saucepan. Add 200 g arborio rice and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the rice has completely absorbed the milk and is very soft, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cool to room temperature.
Watch outCook the rice down until it has drunk up all the milk and turns soft and creamy — if it's still soupy the filling won't set into slices.
- 35 min
Beat 2 eggs with 60 g grated Parmigiano, 150 g prescinseua (or stracchino mixed with 1 tbsp plain yogurt), a fine grating of nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Fold into the cooled rice until the filling is smooth and uniform.
- 45 min
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll the rested pasta matta into a thin sheet, 2–3 mm thick, large enough to line a 26 cm tart tin with some overhang. Brush the tin with olive oil.
- 53 min
Lay the pastry sheet into the tin, pressing gently into the base and sides. Pour in the rice filling and level it with a spatula.
- 62 min
Fold the overhanging pastry edges inward over the filling to form a rough border. Drizzle the exposed filling with a little olive oil.
- 730 min
Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes until the top is set and lightly golden and the pastry is crisp at the edges. Cool completely on a rack before cutting into wedges or squares and serving at room temperature.
Watch outThe tart is done when the top is set and pale gold and the pastry edge is crisp; a slight wobble in the very centre is fine, it firms as it cools.
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