Come around Easter time Italian-Americans all over this country make their traditional Easter Pie. Every family makes it different – and every family will claim that theirs is the best. Of course they’re wrong… mine is the best.
This savory holiday pie has many aliases: Pizza Rustica, Pizza Ripiene, Torta Pasqualina, Pizza Piena, Pizza Chiena and Pizza Gain. Those are the ones I know. There are probably more. My family called it Pizza Chiena but sometimes Pizza Gain. I don’t know why the two ways. When I was a kid, I called it Pizza Jane.
This recipe is an adaptation of the original that’s been in my Neapolitan family for generations. You can fiddle with the recipe any way you like but the 3 basic ingredients are ham, eggs and cheese. You can leave it at that and it’ll be great or you can expand the ingredient list with additional meats, cheeses – even fried peppers if you want. It’s all good. But if you want to make your Pizza Jane like mine (which I told you is the best) you must use the Ricotta Salata. Using regular ricotta will result in a goopy mess.
Need This
1 – 8 ounce ham steak (preferably smoked) cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 pound of Ricotta Salata – cubed like the ham
1/4 pound of hard or Genoa salami – also cubed
2 – 15 ounce packages of fresh pizza dough – room temperature
13 large eggs
Black Pepper
Do This
Heat your oven to 350 F.
Cube up the ham, salami, and cheese so that it’s ready to go.
Get out a 9 inch pie baking dish. Hiss a little non-stick cooking spray around the center and inner sides.
In a large bowl, beat the 12 eggs as if you were going to make scrambled eggs. Add a generous scratch of black pepper to the beaten eggs. Mix well.
Remove the pizza dough from the packages. Gently stretch the dough out by hand until it is about the same size round as the baking dish – be careful not to tear any holes in the dough… that would be bad.
Lay one of the stretched doughs over the baking dish. Pull the edges of the dough over the rim of the dish so that the dough gets anchored all around the rim.
Pour the beaten egg over the dough into the center of the baking dish. Add the cubed meats and the cheese and blend it all in nice.*
Crack the 13th egg into a small bowl and beat well.
Lay the second piece of stretched dough over the top and anchor it all around the rim like you did with the first one. There will most likely be excess dough hanging over the rim, trim it off with a pair of scissors to about 1 inch over the rim.
Now, working all around the rim, pinch the dough pieces together with your fingers so that a single crimped edge is formed.
Generously brush the top of the pie with the 13th beaten egg. Put a baking pan under the pie dish to catch any spillover that might occur during cooking and then get it immediately into the oven.
Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Check the pie at about the 45 minute mark to see if there is any seepage of egg coming from the dough. If there is, remove the pie from the oven and plug the hole (holes) with some the dough you trimmed off, then return it back to the oven.
After an hour and twenty, remove the pie from the oven and let cool for at least an hour before serving. Serve warm.
Makes one large Pizza Jane. My Cost Approx $ 11.50
*If an air pocket forms under the dough at this step simply lift one edge of the anchored dough at the rim to let the air escape. GMN