Pastiera

Ingredients

• Crust
• 6 eggs
• 4 cups flour, extra on the side to add as needed
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 stick of melted butter
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Filling
• 1 cup of white rice
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1/2 tsp of Crisco
• 2/3 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon sugar (separate)
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Zest of half an orange
• Zest of half a lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

1. To make filling, first make rice. Bring water to a boil in a medium size saucepan. Stir in the rice and cover. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Stir in Crisco. Set rice Aside to cool.
2. Next mix together 1 tbsp sugar, cinnamon and zest and set aside.
3. In a large bowl beat egg and sugar until combined and then add in vanilla and milk and continue to beat until all ingredients are combined.
4. Add egg mixture to rice and stir to combine then add zest and stir all ingredients until thoroughly combined.
5. Refrigerate rice mixture until you are ready to fill pie crust.
6. To make dough for crust, beat eggs and sugar together then add in melted butter and vanilla and blend to combine all ingredients.
7. In a separate bowl, measure out 4 cups of flour and baking powder to it.
8. Next slowly add flour mixture to egg mixture one spoon at a time mixing with each addition. Mix until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.
9. Roll mixture out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead mixture to form dough adding small amounts of additional flour if needed to make dough manageable.
10. Now for the fun part. It’s time to roll out the dough! This dough will make roughly 2 10″ pie crusts. You’ll probably have a bit extra dough. We’ve never been able to make exactly the right amount of dough for the filling but there’s always next year. This will get you close.
11. First, grease and flour pie dishes and set aside. At this time also, remove the rice mixture from the refrigerator and set aside.
12. Lightly flour your work surface. Then divide the dough into two equal pieces. Flatten the dough with your hands to start and then continue rolling out with a rolling pin until the dough fits into your pie dish and hangs over the edges.
13. At this point preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
14. Place the rolled out dough carefully into the center of the greased pie dish and gently press the dough toward the edges of the dish to form the crust. Cut off any excess dough around the sides and pinch remaining dough along the perimeter of the pie dish.
15. Then with the remaining dough cut strips of dough (using a pastry cutter with crimping edge) to fit across the diameter of the pie and have ready to top after pie is filled.
16. Pour the rice filling into the pie crust about half way to the top.
17. Top with dough strips carefully pinching the end of the strips to the side of the crust so that they adhere.
18. Place in hot oven and bake for 50 minutes. Cook time will depend on your oven so check pie toward the end of the suggested cook time. Check for doneness by tapping pie quickly with a spatula. Pie should be firm but not hard. I use my finger tips, but Mike tells me that’s dangerous and I shouldn’t instruct you to do that.
19. Remove from over and let cool.