Video Recipe: Savory Rustic Tart with Wild Greens, Ricotta & Prosciutto

Recipe for the Savory Tart with Wild Greens, Prosciutto & Ricotta

During a hands-on cooking class at La Tavola Marche (farm, inn & cooking school) in Le Marche, Italy guests forage for wild greens in the field in front of our 300 year old farmhouse. Jason helps guests identify the different edibles and with bags full of dandelion greens, poppy greens, grispigno & more they head into the kitchen to create a rustic tart with the fresh picked wild greens, ricotta & prosciutto.  

  During the dog days of winter, enjoy this slice of life/glimpse at one of our Spring cooking classes!

Visit us during April/May 2014 for one of our Spring Cooking & Foraging Holidays in Italy:

Cooking with Wild Edibles & Bottling Wine:   24 - 28 April 2014 (4 Nights) = 500 Euro/person 

 “Made in Le Marche”  D.O.C. Wine & Cheese Tour, Artisan Meat Market Trip with Chef & Craft Beer Tasting with 3 Cooking Classes 13-18 May 2014 (5 Nights) = 928 Euro/person

  

Recipe for the Savory Tart with Wild Greens, Prosciutto & Ricotta

Torta di Erbe Selvatiche

Pastry Dough
Ingredients:
2 3/4 Cups (250 gr) all purpose flour
3/4 Cup (150 gr.) butter, cut into pieces
1 egg
2-3 Tablespoons ice water
pinch of salt

Method:
Sift flour into a mound, add the butter & pinch of salt. Rub together with your fingers or food processor. When mixture resembles crumbly coarse sand incorporate the egg & water. Knead 2-3 times.
Form into a disk, wrap in plastic and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Filling
Ingredients:
2 Cups (400 gr) of cooked, drained and squeezed dry greens (mix of wild greens or chard, spinach, escarole, etc.)
1 Cup (250 gr.) sheep’s milk ricotta cheese
zest of half a lemon
generous handful of Parmesan
2-3 slices of prosciutto, chopped
salt & pepper
1 egg, separated

Method:
Cook your greens in boiling, salted water depending on the toughness (spinach may only need 20-30 seconds, chard needs 3-4 minutes).  Drain and squeeze as much liquid as you can out of the greens. Combine the greens in a bowl with the ricotta, parmesan, lemon, prosciutto, salt & pepper. Taste & check your seasonings.

To Assemble the Tart:
Preheat oven to 350 F/ 185 C

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and split in half. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch or 1/2 cm thickness and line the bottom of a tart or pie pan. (We use 9-inch or 25 cm but you can make individual tarts as well.) Make sure to have enough dough to fold the edges back over the the top.

Once pastry is lined in pan, brush with egg white then fill with a generous amount of the chard mixture (filling in evenly).

Brush folded over part on the top with egg yolk as well.

Place in oven, bake 45 minutes - 1 hour until pastry is golden brown & filling is bubbly. Serve warm or room temperature.

Baked Figs with Prosciutto & Formaggio di Fossa

Baked Figs with Prosciutto and Formaggio di Fossa

Baked sweet figs wrapped in salty prosciutto, stuffed with stinky sheep's milk cheese is a sweet andsavory way to start your meal. This is also a perfect example of balancing flavors - (if any of you has taken one of our cooking classes, this is what Jason refers to as FASSA: fat, acid, sweet, salt & aromatic). Instead of a soft sweet cheese that many recipes call for when stuffing in figs, we went the opposite direction - using the sharpest, stinkiest cheese we can find, which means formaggio di fossa (sheep's milk cheese aged in a pit from Le Marche, Italy). Read a past post about unearthing this unique cheese.

Formaggio di Fossa from Beltrami in Le Marche, Italy

Baked Figs with Prosciutto and Formaggio di Fossa

serves 4
4 figs
2 slices of prosciutto, cut lengthwise in half
1 slice of stinky aged cheese, cut into four little pieces

Slice off the tip-top of the fig. Cut a shallow X into the top of the fig.
Squeeze slightly from the bottom and the fig will open slightly like a flower.
Wrap a half piece of prosciutto around the fig.
Stuff a piece of cheese into the open 'fig flower.'
Place snugly in a baking dish with a drop of olive oil.
Bake in a hot oven of 225C for 10-12 minutes until the cheese melts, prosciutto is crispy and the fig is soft.
Serve and eat immediately.

Prosciutto Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

We affectionately call this dish 'pork wrapped pork'!  Prosciutto wrapped pork tenderloin with sage is a savory secondo we serve year-round and often on the menu for our cooking classes. Serve it on a bed of grilled radicchio with cherry tomatoes and balsamic for a perfect balance of flavors! 

Prosciutto Wrapped Pork Tenderloin
Serves 4

1 tenderloin of pork
5-8 slices of prosciutto (depending on how big your tenderloin is)
handful of sage leaves
a few cherry tomatoes
clove of garlic
a few Tablespoons of white wine
salt & pepper

The Rolling:

1. Remove the "silver skin" from the pork tenderloin and season generously with salt and pepper.

2. Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap about 6 inches longer than the tenderloin.  Lay prosciutto down the middle vertically, slightly overlapping the edges to fit the length of the tenderloin.

3. Lay sage leaves down the center of the prosciutto, slightly overlapping.

4. Place the pork ontop of the sage. 

5. Now roll it up! Using the plastic wrap, roll the prosciutto tightly around the pork tenderloin - just like sushi. It is very important to roll tightly. If there is slack it will open as it cooks.

6. Tuck the bottom piece of plastic under the top. Turn both ends to tighten even moreso and secure.

photo from our cooking classes at La Tavola Marche

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 205 C/ 400 F

Remove the tenderloin from the plastic. 

 With a little olive oil in the pan, heat until nice and hot. Sear on all sides * starting with the seam side DOWN.  Note: Be gentle and careful not to break/tear the prosciutto as you sear it.

Once seared on all sides, toss in 3 or so cherry tomatoes into the pan with a clove of garlic and the white wine. 

Finish cooking in the oven 18-30 minutes depending on the size of your pork tenderloin.

Remove and allow to rest at least 15 minutes before slicing. 

Wine: Pairs perfectly with a bold red wine from Le Marche like Terracruda's Profundo.

Savory Radicchio and Prosciutto Crostini Topped with Sweet Syrupy Sapa

A fall favorite is the savory radicchio and prosciutto crostini topped with sweet syrupy sapa. This is a great example of balancing flavors: the fat of the prosciutto will cut the bitterness of the radicchio, while the sweet component, sapa will round out the flavor. To achieve a balanced result - all three ingredients should be in balance not tasting one single ingredient but a rich flavorful bite. Sapa is a has been used since Ancient Roman cuisine and is made by slowly reducing grape must in large kettles until it had been reduced by one-third. Sapa is common used in Italy, especially in Le Marche, Emilia Romagna and Sardinia, where it's considered among the traditional flavors of fall. 

Our friend Marco has a vineyard and make his own wine (lacrima). He recently gave us a bottle of his homemade sapa - its dark syrupy sweetness is topping everything from crositini to fish, fruit and gelato!

Crostini of Radicchio, Prosciutto and Sapa

Serves 4-6
Head of radicchio
clove of garlic
2-3 slices of pancetta, prosciutto, bacon, speck - whatever fatty component you want.
spoonful of sapa - grape must or if unavailable, you can you balsamic vinegar with a tiny bit of honey
toasty bread
salt & pepper
1-2 glugs of olive oil
optional - few slices of soft cheese - we use sheep's milk (pecorino)


In a pan, heat the olive oil on low heat, add in the clove of garlic. Cook until lightly brown on all sides.

Turn up the heat, rough chop your head of radicchio, removing the core and cook down for a couple of minutes until the radicchio wilts.

Turn the heat down, chop up your prosciutto or bacon and add to the pan. You want to render the fat of this slowly - if you have the heat too high, the pork will crisp up & become chewy - you don’t want this with the soft radicchio.

Allow to cook until most of the moisture in the pan has cooked out. The radicchio & pork should still be soft. Season with salt & pepper. Remove the clove of garlic and drizzle over the sapa or balsamic & honey mixture. Check your seasonings.

Toast the bread, top with a slice of pecorino then a spoonful of the mixture and serve immediately. Goes great with a glass of red wine.