Sunday 28 October 2012

Salmon and chard pie

This is a personal take on classic Italian (genoese)  dish: torta pasqualina, but very much personalised as it uses a pizza dough instead of puff pastry (thanks for the tip, Hairy Dieters!) and adds salmon while the original version in vegetarian.


Makes 8 portions

For the pastry 

200g strong white flour
100g wholemeal strong flour
200ml water
3/4 tsp dried yeast
3/4 tsp salt
1tsp caster sugar

For the filling

1k chard (you can use spinach)
800g salmon, skin off
200g ricotta (I used buffalo ricotta)
2 medium eggs
50gr finely grated pecorino cheese
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1tbsp olive oil
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of ground nutmeg
salt an pepper to taste

Preparation

  • For the dough: combine all ingredients and make a dough. Knead it for 10' and then put in a bowl to rest fo one hour (I used a bread machine as I.m not good a kneading)
  • While the dough is resting, wash and blanch the chard for a couple fo minutes. You may need to do it in batches.
  • Put the chard to drain ans squeeze it a lot
  • on a frying pan, cook chopped onion and garlic and fry for 5 minute. Add the drained chard and fry for 5/10 minutes until very dry.


  • Add cayenne pepper, nutmeg and seasoning to taste, and fry for a further minute then set aside.
  • Slice the skinless salmon in 1/2 cm thick slices.
  • Once the chard has cooled, chop it finely with a food processor, then transfer in a bowl. Add to the mixture the ricotta, pecorino cheese and the eggs. Mix until well combined. Taste again ad adjust seasoning if required.
  • Preheat the oven at 200C. You will need 25cm round, high tin.
  • When the dough has proven, take out 1/4 of it for the lid, then flat the rest of the dough on a circle larger than the tin. Transfer the dough into the tin with the border overflowing the sides of the tin.
  • Spoon half of the mixture in the tin lined with pastry, then lie the slices of salmon, then spoon in the rest of the mixture on top until you almost fill the pie tin.
  • Flat the dough you have left aside in a disc roughly of the diameter fo the tin and lie it on top of the mixture.
  • Firm the borders with your finger or roll them up in order to completely seal the pie
  • With a pair of scissors, snip a hole in the middle to allow the steam to go out.
  • Bake for 20', then cover with foil and bake for further 20' until the pie has slightly separated form the sides of the tin and the dough is dry and "bready"
  • Leave it to cool 10' before eating

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