Joan Nova get’s inspired by Deborah of Italian Food Forever, and decides to add her own twist to a great torta recipe.
Text And Photo By Joan Nova
Technique. Once you know a technique, everything is easy and the possibilities are endless. I owe this technique to Deborah of Italian Food Forever who posted a “torta di erbe” about a week ago. It caught my attention because it didn’t require pastry dough to hold it together. What do I have against pastry dough? It tastes good, yes, but I consider it my nemesis. It involves a measure of patience and skill I care not to cultivate plus I hate the mess of working with flour, not to mention the subsequent unwanted calories. This was more like it!
I know I am going to be making variations of this for a long time to come. In fact, I already have my next one planned…I’m thinking Greek…with spinach, artichokes, feta and calamata olives. Drool. 
I pretty much followed Deborah’s recipe with a few FOODalogue twists:
1. My greens mix was 2 heads of broccoli rabe and 1 of escarole.
2. I used anchovies instead of pancetta.
3. A handful of raisins were thrown in the mix for that salty-sweet yin-yang.
4. And, I added about 3/4 of a pound of diced fresh mozzarella…because I had it and thought it would be good. It was!
5. Lastly, I also added some ground almonds and lemon zest to the topping.
6. I finished with a drizzle of evoo.
And a glass of red!
Very cool! This reminds me of a dish that my grandfather loves from my grandmother’s hometown in Gaeta, Italy. it is called ‘Tiella’ and is traditionally made with escarole and the vegetable version, or calamari as the non-veggie version…