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NICE COOKINGCouhina nissarda

Lunch

Savory Swiss chard pie

La tourte de blettes salée

Savory Swiss chard pie from Nice: olive oil pastry filled with chard, rice, eggs and Parmesan. Four Nice versions compared, and how it differs from the sweet one.

Published

Prep
45 min
Cook
40 min
Rest
30 min
Total
1 h 55 min
Serves
8
Difficulty
Medium

Method

  1. Mix the flour and salt, add the olive oil and cold water and stir until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. Wrap it and rest it for at least 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the rice in salted water for about 10 minutes, then drain it well and let it cool.

  3. Stack the chard leaves, roll them up and slice them into strips about 1 cm wide. Rinse them twice in cold water, drain, then squeeze them firmly by handfuls.

  4. Soften the onion and garlic in 2 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the chard and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until soft and dry. Season and let it cool.

  5. Heat the oven to 190 °C (375 °F) and oil a 28 cm (11 in) tart tin.

  6. Beat the eggs with the Parmesan in a large bowl. Stir in the rice, the cooled chard and any optional ham or cheese, then taste and adjust the salt and pepper.

  7. Cut off one third of the dough for the lid. Roll out the larger piece as thinly as you can and line the tin, leaving an overhang.

  8. Spoon in the filling and level it. Roll out the rest of the dough, lay it on top, press the two layers together and fold the edge over against the rim.

  9. Prick the lid or cut a small vent, then brush the top lightly with olive oil.

  10. Bake for about 40 minutes, until golden. Cover the pie with a clean tea towel for about 10 minutes, then cut and serve warm or at room temperature.

Tips

  • Squeeze the chard hard after rinsing. Water left in the leaves ends up in the filling and softens the pastry.
  • Let the cooked chard cool before you stir it into the eggs, so the eggs do not start to set.
  • Roll the pastry thin. Les Petits Farcis in Nice rolls it as thinly as possible and uses two-thirds of the dough for the base and one-third for the lid.
  • After baking, the tourism board recipe covers the pie with a tea towel for about 10 minutes so the pastry softens and does not crack when cut.
  • Brush the top with olive oil, as the tourism board does, or with beaten egg or egg yolk, as Les Petits Farcis and chef Hugo Loubert do.

Watch it being made

TRADITIONAL SAVOURY CHARD PIE RECIPE! La Tourte de Blettes! — MEDITERRANEAN FOOD FR (YouTube). The player loads only when you press play.

Savory Swiss chard pie, the other tourta de blea

The savory Swiss chard pie of Nice is a double-crust pie of olive oil pastry filled with cooked chard leaves, rice, eggs and grated Parmesan. In Niçois, tourta de blea names the pie in general. The Nice-Matin group’s video describes it as a specialty served as a savory dish or as a sweet dessert, and the city of Nice says the same, cold or lukewarm.

The sweet pie is the one in the Cuisine Nissarde label recipe, with sugar, apples, rum-soaked raisins and aniseed, and our sweet Swiss chard pie follows it. The savory pie has no label recipe. Les Petits Farcis, a cooking school in the Old Town, says local bakeries sell both, and the Atelier Cuisine Niçoise recipe was published for the 2021 Fête des Mai. For chard without pastry, see the trouchia, a thick omelette of the same chard, eggs and cheese.

How cooks in Nice make it

Four named versions share a frame of oil pastry, chard, eggs and cheese. They differ in the filling and in the bake.

Version Pastry Filling Bake
Côte d’Azur France (tourism board) 400 g flour, 200 ml water, 7 tbsp olive oil 600 g baby chard, 2 onions, 30 g rice, 3 eggs, 100 g Parmesan, 100 g brousse de brebis, optional ham 200 °C, about 40 min
Atelier Cuisine Niçoise (Fête des Mai, 2021) 500 g flour, 125 g oil, 125 g water, 2 eggs and 1 yolk 1 kg chard boiled 10 min, 100 g cooked rice, ham, pine nuts, 200 g Parmesan, 1 egg 180 °C, about 35 min
Les Petits Farcis (Old Town) 400 g flour, 150 ml oil, 150 ml water 450 g chard, 50 g rice, bacon, 3 eggs, about 55 g Parmesan 25 to 30 min, no temperature given
Hugo Loubert, Lavomatique (2018) Shortcrust 3 potatoes, steamed chard, mint, 2 fresh goat cheeses 190 °C, 45 min

Rice is the usual filler. Four of the five versions we read use it, and the MEDITERRANEAN FOOD FR video, for example, gives 100 g of rice for 1 kg of chard and 3 eggs. Loubert, the chef of Lavomatique in Nice, filmed for France Télévisions’ Météo à la carte, swaps it for potatoes and adds mint. Ham or bacon is in the Atelier and Les Petits Farcis versions and optional in the tourism board’s.

The chard is cooked in four different ways: boiled about 10 minutes at the Atelier, sautéed about 10 minutes in the tourism board recipe, sautéed about 5 minutes at Les Petits Farcis and steamed 5 minutes by Loubert. Our recipe takes the sauté from the tourism board and the pastry ratio from Les Petits Farcis.

Ingredients and substitutes

Use the green leaves of the chard only, as the tourism board and the Atelier do, and keep the ribs for grilled chard ribs with anchovy vinaigrette. Les Petits Farcis says kale, spinach, cabbage, leeks, zucchini or pumpkin can replace or join the chard.

Every version with rice uses Parmesan, and the Atelier uses the most. The tourism board adds brousse de brebis, and Loubert uses fresh goat cheese. Les Petits Farcis uses a short-grain rice such as Arborio. Three of the four oil-pastry recipes use only flour, oil, water and salt; the Atelier adds eggs.

Making and serving the pie

You need a frying pan, a 28 cm tart tin and a rolling pin. The step that decides the result is the chard: rinse it, squeeze out the water, cook it down until dry and let it cool before it meets the eggs. Seal the lid well and cut a small vent.

Serve the pie warm or at room temperature, with a green salad as Les Petits Farcis suggests. The city of Nice says it is eaten cold or lukewarm. This is a lunch dish, not a dessert. For the wider repertoire, see our guide to Niçoise cooking.

Questions & answers

Can I make the pie without ham or bacon?

Yes. The tourism board recipe lists ham as optional, and the MEDITERRANEAN FOOD FR video and chef Hugo Loubert's version have no meat at all. Without it the pie is just chard, rice, eggs and cheese.

Can I put the chard in raw?

Yes. The Côte d'Azur France recipe gives a raw-chard variation: the leaves steam between the two layers of pastry, and the pie bakes at 160 °C for at least 1 hour. Cooking the chard first, as in the main recipe, is faster and gives a drier filling.

Do I have to cook the rice first?

Yes. The recipes that give a method all use precooked rice: Les Petits Farcis boils it for about 15 minutes, the tourism board for 5, and the Atelier Cuisine Niçoise uses cooked rice. This recipe boils it for 10 minutes.

Sources

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