Helbel’s Weblog

Pizza Rustica: You know how you get bored of cooking and eating the same things?

 Well I was feeling particularly uninspired the other day so I decided to go through my cook books in search of something different, as usual nigella Lawson came up trumps with a recipe called Pizza Rustica ( its from her “how to be a domestic goddess” book which is quite old, but great by the way! ) So I had a quick scan through the ingredient’s, mozzarella – check, Parmesan-check, flat-leafed parsley-check, prosciutto- urm na… mortadella- urm again, na… now I know its probably because I am just a simple country girl but I really have no clue what these things are !

But rather than abandon the whole idea I decided to improvise with stuff I had in my fridge and below is the results, it maybe not authentically Italian but it sure did taste good ….

P.s, Just googled mortadella and its aparently – Mortadellapronounced /morta’dɛl:a/ is an Italian cold cut (salume) made of finely hashed/ground heat-cured pork sausage , and prosciutto is – Prosciutto  is the Italian word for ham. In English the word is almost always used only for dry-cured ham which has not been cooked, …ohwell,  there ya go!

Method

First, put the flour and butter in a bowl and deep freeze for 10 Min’s (sounds strange but I think it helps with the pastry later on).

Stir together the egg yolks, water, and salt in a cup, and put in the fridge. Then, when times up, tip the flour and butter into a food processor, add the sugar and pulse until the mix turns into a cross between sand and porridge oats . Bind with the egg mix, and when the pastry looks like its just about to come together, stop…
Then tip the pastry out and wodge it together with your hands.
Divide into to 2 lumps, one larger than the other, wrap in clingfilm or foil and leave to rest in the fridge, meanwhile…

FOR THE FILLING…
Pre-heat the oven at 200oc put baking sheet in oven, Fry sausage insides (sound mad but will taste great!) in oil for about 5 Min’s, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks, then transfer to a bowl and let cool. Then fry off chicken and chorizo for 5 Min’s until cooked. At which time, add all the other ingredients apart from the breadcrumbs and mix well.

Roll out larger of the two pastry rounds and line the bottom of the tin (you will have to role it out quite thin but don’t worry if it breaks slightly I always patch it up with a little extra pastry, so no panic! ) , sprinkle the bread crumbs on bottom and then add filling.

Roll out other pastry round to fit pie top and turn over edges together and fork around edges to form nice border.
prick top and glaze. Cook in the oven for 10 Min’s at 200oc then turn down to 180oc and cook for 45 Min’s until golden brown.
Let the pie stand for around 15 Min’s and then just before you dig in , stand back and admire your creation. Its a real proud accomplishment of a pie!

Also great cold the next day, if there’s any left!…    

Helen x

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