Easy Easter Pie

November 17th, 2012

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Well, in my born town of Genova, to celebrate the Easter holidays a special Pie is traditionally prepared: we call it “Torta Pasqualina”; unfortunately today I didn’t get all the ingredients to make it, so I diverted to a simplification of the original “Torta Pasqualina” as it was made by my mama many years ago, just to shorten the preparation time. The result is excellent so I show the recipe to you, sure that you’ll like it so much as me. I call this pie “Easy Easter Pie” because is an “easy” and humble simplification but pay attention that the taste will match with the more sophisticated and noble “Torta Pasqualina” (which also I’ll prepare for you soon).

for the dough you can also refer to category Preparation “Dough for Salty Pie”

Ingredients to prepare one small pie of 6-8 portions:

Ingredients for the dough:

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

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

3 and half ounces of fresh Beer Yeast

8 ounces (half liter) of Milk – Sugar – two spoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Ingredients for the stuffing:

ten ounces (300 grams) of seasoned grinded cheese (I prefer Pecorino but you can also use Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese)

a bunch of Chard or Beet (20 ounces – 600 grams)

a bunch of Spinach (20 ounces – 600 grams)

six Eggs – one Onion – few cloves of Garlic – two spoons of “Garlic & Parsley Mix” – Marine Salt

start cleaning and washing Spinach and Chard (or Beet)

we discard the Spinach stems, keeping only the leaves

just like that

put the Spinach Leaves in fresh water

the Chard is in two parts: the green leave which is tender and the white stem which is hard: we will use both of them…

…we separate each other…

…then we cut and discard only the small part in the bottom…

…we go to cook the rest of the stem but…

…we have to cook it longer than the leaves so we cut between the leave and the stem, between green and white…

…so we get two separate parts of the Chard: the green leave…

…and the white stem…

we will wash them in a bowl together with fresh water (remember that we also have the Spinach leaves drowned in fresh water in to a different bowl: we don’t boil the Spinach leaves! we will use them raw.)

we put a small quantity of fresh water in to a pot and, after added a pinch of Marine Salt, we set the water to boil

as the water is boiling we drop thee Chard stems only…

…leaving them boiling for one-two minutes

after that time we drop to boil the Chard leaves, too.

we boil for another two-three minutes…

then we drop in the colander to dry the water and to cool down the Chards

one Onion and four-five Garlic cloves: we peel the skin off…

…then we chop them!

as the Chards are not hot anymore, we cut them smaller

then using our food-processor we chop and blend Chards, Onion and Garlic together

we drop the mixture in to a clean bowl

after this we cut the raw Spinach leaves smaller…

…then we put in the bowl (where are the Chards) together with two spoons of “Garlic & Parsley Mix” and three Eggs…

…also the grinded Cheese is added.

we mix everything using a simple fork

starting slowly…

paying attention to do a good mixture

the result should be uniform

in case it is too liquid add more Cheese, if is too dry and don’t mix well add one Egg instead.

Let’s go for the Dough: you can also refer to category Preparations “Dough for Salty Pie”

Ingredients: (or a small pie of 6-8 portions)

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

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

3 and half ounces of fresh Beer Yeast

8 ounces (half liter) of Milk – Sugar – two spoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

drop the Yeast in warm Milk, add a bit of Sugar to speed the growing process… please note that Milk should be warm and not hot: this means you can stay with a finger drown down in to it without burn yourself…

upon on the temperature of the Milk, the humidity, and other factors the Yeast needs between 10 to 20 minutes to be ready

…yes it is ready now!

we start mixing half and half of Butter and Flour (9 ounces – 250 grams of both)

remember to keep always your hands clean in the kitchen, like I do, so you can mix the ingredients avoiding contamination.

after few minutes the consistence of the Flour mixed with the Butter will be alike grinded cheese, so you know you did a good job and you can add…

…the Yeast!

start again slowly to mix everything, to make your dough consistent

you will add two spoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the dough too: if it becomes too liquid you will add more Flour…

as the dough is consistent, soft and not sticky, you will put it to rest for half-hour, cover with a clean dish-cloth

after half-hour your dough grown already

divide your dough in two parts, making two balls and go to work to flat one of them

make a circular, flat plate with your hands first…

then use the wooden tool “Mattarello” to make it thinner, spread some Flour on your working table, pass on one side the “Mattarello”

then turn the dough upside down, spread again some Flour on the table (under the dough and on the top of the dough so it will not glue to either table or Mattarello

do this operation several times until you get a large, circular flat plate: it must be very thin, between 1 and 2 millimeter (less than 0.1 inch)

help yourself with the same oven-pan you will use to cook the Pie to check the size of the flat plate of dough: it should be a little more large

spread Flour on the bottom of the oven-pan

then set in the inside the flat plate of dough

fill every space

pay attention to not break the dough with the oven-pan border

leave hang outside one inch (3 centimeter) of the dough

with your fingers flat the part close to the border

drop all the stuffing inside

after this use a fork to make even the stuffing

you must fill all the spaces

then make the surface even with the fork

and this is the result!

let’s go to make a second flat plate with our dough

flat it in to circular shape with your fingers…

then flat it with “mattarello” also this should be less than 0.1 inch thick (1-2 millimeter) put aside for a while.

go back on the Pie: using the fork make three small hollow places to contain the Eggs

put each Egg in his place

then cover with the second flat plate of dough you prepared

as it is covered cut even with scissors the two doughs borders: still leave some of them hanging out (less than one inch)

using your thumb and index fingers, grab the two borders and start to roll them together following the border: do it for all the length of the border

if your second dough was properly made you should see the Eggs through it…

…paying attention to not cut the yolks of the Eggs, use the fork to make holes on the top, these holes will let the steam goes out during the cooking avoiding that the surface of your Pie break

spread some Extra Virgin Olive Oil on the top

use your fingers: a small quantity of oil is enough to give a characteristic brown color to the Pie

put in the oven 480 Fahrenheit (250 Celsius) for 35 minutes or 660 Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) for 30 minutes: always you must pay attention to the smell when the Pie is cooked a nice and good smell will pervade your kitchen stay alert if burnt smell comes go to check in the oven: by the way if your oven is clean and you followed my instruction without drop material outside the oven-pan you will not have burnt smell at all.