Giro d'Italia '20 - Stage 12: Cesenatico
Today was a day. Now that I’m working from home regularly due to Covid-19, typically, I have the Giro playing on my laptop while I start my workday. However, today was a complete disaster at work. I was backing up a few people who were out. Some emergencies came up. People were losing their minds over minutia. The girls kept logging out of their laptops and didn’t know how to log back in for school and were having other general schoolwork upload issues. I worked through lunch...actually I worked non-stop for the entire day and then some. Then it came time to make dinner. No problem. Let’s see what I’m making for this stage of the race...oh, just great, BAKING! Could the day get any worse?!
Typically, cooking is my undwinding time. I just zone out, forget work, or whatever else is going on in the world, and whip up something delicious. Yes, some of these meals have been stressful and involved, but at the end-of-the-day, it’s cooking. I know how to cook. Baking is another animal - with its precise measurements and strict adherence to steps. Also, planets have to align just right, and the most northern star of Persues must fall within the fifth house of the thirty-seventh moon of Saturn for your dough to have the exact moisture content to pull off whatever you're making. Luckily, Mercury isn’t in retrograde tonight, so I got that going for me!
But, something mercurial was afoot. This dough came together like no other...was it because it employs olive oil as opposed to water? The dish came together flawlessly, was delicious and...hold onto your undergarments, but baking saved me today. Once I got going, I enjoyed the entire process. I even sat down and completed some unfinished work while this delectable tart baked in the oven. A crumby day turned into a satisfying work day along with a flaky crusted, savory dinner. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Erbazzone with Swiss Chard
Adapted from Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy, Lidia Bastianich
If the chard doesn’t look great, (I could only use about half of what I had on hand) use some other hearty leafy greens like Tuscan kale (what I used), kale, collards or mustard greens.
Erbazzone Dough
2 cups flour
1 tsp kosher salt
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil + ⅓ cup of cold water, combined
Filling
~2 lbs Swiss chard
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, minced
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano
½ cup italian seasoned breadcrumbs
1 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
Preheat a large pot with about 4-5 quarts of water and let it come to a boil. Meanwhile, add the flour and salt in a food processor and begin to mix, then pour oil/water mixture down the feed tube. Let the dough mix until it starts to gather on the blade, about 30 seconds. If the dough will not combine, add more cold water by the tablespoon until it comes together. Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for a minute until smooth. Press and pat into a disk and wrap in plastic. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes on the counter.
While the dough rests, chop off any thick stalks from your chard/greens, and remove the leafy greens from any tough or lingering thick stalks. Once you have all the greens stemmed, discard the stems (or reserve for stock-making) and rough chop the leafy greens. Drop the greens into the pot of boiling water. When it returns to a boil, lower the heat to medium to maintain a simmer for 10 minutes. Occasionally, stir and ensure that all of the greens are submerged in the water.
Meanwhile, combine the cheese, breadcrumbs and rosemary in a large bowl along with a ½ tsp of kosher salt. If you have a pizza stone, place it on the lower-third oven rack and preheat to 375. Fill another large bowl with ice water. When the greens have completed cooking, add them to the ice-water bath to stop them from cooking. Once cooled, drain the greens and squeeze the excess water from them - squeeze hard, we want these as dry as possible, just try not to rip the greens as you squeeze. Then, preheat a skillet with the olive oil, over medium heat. Add the garlic and stir until fragrant. Then, toss in the greens along with a pinch of salt, and stir to coat with the olive oil, cooking for 2 minutes. Add the cooked components to the bowl of breadcrumbs.
Now, on a large floured surface, roll out the dough as thin as possible and transfer to a rimmed baking sheet, allowing the excess dough to over-run the pan. Add the eggs to the bowl of greens and mix all of the filling components together. Then pour onto the rolled out dough, leaving a small border, and even out the filling. Bring the overlapping dough over the ingredients, leaving just a small portion of the filling uncovered and pinching the corners of the dough together. Place the dough (still on the baking sheet) onto the pizza stone and bake for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile mix an egg yolk and tablespoon of water in a bowl. After the erbazzone has baked for 30 minutes, brush the egg wash onto the exposed pastry and place back in the oven and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Let cool on a rack for 30 minutes. Top with more freshly grated cheese prior to serving.
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Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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