Previous Post
Torta di Patate (Pureed Potato Torte)
July 11, 2003 | by Heidi | Filed under
Saveur Cooks Authentic Italian, Page 276
Think: mashed potato pie, and you will have some sense of what this is. A thin bread crust baked with a very thick interior paste created by mashing potatoes, ricotta, egg, and a few other ingredients together.
I was intrigued by the photo essay that accompanied the recipe in the Saveur cookbook. An old Italian woman is shown masterfully rolling out enough paper-thin dough for a torte that will be over 14 inches wide. For comparison-my crust ended up being about 9 inches across. Her Torta di Patate was beautiful, golden and textured, and inspired me to try this.
The first step was making the dough. I kneaded together the yeast-free; flour, water, and salt mixture for the instructed 15 minutes. It made a small ball of dough which easily fit in my palm. While I mixed up the filling, the dough rested in the refrigerator.
They say the Ligurian people roll the dough for this crust out very thin, not only for aesthetic reasons, but to make the flour go farther. I am guessing the same philosophy went into the filling, which may be why it is a simple potato base-with no fancy fillings.
The filling was literally, mashed potatoes with a few additional ingredients, like egg and cheese, added in.
If I were going to bother making this again, I would start adding ingredients to the potato filling base. More like a shepard's pie. The plain potato base with the crust was just so......white and starchy. The finished torte was beautiful to look at, but seems like there were a lot of directions you could take this base to make it more interesting, flavorful, and contemporary. Maybe add olives and sun-dried tomatoes, or red-peppers. Or basil infuse the potatoes....
A fun Sunday recipe project with impressive looking results, but the consensus is-not worth making again unless I put some extras in the middle.
Never miss a recipe!
Enter your email address to subscribe to 101 Cookbooks via email:
Recently on 101 Cookbooks
