Pizza Rustica for Tuesdays with Dorie

Although this Pizza Rustica is more like a quiche than a pizza, it baked up beautifully and I have no complaints on the filling or the dough.  I followed the recipe exactly as written except for cutting back on the sugar called for in the dough after reading the baker's comments on the Tuesdays with Dorie site.  The sweet dough, a pasta frolla, is the same one that is used to make X cookies.  The sugar in the dough didn't seem to be popular with many of the participants who baked their Pizza Rustica's earlier this week.  The savory filling is referred to as 'terrific' with the sweet dough in the recipe's description but it didn't sound good to me either, so I compromised and cut it down to a few tablespoons instead of 1/3 cup.  In the end the contrast of the slightly sweet dough with the savory ricotta based filling was wonderful and it surprised me how much I liked the flavors together.  I was also surprised that the dough apparently does not need to be chilled, I just rolled it out with enough flour to keep it from sticking.  I also added an egg wash to the lattice top before baking, just couldn't help myself!

I splurged on the prosciutto and shredded it into the ricotta mixture where it adds a salty ham flavor which is good with the freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese in the filling.  Pizza Rustica is served as 'casual finger food' or as a starter before dinner in Italy.  I served mine with an arugula salad with cherry tomatoes and a vinaigrette dressing.  I really don't know why it's called pizza but I do like the name Pizza Rustica and will make it again, probably with a different filling using spinach  and/or roasted red peppers instead of the prosciutto.  For the next recipe- due on April 17th, we will make is the Lemon Loaf Cake which sounds similar to a pound cake only made with a technique used for sponge cakes like the light French genoise cake.

The recipe for Pizza Rustica can be found at this month's Tuesdays with Dorie hosts Emily of Capital Region Dining and Raelynn of The Place They Call Home.