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Pies and Tarts
Pellegrino Artusi's Pasta Frolla (Shortcrust pastry dough)
Originated from: Italy
Occasion: Any time & special times
Contributed by: Taken from "La Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene" compilato da Pellegrino Artusi (1891, 1907)

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Ingredients

Recipe A
500 grams (about 1 pound) flour
320 grams (about 7-3/4 ounces) white sugar
180 grams (about 6-1/3 ounces) butter
70 grams (about 2-1/2 ounces) lard
2 whole eggs and one egg yolk

Recipe B
250 grams (about 8-4/5 ounces) flour
125 grams (about 4-1/2 ounces) butter
110 grams (about 3-4/5 ounces) white sugar
1 whole egg and one yolk

Recipe C
270 grams (about 9-1/2 ounces) flour
115 grams (about 4 ounces) sugar
90 grams (about 3 ounces) butter
45 grams (about 1-1/2 ounces) lard
4 egg yolks
orange zest

To soften "left-over" dough
White wine or Marsala



Directions

Here are three different recipes, take the one that best suits you; I recommend the third recipe as the most refined, especially for pies.

If you want to make short pastry wihtout going mad, grind the sugar very fine (I use icing sugar) and mix it with the flour.

If the butter is still hard, work it beforehand with wet hands on the pastry board until it softens.

Blend everything to make a dough, but work it as little as possible or it will "burn" as the chefs say. For this reason it's best to use the blade of a knife to blend the ingredients.

When convenient, you can make the dough the day before, as it doesn't go bad, and it has more time to rest, it is more tender when baked.

When using the dough for pies roll it out first with a smooth rolling pin and then to give the top crust a nicer appearance, use a ridged rolling pin, brush it with egg yolk. Using icing sugar will make it easier to roll out. In order to work the dough less, you can mix the leftover pieces with white wine or Marsala, which will also help to make it more tender.


Notes

The recipe in this entry was taken from "La Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene manuale Pratico per le Famiglie" compilato da Pellegrino Artusi. The book was first published in 1891. Since then many Italian editions have been published. Olga Ragusa's selection of recipes from Pellegrino Artusi's famous cookbook, titled "The Italian Cook Book," can be found in its entirety at www.archive.org (It's free). The University of Toronto recently published a new English edition of Pellegrino Artusi's "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well"; many of the recipes in this edition can be found at www.books.google.ca.... Photo: Mary Melfi.

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