Pizza Rustica – an Italian Easter Pie full of cooked ham, salami, cheese and hard boiled eggs. A must for every Easter celebrating table!
My absolutely favorite Easter recipe is Casatiello or Tortano – Italian Easter Bread. It is Napoletan recipe of homemade bread stuffed with cooked ham, spicy salami, ricotta cheese and hard boiled eggs. My guests love it so much that I have to make it for every Easter celebration. The photo does not reveal how good does it actually taste.
Casatiello or Tortano – Italian Easter Bread
This year I tried something similar, an Italian Easter Pie aka Pizza Rustica or Pizzagaina. It uses almost the same ingredients with addition of ricotta cheese.
TIP: If you notice that your ricotta cheese is very wet, you can let it sit in a colander lined with cheesecloth or coffee filter for several hours or even over night. This will help the cheese release excess moisture.
For the filling you can use any ham or salami that you have at home like Mortadella, Sopressata etc. Same thing goes with cheese: Provolone, Mozzarella, Parmesan, Pecorino, Grana Padano or other types of cheese that you prefer. I listed the ingredients I used, but you can change them to your liking. There is no need to put any salt in the filling because all other ingredients are salty enough.
Because Pizza Rustica is a kind of deep dish pizza, the best dish for baking it is a spring form cake pan, preferably non-stick. I lightly buttered the pan and put rolled out Crazy Dough in it, added filling and covered it with remaining dough. Then I applied an egg wash on the top to make it pretty and shiny.
This type of Easter Pie is traditionally baked a day or two before Easter and then served cold on Easter Sunday, even though it tastes good warm as well. But it is also an excellent way to use leftovers from Easter gathering the next day.
Since I baked the pie several days in advance, I cut it in quarters and put it in my freezer. I’ll let you know whether it is OK to freeze it or not (I guess it should be good). I plan to take it out of the freezer and put it into refrigerator on Saturday evening – it should thaw by Sunday.
May you all have happy and blessed Easter holidays!
Pizza Rustica - an Italian Easter Pie full of cooked ham, salami, ricotta cheese and hard boiled eggs. A must for every Easter celebrating table!
- DOUGH: 1/2 batch Crazy Dough*
- FILLING:
- 500 g ricotta cheese
- 3 eggs, slightly beaten
- 100 g Mozzarella cheese
- 50 g grated Parmesan or Pecorino or Grana Padano cheese
- 150 g boiled ham
- 100 g spicy salami
- 150 g pork cracklings
- 2 hard boiled eggs
- 1 egg for brushing
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Roll 2/3 of the Crazy Dough on your table or counter. Transfer it to the buttered spirng form pan. You can use quite a lot of flour while kneading/rolling, because Crazy Dough is very soft and additional flour will help you transfer the dough easier to the pan.
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FILLING: Cube all of the filling ingredients, place in a large bowl together with ricotta cheese and eggs. Mix to combine. Put into baking pan lined with the dough.
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Roll out remaining 1/3 of the Crazy Dough and cover the top of the pizza. Pinch bottom and upper dough together. If the pizza is uneven, press lightly with your hands to shape it nicely. Cut a few slits in the top dough. Brush the egg wash over the top.
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Bake Pizza Rustica in preheated 175 C (350 F) oven for about 1 hour and 15 minuts. After 45 minutes I put a piece of aluminum foil losely over it because it turned brown too quickly. Be sure to let the steem escape from under the foil.
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Let cool before cutting.
Crazy Dough* recipe: https://www.kitchennostalgia.com/bread/crazy-dough-for-everything.html
It looks delicious! I’ll try to make this tomorrow. But i’ve a question. In my freezer i’ve a package of pizzadough and a package of savory pie dough, storebought and ready to use, can i use that? I don’t want it to stay in my freezer to long and i’ve to use it soon. So then i read this recipe and in my head i was making this with one of my dough from the freezer! I hope you’ve an answer for me be4 easter, if not….so be it, i’ll try it anyway than. Thanks in advance. Wish you much… Read more »
You can definitely use pizza dough because it is very similar to the dough I used. I’m pretty sure savory pie dough would work as well, even though it might turn out too thin for this amount of filling. Anyway you go, I think you’ll be good. Happy Easter!
Thank you for your quick reply. I think i’ll use the pizza dough to make this delicious pie. I think that the people i’m derving it too will be very happy that i made this one! I will anyway and i think i eat a big piece of it.
Thanks for this delicious recipe and for your very fast reply to my question.
I wish you a very happy easter and that all blessings come your way.
Can you add more hard boiled eggs? And I was curious if you tried this with Country fried potatoes (cubed, seasoned, and baked until browned) added? Do you think it would go well?
You can definitely add more hard boiled eggs. I’m not sure about fried potatoes. I wouldn’t add them because there is some superstition in my family that reheated potatoes are not good for your health.
Do you have the other recipe you reference at the beginning of your story? The one with the bread? That’s how I remember eating this growing up but everyone that took part in making it is no longer with us.