Torta di patate e porri, della Lunigiana ma con influenze sudiste (potato and leek pie, from Lunigiana but also with southern Italian influences)

Lunigiana is the austere mountainous area where three regions meet: Toscana, Liguria and Emilia Romagna. From the administrative point of view, it is now part of Tuscany, but historically and culturally it has always been a terra di confine, a border land, where the identities of those three regions, and of its people and food cultures, meet and seep into each other. 
The tosco-emiliano Apennine runs through it, with its majestic woodland of chestnut trees, but one is also never too far from the sea. In Lunigiana, the butter of Emilia Romagna food culture meets the extra virgin olive oil of Liguria and Tuscany. 
Mountains and sea, butter and oil.

The recipe for this savoury pie comes from a solid book about the cooking of this corner of Italy, La Cucina della Lunigiana by Salvatore Marchese, but I have altered it to suit my palate. In the original version, the crust is made with what is known as pasta matta, ‘crazy’ dough/pastry, an almost monastic affair of flour, water, very little oil and salt. It is typical of many savoury pies of Ligurian cooking and you will find here a good example. Lately, I have been keen on a different, richer pastry though, one that is made with white wine and extra virgin olive oil, and comes from the south of Italy. 
Such diverse geographical credentials make this pie an oddball, which in turns reflects the lovely, anarchic nature of much home cooking.

Torta di patate e porri, della Lunigiana ma con influenze sudiste
Potato and leek pie from Lunigiana but also with southern Italian influences

Serves 6-8

240 g plain flour
60 g wholemeal flour 
A hefty pinch of salt and a more restrained pinch of sugar
About 150 g liquid, half white wine and half extra virgin olive oil

500 g floury potatoes, net weight
1 kg leeks, net weight
25 g grated parmigiano reggiano
25 g grated pecorino romano
2 eggs, beaten 
A generous pinch of black pepper and freshly ground nutmeg

A round tin measuring 31 cm at the bottom, 27 cm at the top and 3 cm deep, buttered

Steam the potatoes and mash them roughly with a fork.
Fry the leeks in oil until they are soft and dry, about 10 minutes, on high heat.
Mix the two vegetables, add the cheese (keeping back about three tablespoons), the eggs (keeping back a couple of tablespoons), the spices and a glug of oil. 
Mix well and let it cool.
Check it again for salt and spices just before using it to fill the pie.

To make the dough, place the two types of flour, the salt and the sugar in the bowl of the food processor and whizz to mix. 
Slowly add the liquid, leaving behind a couple of tablespoons and process until a dough starts forming into pellets of irregular size. Let the dough rest for about 20 minutes: this will allow the flour to hydrate fully and you will be in a better position to assess if the dough needs extra liquid. 
After the rest, pinch some of the pellets of  dough together: if they stick into a cohesive mass, soft but not sticky, you are done. Otherwise, add the remaining liquid (and more water, if necessary) by the tablespoon and process until the dough starts massing around the blades. Transfer it onto a lightly floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flatten it and let it rest, covered, for about half an hour. If, on the other hand, you have found the dough was too sticky to begin with, do not worry: again, transfer it onto a floured surface, dust it with extra flour and knead it gently. Proceed as above.

Heat up an upturned baking tray in the oven to 200 C, medium rack, static.
Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper until it becomes a disc of about 35 cm in diameter.
Ease it into the tin, leaving a few centimetres hanging outside the rim.
Add the filling.
Turn the overhanging dough inward, pleating as you go along.
Brush the pleated edge with the remaining egg, shower the filling with the remaining cheese and drizzle it with oil.
Bake at 180 C for about 45-60 minutes.
Eat it warm.

Notes

I play around with the flours: sometimes I include a little rye, other times I use a mix of 00 flour and semola rimacinata flour; other times I use a mix of plain and bread flour, when I want a crust with more bite.
Spices: ground coriander, cinnamon, cloves could be used alongside the black pepper and nutmeg.