Jeanne Caròla Francesconi (1903-1995) is the doyenne of Neapolitan cookery and the author of the seminal La Cucina Napoletana(1965). Here, an informative article about signora Francesconi.
From that book, I cooked this excellent rice dish. Plain boiled rice is dressed with a basil tomato sauce, butter and parmesan, then poured in a cake tin, with a mozzarella and extra tomato sauce layer in the middle and baked. The contrast between the deliciously crisp outside and the cheesy soft inside is just wonderful.
Straightforward cooking, delicious eating.
Crostata di riso di Jeanne Caròla Francesconi (Jeanne Caròla Francesconi’s baked tomato rice with mozzarella)
Serves 6-8
a 24 x 6 cm cake tin, with a removable base, buttered and covered with dry breadcrumbs.
50 g oil
25 g butter (lard in the original version)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 kg fresh or caned tomatoes
450 g risotto rice
50 g butter (lard in the original version)
100 g grated parmigiano reggiano mixed with
a generous handful of torn fresh basil (or chopped parsley)
300 g sliced and patted-dry mozzarella or scamorza cheese
3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs
Make a tomato sauce with the oil and butter, chopped onion and tomatoes (skinned, if fresh).
When it is done, cook the rice in plenty of boiling salted water.
When still al dente, drain it (reserving some of the cooking water) and dress it with three quarter of the tomato sauce, the butter and the grated parmigiano reggiano.
Give it stir and add some of the reserved cooking water if the rice looks too thick (it should resemble a thin, almost pourable risotto).
Pour most of it in the tin
Add the sliced mozzarella and cover it with the remaining tomato sauc.
Top with the remaining rice, dust with the breadcrumbs and zig zag with oil
Bake it in a hot oven (about 180 C) for 30-40 minutes or until nice and crusty
Let it cook for about 20 minutes before serving it
I reheated the leftovers in the the air and they were wonderful
Notes:
The wording is mine, but the quantities are Francesconi’s.
Italian home cooking 
Yum! Now this is my kind of comfort food. Feels a bit like a simplified sartù… I bet I’d love it. I may give this a go when I get back from the UK.
And thanks so much for the shout out. By the way, I’m working on a translation of Francesconi’s book with a longtime reader (who’s doing most of the work, to be fair). Seems as famous as it is, it’s only ever been published in Italian.
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what a great news & lovely, useful project! Will it be an unedited translation or will you add notes to the recipes?
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Notes are definitely on the table. I’m not sure non-Italians would get many of the references (especialy in the introductory materials) without them!
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best of luck. Great project . It will be very useful.
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That looks great, albeit perhaps a bit out of season. I’ll have to get a copy of her book.
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Hi there! please do, the book is fab. It is tomato season here, well in a tad too early for me, because tomatoes need intense heat, and the tomatoes you can buy now make the best sauce. Yes, it is a baked dish, but not straight of the oven (but I get your point). Nice to hear from you.
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Sounds fantastic, Stefano — I think I’ll make it when the weather cools down a bit. It would be nice for an inner party. Would you serve it as a primo followed by something simple from the grill?
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Hi David, yes, I would (rice and grilled something). This is a very poor version of rice sartu’ basically. You could add mini meat balls, cooked peas, diced ham etc, but then you would venture into sartu’ territory. I like the simplicity of this dish (but I love sartu’ too)
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I love sartù, as well, but the simplicity of this makes it a perfect primo. Can’t wait to try it when it’s not 40°C.
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ah ah ah.. the heat is acceptable right now in old Lucca (but yeah, the oven on is a killer)
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That looks delicious! It reminds me of Spanish, Arroz al Horno con Tomate, but this is baked together in the oven with vegetable stock saffron and lemon juice (no cheese). Jeanne Caròla Francesconi’s rice does look good with mozzarella!
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definitely there is a spanish air about this. it is worth remembering that the Spanish ruled Naples for a long time. Next time I will bake it in a larger, more shallow dish, in order to have more crust.
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I know – about 400 years and they wanted to sell rice and tomatoes in Italy. There’s also Tiella from Apulia and Calabria, which is a direct relation to paella.
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good point! I never joined the dots (paella/tiella)(but then also: provencal tian perhaps)/ btw I love those terracotta oven dish, which here in Lucca are impossible to find!
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There’s a very old Spanish dish with rice, chicken and sausage, that’s baked with beaten egg on top – arroz con costra (rice with a crust). It dates back to at least 1220 and I suspect it has Moorish origins. The crossover with Mediterranean foods is fascinating.
I’ve got a lot of terracotta – it’s very cheap in Spain. I found a terracotta cazuela in the Museum of London, which the Romans bought with them 2000 years ago!
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Lucky you. I have terracotta dishes in London, painstakingly carried there over the years. Here in Lucca I have none because I do not see them around and I assume it does not belong to the way of cooking here in Tuscany, perhaps. I love the material, the look of it mainly
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Ha ha – I like the aesthetic too, but they are great to cook with, holding an even heat better than cast iron. Odd that you don’t see them in Tuscany – I’m sure they would have used them two thousand years ago… Perhaps there isn’t any local clay.
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