Savory Italian Easter Pie

Every year at Easter time, my mom, grandma and aunts would make Easter pies, along with taralli and other Italian goodies.  There were two types of Easter pies.  The first was a savory pie made with ricotta, eggs, proscuitto, grated parmesan cheese and seasoned with black pepper.  This was all put into a pie shell that had eggs in it as well.  The second type of pie was a sweet ricotta and rice pie.  Both were a must for celebrating Easter Sunday.  The first pie was often served with a glass of wine.  The second one was for the end of the meal along with a some dark rich coffee.  Each was good in their own way.  As children, we much preferred the sweet pie, but as we got older the savory pie was more appreciated. 

I found a recipe for the savory pie in the book, "In Nonna's Kitchen" by Carol Field.  Here she calls it Pizza Rustica Napolitan.  The pastry for the pie was made using olive oil in place of butter.  I'd never tried this before and found the dough somewhat difficult to work, but it did go well with the filling.  I started by making some whole milk ricotta and then added in mortadella and salami along with 3 eggs, parmesan and romano cheeses, black pepper and ground nutmeg. Here's the pie-