Required Reading for Italian-Americans...

Sicilian Culture: News & Views

A Slice of Italian Tradition
By Domenica Marchetti, The Washington Post

Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - - You may have marshmallow Peeps and solid chocolate bunnies, baked ham or spring lamb. The only treat I crave when Easter rolls around is my mother's pizza rustica, a savory stuffed cheese pie that is an Italian tradition on this holiday.

Pizza rustica bears little resemblance to the Neapolitan-style pizza that Americans love, but it's just as delicious. It is about six times as high and brimming with a rich filling of cheeses and diced prosciutto and other cured meats, all enclosed in a golden pastry.

What better way to bid farewell to the season of fasting and penitence than with a dish that offers three kinds of ham and up to six kinds of cheese, plus eggs and butter?

As with many Italian dishes, the recipe for pizza rustica varies from region to region, and even from family to family. Typical Neapolitan pizza rustica is made with yeast dough and with fresh sausage in addition to ham in the filling, plus chopped hard-boiled eggs.

My mother's pizza rustica is more typical of her ancestral Abruzzo region. But in trying to re-create her mother's recipe from memory, she has, over the years, come up with her own distinctive version.

Traditional Abruzzese pizza rustica calls for a sweet pastry dough -- combining a sweet dough with a savory filling is a centuries-old practice in Italian cuisine, notes Marcella Hazan in her cookbook "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" (Knopf, 1992).

However, I find the clash of sweet and savory a little too distracting, at least in this dish. I prefer my mother's pastry recipe, which omits the sugar and instead uses a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. The lemon balances the richer ingredients in the dough -- butter and eggs -- and in the filling, and at the same time echoes the tangy sharpness of some of the cheeses.

My mother doesn't use fresh sausage, but rather three kinds of cured pork -- prosciutto, mortadella and soppressata. The cheeses include ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, pecorino and Auricchio, a sharp provolone. She also uses a fresh, unsalted cheese known simply as "basket cheese" because it is drained in a white plastic basket and retains the basket's shape and imprint. Basket cheese is similar to ricotta in flavor, but it's firmer in texture and can be sliced.

Recently, however, when my mother and I couldn't find basket cheese, we tried an alternative -- fresh, imported feta cheese that my mother got from a Greek grocer. And although the finished torte was tangier than usual, it was nevertheless excellent, rich and dense.

Making pizza rustica is definitely a labor of love. It takes several steps to prepare and assemble, and it requires a fair amount of slicing, dicing and grating -- especially if you do what we do, which is double the recipe so that everyone in the family can take home a slab. But it is also satisfying work. I find that if I make the dough and do the prep work for the filling on one day, and then assemble the pie the next, the whole thing becomes much more manageable, and certainly a lot more fun.

The dough, for one thing, is a dream to handle. It's soft and supple, it doesn't shrink back when you roll it out, and it's not given to breaking. If a tear does occur, it's easy to patch.

And as long as you are going to the trouble of making this dish, use the best-quality cheeses and meats you can find. Otherwise you'll end up with a labor-intensive pie that is merely ordinary in taste. It's the combination of flavors -- the spiciness and saltiness of the hams, the sharpness of the provolone, the creaminess of the ricotta -- fused together during the baking process that gives the pie its depth of flavor.

To assemble the pizza, you'll need a baking dish or pan with high sides. According to my mother, the traditional shape of pizza rustica is a rectangle, so she uses a 9-by-13-inch baking dish that is at least 2 inches deep. I prefer a round shape, so I use a springform pan, the kind used for cheesecake. The hinge makes for easy unmolding after the pizza is baked.

My favorite way to eat pizza rustica is while it's still warm, so that the filling oozes slightly as you cut into it. But a cold slice, eaten straight from the fridge, also makes an excellent snack. And because the pizza keeps so well, I recommend making extra and storing it in slabs or wedges in the freezer. Weeks from now you can pop a wedge into the oven, toss some greens together and have a fine meal in a matter of minutes.

Pasta Frolla con Limone (Flaky Pastry With Lemon, Makes dough for a 2-crust, 9-inch tart)

This pastry dough is pliant and easy to work. Even pastry phobes should not have any problems rolling it out.

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for the work surface
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• Juice from 1 lemon

If making by hand: Using 2 table knives or a pastry cutter, combine the flour, butter and salt in a large bowl, cutting the mixture together until it resembles small peas. Work in the eggs until dough just begins to come together and then sprinkle the lemon juice over and work only until the dough sticks together.

If using a food processor: Combine the flour, butter and salt and pulse briefly until combined, about 10 seconds. Add the eggs and the lemon juice and pulse just until a dough begins to form, less than 10 seconds.

Turn the dough (made by hand or food processor) onto a work surface. If the dough is sticky, sprinkle the surface lightly with flour. Gently pat the dough into a disk. Do not knead or overmix. Wrap the disk tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.

Per serving: 179 calories, 4 gm protein, 20 gm carbohydrates, 9 gm fat, 57 mg cholesterol, 5 gm saturated fat, 61 mg sodium, 1 gm dietary fiber

Gabriella Marchetti's Pizza Rustica (12 servings)

You may wish to warn guests unaccustomed to pizza rustica to start with just a small wedge: It is rich beyond belief.

Traditionally pizza rustica is served as a first course at noon on Easter Saturday, to break the Lenten fast, or on Easter Sunday. In some parts of Italy, it's also typically served for a picnic on Easter Monday. Nowadays, however, in Italy you can find it at any time of the year in snack bars and in rosticceria, takeout food shops.

In dicing the ham, be sure to cut it into cubes not much larger than a kernel of corn -- you don't want the filling to be ridden with large, clumsy chunks. If you use fresh mozzarella, cut that into small dice as well. If, on the other hand, you opt for the drier, American-style packaged mozzarella, you can shred it on the large holes of a cheese grater, likewise the provolone. The Parmesan and pecorino, however, should be finely grated, rather than shredded.

You likely won't need to add salt (since the meats are plenty salty) or pepper (there are peppercorns in the mortadella). You will definitely not need to add salt if you use feta rather than the unsalted basket cheese.

• 1 recipe Pasta Frolla con Limone (see preceding recipe), chilled
• 1 pound fresh, unsalted cheese such as "basket cheese" (1/2 basket) or 1 pound Greek feta cheese*
• 1 large ball fresh mozzarella cheese or 8-ounce package American- style mozzarella, diced or shredded
• 1 pound fresh ricotta cheese
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded sharp (or aged) provolone (such as Auricchio)
• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) grated imported Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 4 ounces mortadella in 1 thick slice, cut into small dice (about 2/3 cup)
• 4 ounces prosciutto, cut into small dice (about 2/3 cup)
• 4 ounces soppressata, cut into small dice (about 2/3 cup)
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (optional)
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup half-and-half or whole milk
• Butter for the pan
• Flour for the work surface
• 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten, for glazing the dough

Prepare Pasta Frolla con Limone (see preceding recipe).

Using a wooden spoon, a fork or your fingers, crumble the basket cheese or feta into a large bowl. Add the mozzarella, ricotta, provolone, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino-Romano cheeses and, using a wooden spoon or a sturdy spatula, mix well. Add the mortadella, prosciutto and soppressata and mix well. Taste and, if desired, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the beaten eggs over the mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. The filling should be dense and thick enough to stand a spatula or wooden spoon in, but it should not be so thick that you can't incorporate the ingredients. Add the half-and-half or milk. Set the filling aside while you roll out the dough.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-13-inch pan or a 9-inch round springform pan with sides at least 2 1/2 inches deep.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Cut the dough in half and immediately rewrap the half you are not using. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out 1 portion of the dough into a rectangle or circle, depending on the shape of your pan, large enough to cover the bottom and sides of the pan with some overhang. The dough should be about 1/8 inch thick. Place your rolling pin on the edge of the dough closest to you and gently wrap the dough around the rolling pin. Lift the dough over the pan then carefully unroll it. Gently press the dough into the pan. There will be some overhang. Prick with the tines of a fork. Turn the filling into the pan, using the back of a wooden spoon or your fingers to spread it evenly.

Roll out the remaining dough and drape it over the top. Gently press it directly against the surface of the filling. Trim the top and bottom crusts that hang beyond the pan so that only 1 inch of overhang remains, then press them together and fold them in toward the center of the dough to form an edge. Press down on the rolled edge with the tines of a fork to seal and form a decorative crust. If desired, use leftover dough to cut out shapes (chicks or eggs, for example) and arrange them on top of the pie. Using a sharp knife, cut 4 slits in the top crust. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the top crust surface with the egg yolk.

Bake, for about an hour, until the top is golden. Remove and look to see if the sides of the crust are golden. If not, increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees and return the pizza to the oven for about 5 minutes.

Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool for 10 to 15 minutes. If using a rectangular pan, do not attempt to unmold. If using a springform pan, remove the sides and carefully transfer the pie to a large plate or platter.

Serve warm, at room temperature or cooled and chilled.

* Note: Basket cheese is usually sold in 2-pound molds. It can be hard to find, but is sometimes available during spring at Italian markets and can be special-ordered from many cheese counters. If you can't find it, use feta instead.

Per serving: 603 calories, 33 gm protein, 25 gm carbohydrates, 41 gm fat, 215 mg cholesterol, 24 gm saturated fat, 1,327 mg sodium, 1 gm dietary fiber

Domenica Marchetti is a writer and recipe developer based in Alexandria. She can be reached at dfm1@bellatlantic.net.

A Slice of Italian Tradition (washingtonpost.com)
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19178-2002Mar26.html

© Copyright 1999-2002 (MCMXCIX) Cristaldi Communications Web Design, Hosting & Promotion - - March 28, 2002