Recipe: Pizza Rustica with spinach, mozzarella and ham!

Pizza Rustica is fun and easy, you need a good dough, some fillings and you are ready! If you have guests coming over it`s a bit more interesting than a normal pizza nd you can gather many many nice compliments from your friends and family. I first noticed them in Puglia, where the cheese and ham filing is the most common. To be honest i wasn`t really impressed with the one I had there as it was a bit dry for my taste. But I liked the general idea and wanted to come up with my own version.

The dough is a basic bread and foccacia dough, which is very very easy to make. Note to self when you choose the filling for pizza rustica is that the dough needs a very warm 230C oven, so if you pick same raw ingredients like meat etc., most likely not going to cook within 10 minutes. So make sure the stuffing is already ready to eat. Besamel sauce -not a lot just a little- can prevent the dough getting too dry, and even a day after making it will be nice and soft.

Ingredients

Dough

• 1,5 Kg. bread flour
• 4 tbs dried yeast
• 2tbs sugar
• 3tbs salt
• 600ml luke warm water

Filling

• 10 slices of ham
• 1kg of fresh spinach
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• bit of oil
• 1 big mozzarella sliced
• bechamel sauce – butter, milk, flour, nutmeg, salt,white pepper

Sift the flour in a big bowl, make a hole in the middle, add the yeast, the sugar and the salt, and mix it together. gradually add the water, and mix it with a wooden spoon, make sure your dough isn`t too wet, otherwise you`ll need to add more flour. Take it out from the bowl, to a clean lightly floured surface, and mix it well together. Add more flour or water if needed. Put it in a clean bowl with some oil, and cover it with a clean cloth. Leave it at a warm place, so it can rise.

Note: Usually the dough doubles its size in about 1 hour. Depending on your flour or yeast it can take up to a little more time so don`t worry. Don`t touch it or start making it if the dough didn`t rise!

Meanwhile, if you use fresh spinach, wash it at least 2-3 times, and make sure its clean. Chop it up a little, and saute it with some oil, garlic, salt and pepper. If you use frozen spinach leafs, make sure you get rid of as much excess water as possible. Make some bechamel, not much, if you don`t want to mess around with it, as you need only a little, you can use sour creme or creme fraische as a substitute. Get the rest of the ingredient`s ready, and heat up your oven to 230C.

When your dough is ready, take it out of the bowl, and mix it a little bit more. Cut in half. Knead the first half to the shape of your baking tray. Make sure your tray is well oiled. Put the dough in and add the ingredients. First some bechamel (not much just lightly, to cover, the ham, spinach, and the cheese on top. Knead the rest of the dough and cover. With a fork make some holes on the top, and put it in your oven. It usually needs not more than 15 minutes to be ready! Put it on a wire rack to cool. And enjoy the heavenly pizza!

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Bari: Di Cosimo Pizzeria, picture expension.

I think Pizzeria di Cosimo, from Bari was one of my first posts on the blog, and since it`s been one of the most popular ones. Especially in the recent weeks, it was one of the most googled article from Wonderingchef. I decided to add some more photos, for the ones who are interested. Puglia is an up and coming travel points among bloggers and food lovers, the recent year has really done well for it`s popularity. And if you trust me, you`ll belive me it is worth to visit! Nothing is better than picking up some fresh giant green olives from one of the local markets, and pretty much eat your way trough the whole day! Also, after visiting New York, I have to say, Bari is one of the most cheapest places to eat around Europe, or pretty much anywhere!

So…. 3 pictures from Di Cosimo!

Picture 1: Since my first visit to Bari I`m addivted to Panzerotto. Small big, I don’t care as long as It`s fried! I’m not really a big fan of it`s ovenbaked version. I don`t know why , it`s just nothing special.  The fried version however, just had me at hello! It`s very similar to a hungarian langos – fried dough, but most of the time we eat it with sour creme and cheese. Well let me say the tomato sauce-mozarella cheese combo is even better. On this picture you can see a fried and an al forno panzerotto.

Picture 2: My latest discovery is pizza pana. It was fantastic! Also very simple, and I can`t believ I havent thought about it myself. This is pretty much, a simple pizza, with the tomato sauce basic, on top with fresh cooking creme. We have creme based pizzas here but that`s it, it`s never mixed with the tomato sauce, but it damn right should be! Try at home if you want, or at Cosimo, it`s even better:)

Picture 3; Pizza nd pizzella. Pizzella is a pizza, it`s just a small version. The food prices here are relatively small, price for a pizza is about 5 Euros, for a pizzella is 4 as far as I remember. I would suggest, if you are hungry order a panzerotto and a pizzella, so you can try as many things as possible. Also I pretty much described what Di Cosimo sells, These are the 2 items on the menu. Try and go early, otherwise you’ll be fighting for your food with the locals!

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