Ingredients (serves 6 people):
- 400 grams of boiled capon;
- 100 grams of fresh pork underbelly;
- 50 grams of sour cherries or 6 dry prunes;
- 3 eggs;
- half a glass of red wine (something like a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo will do);
- a handful of ground parsley;
- a pinch of marjoram;
- a handful of ground mint leaves;
- a pinch of ground ginger;
- olive oil;
- black pepper;
- a pinch of salt.
For the pastry:
- 400 grams of flour;
- 150 grams of butter;
- 2 eggs;
- water;
- a pinch of salt.
Recipe:
For the pastry:
Build a small volcano with the flour, break the eggs in the crater and work everything together with the salt. Pour water on it little by little until the dough is elastic and not too soft. It’s going to be sticky, so you need to dust your hands with more flour. Also, remember that the water needs to be cold and so do your hands, or else the eggs in the mixture start misbehaving and the dough — as we say in Italy — goes crazy.
Chop the butter into pieces and incorporate it in the mixture as well, work it into the dough until you no longer see the pieces but this requires for the mixture to warm a bit, so you’ll want to be quick about it. As soon as you’re satisfied, drop the dough in cellophane or in a cold cloth, and throw it into the fridge. Three hours is the optimum, but half an hour usually suffices.
For the pie:
Chop the boiled capon in small pieces and put it into a pan with a streak of olive oil, add the ground pork belly, the ground prunes or sour cherries, and cook for a few minutes on a lively fire. Douse with the red wine, sprinkle the ground aromatic herbs (parsley, marjoram and mint), and cover everything with a generous dose of ground ginger. Add a pinch of salt, ground some black pepper and cook on a low fire until all the liquid has gone.
Lay the pastry on a buttered pan, pour the filling and cover with another layer of pastry. Cook for 50 minutes in the oven at 180°C.
Mint, the plant of the underworld
In Greek mythology, Minthe was an underworld naiad, a nymph of water, connected with the infernal river Cocytus, so I guess this could also work for #MermaidMonday. Hades, king of the Underworld, was very fond of her and she eventually became his mistress, but this didn’t escape Persephone or, according to other accounts, her mother Demeter: the nymph was eventually turned into mint, the aromatic plant we know today.
I dedicated to her one of my #ChthonicThursdays.
Illustration of Minthe and Hades by Solomon Shiv Landerman: you can buy a print here.
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