Vegetable pie dessert Torta coi Becchi

Vegetable pie with beaks – Torta coi Becchi – is a rustic Italian vegetable-based dessert which combines sweet and salty tastes. It has a base of shortcrust pastry and a filling of chard, pine nuts, and raisins, but also stale rustic or whole grain bread, sugar, cedar, cinnamon, and rum. It is a Tuscan speciality from the Tuscan city of Lucca and owes its name to the ‘beaks’ created along its edges.

If you visit Lucca, “Torta coi Becchi” pie is one is definitely a must–try. I propose an easy-to-prepare recipe for which you can either make the shortcrust pastry or use a ready-made shortcrust dough to minimize preparation times.

 

VEGETABLE PIE

Preparation time: 1h 15min     Rest time: 30 min

Difficulty level: medium

Ingredients:

THE SHORT PASTRY:

250 gr of flour

100 g of butter

100 gr of sugar

3 egg yolks

FOR THE STUFFING:

250 g of boiled chard

100 g of sugar

100 g of stale rustic or whole-grain bread

50 g of raisins

50 g of pine nuts

50 g of candied citron

1 glass of milk

1 egg yolk

2 whole eggs

1 lemon

1 small glass of rum

Cinnamon to taste

Nutmeg to taste

Black pepper

Salt

 

Preparation:

Boil the chard.

Pour the milk into a bowl, add the stale bread, and let it soften.

In another bowl, soak the raisins in warm water.

Prepare a shortcrust pastry by working together with the flour, half the sugar, three egg yolks, and the butter into small pieces. Mix everything well, when mixed, put it to rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes, wrapping it in a cling film. After the time has elapsed, spread evenly in a greased pan and place in the fridge.

In a pan, melt a knob of butter, mix it with the well squeezed and cut chard for a few minutes, and add salt and pepper at the end of cooking.

In a bowl, mix the cooled chard with the well-dried bread and raisins, the eggs and the egg yolk, the grated lemon peel, the pine nuts, and the candied fruit in pieces. Sprinkle the mixture with the rum, stir, add the sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg, mix everything and pour it over the dough.

Fold in the protruding edge of the dough and, with scissors, cut it into interspersed triangles forming a corolla of “beaks”.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 ° C for 45 minutes.

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