Baciocca Ligure

I am very found of savory torte from Liguria. From a search on internet have seen that there are so many versions of baciocca, with or without a "pasta matta" shell, with eggs, with pesto. Pasta matta is a dough made simlpy with flour, some tablespoons of oil, salt and enough water to form a dough. It is left to rest and then stretched very thin, a little bit like a strudel dough (see my recipe for apfelstrudel).

This baciocca was posted many years ago by A. Segreti, a lady from Chiavari, on the Cucina Italiana forum. The first time I tried it was because I had some extra cream and I was looking for a simple recipe to finish it up. I really didn't expect to turn out so good. Now, every time I have some extra cream I remember about this baciocca.
















You will need

100 g of flour
100 g of very fine cornmeal flour (Italian fioretto or even a the finer flour sold at Indian or middleastern stores)
2 onions sliced very thin
2 big potatoes sliced very thin
a 200 ml heavy or double cream container
salt (about 2 teaspoons)
enough milk to have a soft dough (or if you don't mind the calories use cream all the way)
extra virgin oil

Preheat the oven at 180 Celsius. Sift the two flours, add the sliced onions and potatoes, salt, the cream and enough milk to reach a soft consistency. It should hold a spoon if you stick into it but it should be soft enough that you can spread with a spatula.
I use for baking a paellera, it's iron so it serves well the purpose but you can bake also in a pizza pan, the baciocca should not be too thick (a finger tall), for this quantity a 26-28 cm pan is fine. Oil the pan, spread the mixture, level it with a spatula and drizzle with oil. Bake for about 45 minutes. I like it warm, served with lardo or other salumi is a great appetizer.

















A note on the cornmeal. I tried it also with coarser kind of polenta. It doesn't work as well, at least for me, because it requires more attention on the amount of liquid used. If it is not enough the grain will not swell properly and you'll find the grains dry and uncooked.

Torta ligure di riso e cipolla

I learnt this torta ligure from my friend Paola Petrini and she learnt it from nonna Linda, her husband granmother from La Spezia.
I had some left over pasta matta from yeasterday night Fogliata and some onions to use, finally I decided to try this torta. The pasta matta needs to be extra thin, I used an oklava to roll it out (the turkish rolling pin)but if you don't feel as confident can use the imperia machine and roll very fine strips which will be lightly superimposed by 2 cm.
For this torta I weighted the dough and was 78 grams.
For the filling:
80 g of rice
500 g of sweet onions
30 g of grated parmigiano
1 jumbo egg, well beaten
salt and evo

I boiled the rice for 10 minutes, leaving it al dente. I sweat the onion with salt, covered, until very soft. Mix the rice, the onion, grated parmigiano, and add almost all the egg (reserve some for brushing the cake), adjust seasoning.

The dough was enough for a 26 tart ring.
I lined the ring with some parchment paper, oiled it a little, laid the dough, spread the filling and brought toward the center the extra dough, brushed with the remaining egg mixed with some oil. I slid the torta on the preheated baking stone. Cooked for 40 minutes at 180 with a convection oven.
Let cool on a rack.
The pasta matta just works as container. The filling is soft, creamy and tasty.
It's better to serve it at room temperature, not hot.


 
  

Fogliata

Fogliata is a "torta salata" from Umbria. I came to know about it because, some years ago, the recipe and pictures were posted on the forum of La Cucina Italiana by Stefania Girolamini, a member whose family was from Umbria, if I am not mistaken exactly from Spoleto. In the same shape there is a more famous sweet from the region: rocciata di Assisi, known also as attorta.

Fogliata is easy and it turn out to be very good, so it was a wise choice from me to make a mini fogliata, preventing me from eating a normal size torta by myself.

The dough is what in Italian is known as pasta matta: flour 00, salt, very little evo and water. I didn't make a particular soft dough because I used the Imperia to roll out a very thin strip of dough.
Let's say that with 100 g of flour, 2 g of salt, 1 tablespoon of oil and 35 g of water you can get around 3 of these mini fogliate.
The filling is bietole (swiss chards) boiled, coarsely chopped and saute' in oil with a whole clove of garlic, to be removed at the end of cooking. Out of the stove, I added a little bit of grated pecorino.
In Italian with bietole we mean the "coste" and the "erbette". Coste are the one with the big leg, the erbette have a very fine stem. In this case you could use both, but the stem in the coste requires to be cooked separately. In the UK, so far, I have seen only coste.
Once you have rolled the dough in a long strip (or more strips), spread the vegetable in the center, without overfilling the stip, roll the dough and shape it into a coil. Brush with evo and bake in a preheated oven a 180-200 C until golden