Dough For Salty Pie | Al Dente Kitchen

Dough For Salty Pies (Simple # 1)

August 4th, 2012

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Here the instruction to make an “ultimate” Dough for your pies, this is specific for “salty” pie like those with Vegetable stuffing and it is really simple to prepare;

You can also refer to category “Preparations-Dough-Impastare – Dough for Cakes”.

Ingredients: (or a small pie of 6-8 portions: the quantities below are referred to one pie)

9 ounces (250 grams) of Flour (type 00 – tender wheat flour)

9 ounces (250 grams) of Butter (from Cow Milk)

one and half – two ounces (50-60 grams) of fresh Beer Yeast

a quarter of liter (8-9 ounces) of Whole Milk – Sugar – two spoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

warm up the Milk a little bit (no more than 100 Fahrenheit – 40 Celsius) add the Yeast and…

a bit of Sugar (I prefer Brown Sugar) this in order to speed up the growing process

stir a little bit to melt the Yeast

put the butter in to a bowl

add the Flour

start to mix

continue to mix until it will be homogeneous

after 15 minutes the Yeast should be ready

add the Yeast to the Flour and Butter mixture

mix very well everything until the Dough become consistent

if the Dough is too sticky and glue to your finger add more Flour, instead if it is too dry or hard you have to add more Milk

you must add the two spoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil too: this will give to your Dough consistence, softness and it will make the pie surface to ”brownie” while cooking

you must work very well the Dough: more the time you work better the result you’ll get!

working longer means to give to the Flour the possibility to mix properly with the other ingredients

to get result you must work hard with accuracy: work every spot of your Dough, bent it several times and apply your hands strength!

do not break the Dough to do the job faster, never do it! not breaking the Dough will be more consistent and firm, especially when you will use the “Mattarello” wood to make it thin. Do you know what is “Mattarello”?

Dough is ready now soft and consistent: when we make it for Salty Pies we do not leave to grown but we use it immediately: let’s go for the last phase!

divide your Dough in two balls: the first one should be a little bit bigger than the second one.

spread Flour on your wooden working-table: the Flour is needed to avoid your Dough to glue to the table surface

then start to work the ball making with it a larger circle like a plate

just like this on the picture!

then you’ll work this plate with a special wooden tool: the “Mattarello”…

…making it larger and thinner than before!

in order to achieve a good result you need to turn upside down the Dough several times, every time spreading Flour on both sides and pressing a little bit more with your “Mattarello” if you don’t possess a “Mattarello” what to do?

find a carpenter asking him to make one “Mattarello” for you: it can be between 15 to 40 inches (38-100 centimeter) of length and from 2 to 4 inches (5-10 centimeter) in diameter, must be full natural wood without any glue or gloss, just “natural”. what I prefer: wood of walnut-tree.

a large circle of your dough-pasta will be the first layer to put inside the oven-pan.

I’d like to remind you that important thing: turn upside down the plate of Dough several times, every time spreading Flour on both sides and pressing a little bit more with your “Mattarello” this in order to make your circle larger and thinner but don’t exaggerate: it must remain consistent so…

as you get a good size and a circle shape stop and match with your oven-pan your plate has to become larger than it.

how much thickness? if you did a good job it should be less than 2 millimeter which are 0.078 inch: really thin! with the time you’ll be able to understand when it start to break and you will stop to work on it. if you make any holes because is too thin, get a small piece of pasta from your Dough, press it with “Mattarello” and then wet with some drops of milk or water and put on top of the hole, pressing again with “Mattarello” until the small piece glue the hole…so especially the first times do this job with care, even if your pie is not perfect it will be good to eat! and tasty! so take it easy…just take it easy…

you got the correct size cutting with scissors or knife or with any cutting tool you can get to do the job! cut at least two inches larger the first times, with experience and time your cut will decrease… why to cut less: because we don’t want a thick border! why not: I like thick border! no: the thick border will not cook in the same time of the rest of the pie, causing you will burn the pie or the border will not be properly cooked!

now you work the second ball preparing a second plate of pasta from your Dough: this will be the cover of your pie. size and thickness will be approximately the same of the first one, only the circle will be less large and the thickness can be less too: this because the first part goes to cover the bottom of the oven-pan and it contains the stuffing which is wet so it must be thicker because need to be more resistant, instead the upper part do not have to be so strong, plus we will make holes to allow the steam to go out from the pie so it is not so important. if you have holes on the bottom the stuffing will gush out leaking on the hot oven-pan and burning, you will notice smell of burn and you will be in trouble because you don’t know what to do, you start panicking and then decide to take the pie out from the oven…but it still has to cook! so you damage your preparation…

so please keep cool…check step by step what I said, proceed with calm and kindness, making food is an act of love and if you follow my instruction you never will have those kind of problems..

spread Flour on the bottom of the oven-pan…

place your plate of dough-pasta in it