I watched Lidia Bastianich on her TV Show on PBS Cooking with Lidia making this incredible sounding Crostata. It is a bit of work. Lidia recommends to make your own ricotta cheese and I’m totally understand that so that’s ok for me. The taste is not the same if you purchase the cheese. It doesn’t compare. You also need a lot of zucchini and a lot of scallions. Lidia recommends to make the dough with a food processor. I find the recipe is very good and you can make the dough by hand like I did……Also a  baking stone is also recommended to get the bottom of the crust brown. The only issue I had with the recipe is that it doesn’t contain pepper. In my mind the recipe should have some pepper in it but I didn’t want to change the recipe so I finely chopped 4 Calabrian Chili Peppers in to the mix and they gave a nice little mild bit of heat in the finish. The recipe makes a generous amount of filling so you can do a little tester in an oven with a small amount of filling and taste it and then decide if you want to add a little bit of pepper or not. This recipe is considered an Appetizer or Hors D’ Oeuvres ……..?…..but I think it can be a breakfast, lunch or light dinner  (If you don’t cut it too large). I didn’t try it yet but Lidia wrote that leftovers freeze well.

Ingredients to make about 15 servings

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup cold water – plus more if needed

1 pound small zucchini (I needed three)

1/2 cup arborio, carnaroli or vialone nano rice

2 cups ricotta – preferably fresh drained over night

1 cup grated Grans Padano

2 bunched scallions finely chopped – (about two cups)(bunches by me are not big enough to make a cup)

3 large eggs slightly beaten

2 cups milk

2 teaspoons kosher salt

butter for baking pan – (I used non-stick spray)

Directions

If your making your own ricotta do that first…It will take about an hour plus. (basically 1 gallon milk, between 1 pint- 1 quart heavy cream 1 scant Tablespoon salt bring SLOWLY to rolling boil on medium heat. This will take at least an hour. Let it rolling boil a few minutes and add about fresh squeezed lemon juice SLOWLY until you see curds from about three medium sized lemons (you might not need all the juice if the lemons are very juicy but usually I need 3 lemons. You should see it curds now.

Let it cook just a few minutes and you can drain quickly with a mesh strainer. Your cheese will be ready as soon as it cools slightly. You will have more than double the cheese you need. Leftover cheese freezes very well.

Now make dough. If you have a food processor pour the flour, 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 olive oil and 1/3 cup cold water and pulse. Pulse and you should have a smooth dough but if it’s pebbly you might need a little more water. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest at least a 1/2 hour.

For the filling.- In a large bowl shred the zucchini on the course holes. Toss in the rice.and let it sit together 30-60 minutes. Then fold in the ricotta, grated cheese, eggs – beaten, milk and salt and mix well.

Add your baking stone to the oven on a middle rack and set the temperature to 375 degrees F.

On a floured surface roll out the dough till it’s about 4 inches larger than your pan. (if you can).

Butter your pan.

Roll the dough around the rolling pin so you can roll the dough off into the pan.

Place the dough in the pan the best you can and then add filling and fold the ends over the filling.

You might want to turn the crostata half way during cooking for even browning. In 45-60 minutes the Crostata should be done. (In my oven it took an hour to be done)

Let it rest and cool down a little before you put in the refrigerator. You are suppose to serve this slightly warm or at room temperature.

It’s delicious and very rich. I recommend to cut in small pieces. It’s a crowd pleaser!

Thanks to Chef Lidia for a great recipe!