I recently saw this recipe on Lidia Bastianich's television program, which on occasion is very instructive. Apparently, this pizza like pie is a speciality of Gaeta, a town in between Rome and Italy and can contain either escarole (or kale, as here) or octopus (or other things, but these are the main variations). The dough is just normal bread dough with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (in other words, water, flour, olive oil, and yeast, kneaded until smooth). For the filling, I boiled kale for ten minutes, then slowly cooked it in olive oil with chopped olives and garlic until tender. The pan is brushed with olive oil before the bottom layer is stretched out, and then a top layer is added before decorating. Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, and don't forget to add slits to let the steam escape. I found the individual slices best eaten by hand.
I recently saw this recipe on Lidia Bastianich's television program, which on occasion is very instructive. Apparently, this pizza like pie is a speciality of Gaeta, a town in between Rome and Italy and can contain either escarole (or kale, as here) or octopus (or other things, but these are the main variations). The dough is just normal bread dough with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (in other words, water, flour, olive oil, and yeast, kneaded until smooth). For the filling, I boiled kale for ten minutes, then slowly cooked it in olive oil with chopped olives and garlic until tender. The pan is brushed with olive oil before the bottom layer is stretched out, and then a top layer is added before decorating. Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, and don't forget to add slits to let the steam escape. I found the individual slices best eaten by hand. 
4 comments:
that sounds really really good. right up my alley since i love greens such as kale and chard.
I wonder if delivering vegetables in pie form would make them more likely to be eaten by schoolkids. I'm always sort of on the lookout for inducements of that sort, although fundamentally I'm convinced that really someone just ought to put my mother in charge of the school lunch system for the nation and the kids will be eating cauliflower like it's candy.
Thanks Aran. It was good. Next time, I'm adding feta cheese, which would turn it into some kind of greek/italian hybrid.
PG - I don't know. Do kids eat pizza with spinach? What does your mom do with cauliflower? I love cauliflower.
Raffi,
Good point about spinach pizza -- I found the stuff at the college cafeteria mildly nauseating, but the Amy's spinach pizzas are pretty good. Still, it's not a topping I ever order. I was thinking that the pie form might have some special quality because the first tofu I ever had that I liked was when I lived with two vegetarians and they snuck it into a vegetable pie.
Mom makes really excellent cauliflower curry -- just the cauliflower, no potato. I also like roasted cauliflower a lot, but that has to be eaten right away as it doesn't taste good reheated, whereas cauliflower curry tastes almost as good after being frozed, FedExed and nuked as it does fresh.
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