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Easter Recipes
Pizza Piena (Apizz’ Gh’ien)
To make 2 good-sized pizza ghien’s3 lbs. ricott’ (minus 3/4 cups)2 big bunches of parsley, washed, dried and chopped in food processor.3/4 lb. parmigian’ — grated in food processor.16 oz. basket cheese, cut up.10 eggs beaten — 4 tsp. black pepper — 1 tsp. salt.(add cut up ham or sausage — or neither)Mix everything together and put into whatever pie crust you like. I’m partial to Pillsbury when there’s so much else to do. But I’m sure James’ crust is very very fine and worth the effort.A criss-cross crust brushed with egg yolk and milk mixture will get golden and glorious.350 degrees, 40-45 minutes — check that knife comes out clean.
Ricott’, eggs, parsley, parmigian’, farmer’s cheese or muzarell’ or both, sausage or ham or both, lots of black pepper, taste for salt.Put a large container of ricott’(3 lbs) in a large bowl. (Liuzzi’s from New haven is great. Pollyo nice too.)Add: 2 bunches of parsley washed well and chopped fine, a mess of grated parmigian’ (about 1 ½ cups), about ½ pound of ham chopped and/or (Aunt Toni does both) well browned sausage either sliced or browned out of the casings. Then as many eggs at it takes to make a nice soft mixture, not stiff and dry, about a dozen eggs. Grate lots of black pepper. Taste for salt.(I have made this For Anna and Ben with no ham or sausage and it’s great! The parmigian’ parsley taste is key.)You can either put the mixture in a pie crust or just make a pie dough lattice on top. But it is key to have a deep dish. Bake until top golden at about 350/ 360 degrees or higher if it is slow to brown. It takes a while because of the deep dish. A bit more than a hour.
