Use all the ingredients from the recipe for Olive Oil Bread, except for the following proportions of flour:
1 round loaf Italian whole-wheat bread
1¾ cups stone-ground fine whole-wheat flour, free of any coarse bits of bran or kernel
About 3¼ cups unbleached flour
Follow the exact procedure given in the recipe for Olive Oil Bread, using whole-wheat and white flour in the proportions given here. Instead of shaping the dough into 2 tapered loaves, form it into a slightly domed round loaf. When it has rested, cut a shallow cross on top. Brush with water and bake as directed in the basic recipe.
Pane di Grano Duro—Hard-Wheat Bread
THE GOLDEN FLOUR of hard or durum wheat is in the opinion of many, among them the late James Beard, the choicest of bread flours because of its high proportion of gluten. It makes a very fine-textured and fragrant bread, with a biscuity quality, that tastes even better when reheated and used a day after it is made.
Use all the ingredients from the recipe for Olive Oil Bread, substituting 5 cups fine hard-wheat flour for the unbleached white flour.
1 ring-shaped loaf hard-wheat bread
Follow the exact procedure given in the recipe for Olive Oil Bread. Instead of shaping the dough into 2 tapered loaves, form it into a doughnut-like large ring with a hole the center about 3½ inches in diameter. When it has rested, put in a row of small diagonal cuts all around the top of the ring. Brush with water and bake as directed in the basic recipe.
Apulia’s Olive Bread
AMONG THE SAVORY riches of regional Italian cooking, nothing can excite our wonder more than the toothsome diversity of its country breads. In this field, which few have yet broadly explored, one of the most talented researchers is Margherita “Mita” Simili, who is famous in Bologna, along with her sister Valeria, for the bakery they both used to run and for the baking classes they now teach. We have made pizza, focaccia, and bread together, developing doughs that are in this chapter.
Some of the best bread flour in the world is produced in Apulia, the spur and heel of the boot-shaped Italian peninsula. It was on a visit there that Mita acquired the recipe for Apulian olive bread, a product of the baker’s craft that proves irresistible from the first bite. The method makes use of a starter dough known as biga. Biga, made from a small quantity of yeast and flour that is given an overnight rising, is the foundation on which Italian country bakers often build their breads. It acts upon the dough to which it is added in a manner similar to that of natural, ambient yeast, bestowing on the finished loaf exceptional flavor, fragrance, and airiness.
Food processor note: In this recipe, the dough is worked entirely by hand. It is not at all a lengthy process, just rather sticky because of the consistency of the dough, but it produces bread with better texture than the food processor does. If you must, you can use the processor for all the kneading steps, after you have made the starter.
1 round loaf Apulian olive bread
FOR THE STARTER (BIGA)
½ teaspoon active dry yeast
½ cup lukewarm water
1¼ cups unbleached flour
Extra virgin olive oil
FOR THE DOUGH
5 ounces black, round Greek olives, see description in Focaccia with Black Greek Olives
1½ cups lukewarm water
1½ teaspoons active dry yeast
3¾ cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
PLUS
A baking stone
A baker’s peel (paddle)
Cornmeal
1. For the starter: In a bowl dissolve the ½ teaspoon yeast by stirring it into ½ cup lukewarm water. When it has dissolved completely, about 10 minutes or less, add the 1¼ cups flour and stir thoroughly with a wooden spoon to distribute the yeast uniformly in the flour.
2. Transfer the dough to a bowl lightly filmed with olive oil, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and place the bowl in a place protected equally from cold draughts and heat. Let it rise overnight for 14 to 18 hours, until it has more than doubled in volume.
3. When ready to proceed, start to prepare the dough by cutting the olives all the way around their middles and loosening them from the pits. Pull the olives apart any way they come.
4. Put ½ cup of the lukewarm water in a large bowl and stir into it the 1½ teaspoons dry yeast. When it has completely dissolved, add to the bowl half the biga (starter), 1¼ cups of the flour, and the 2 teaspoons salt, and mix with a spatula until all ingredients are well integrated. Then add the remaining 2½ cups flour and the remaining 1 cup lukewarm water, pouring it in gradually, while mixing steadily with the spatula. Add the pitted olives and continue to mix the dough, occasionally lifting it out of the bowl with the spatula, then slapping it back in. Mix the dough in this manner until it comes easily loose from the bowl, about 8 minutes or so.
5. Dust a work counter lightly with flour, and turn out the dough from the bowl onto the counter. Work the dough for a few minutes with the spatula, slipping the spatula under the edges and folding them over toward the center. Move the spatula over each time until you have circled the whole mass of dough and folded the edges over at least once. Dust the work surface with flour occasionally if necessary to keep the dough from sticking.
6. Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in a clean bowl, put the dough into the bowl, and turn it in all directions until it is evenly coated with oil. Dampen a towel, wring out excess moisture, and cover the bowl with it. Put the bowl in a warm, protected corner for about 3 hours, until it has approximately doubled in volume.
7. Dust the work counter with flour, and turn the dough in the bowl out on it. Dust your hands with flour and use the palms to flatten the dough to a thickness of about 1½ inches. With both hands, lift the edge of the dough furthest from you and fold it toward you, stopping about one-third of the way from meeting the edge close to you. Stick your thumbs out straight and horizontally, parallel to your body, bringing their tips together, and use them to push out the folded-over dough toward its original position. Perform this operation 3 times, then rotate the dough a one-quarter turn, and repeat the step 3 more times. Periodically you will need to dust the counter and your hands with flour.
8. Rotate and pat the dough to form a more or less round shape. Turn a bowl upside down over it, covering it entirely, and let it rise for 1 full hour. At least 30 minutes before you will be ready to bake, put the baking stone in the oven and preheat oven to 425°.
9. When the final rising time is over, spread cornmeal thinly over the baker’s peel, put the ball of dough on the peel, and slide it into the oven onto the preheated stone. After 3 minutes, turn the oven down to 400°. In 20 minutes, turn the oven down again, to 375°. Bake for another 40 minutes. Let the bread cool down completely on a rack before using. When it has cooled off, you can freeze it, if you like. This bread seems to mature in the freezer and once it is reheated in a very hot oven, it tastes even better, if possible, than when it was just baked.
Piadina—Flat Griddle Bread
Piadina is a thin flat bread, chewy, but tender and not brittle. Until quite recently, it was the everyday bread for Romagna’s farmers, whose women baked it in the hearth on a terra-cotta slab over hot coals. It goes well with prosciutto or country ham, with salami, with pan-fried sausages, but it is at its surpassing best with these garlicky, sautéed greens.
Farm women in Romagna—the narrow, fertile plain between the hills and the sea on the northern Adriatic—still make piadina. Sometimes, on a Sunday, they make it for themselves, but more frequently they cook it on street corners for the summer people who crowd the seaside towns of Rimini, Riccione, and Cesenatico. It has now become the smart thing for Italian families in Romagna to dine in nostalgically rustic style at some converted farmhouse, where the standard menu of homemade pasta and roast chicken or rabbit is invariably preceded by platters piled high with wedges of piadina, accompanied by thick, hand-cut slices of salami or coppa. It is
the kind of meal I put together for my own family from time to time, and for those friends on whose appreciation of casual, earthy food I can count.
What to cook piadina on Even in Romagna, the original, but fragile terra-cotta slab called testo on which the thin disk of dough was grilled, is being replaced with heavy, flat steel griddles. At home, one can use a heavy, black, cast-iron skillet. Heat it up gradually until it becomes very hot, but not fiery. It must be hot enough to cook piadina quickly, but not so hot that it merely scorches it.
For this purpose, however, metal can’t quite match earth or stone. If you travel to Italy, traditional housewares shops in the towns of Romagna, and in Emilian cities such as Bologna, still carry the terra-cotta testo. Since it is fragile, but cheap, it is a good idea to buy at least two. In North America, Vermont soapstone griddles do the job every bit as well as terra-cotta, and are much sturdier. One mail-order source that Julia Child originally put me on to is the Vermont Country Store, Weston, Vermont 05161.
For 6 servings
⅓ cup shortening, preferably lard, but extra virgin olive oil is an acceptable substitute
4 cups unbleached flour
⅓ cup milk
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ cup lukewarm water
A 10-inch cast-iron skillet or a soapstone griddle (see introductory remarks)
1. If using lard, heat it gently in a small saucepan until it has melted completely, but do not let it simmer. If using olive oil, proceed to the next step.
2. Pour the flour onto a work surface, shape it into a mound, make a hollow in its center, and pour into it the melted lard or the olive oil together with all the other ingredients. Draw the sides of the mound together, mixing thoroughly with your hands, and knead for 10 minutes as described in the recipe for Olive Oil Bread.
3. When the dough is no longer sticky and has become smooth and elastic, you can either wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and return to it 1 or 2 hours later, or else proceed at once, as follows: Cut it into pieces each about the size of an extra-large egg, about 6 to 7 pieces for the quantity of dough produced with this recipe. Roll out each piece of dough into a very thin disk about 1/16 inch thick.
4. Over medium heat, heat up the cast-iron skillet or the soapstone griddle until it is hot enough to make a drop of water skip. If you are using a skillet, you will need to adjust the heat periodically because iron does not retain heat as steadily and evenly as stone. Place one of the disks of dough on it, cook without moving it for 10 seconds, then turn it over with a spatula and cook the other side, without moving it, another 10 seconds. (The side that was next to the grilling surface should be speckled with a scattering of black spots; if it is blackened over a large area, turn the heat down a little.) When the piadina has cooked for 10 seconds on each side, prick it here and there with a fork, and continue cooking for 3 or 4 minutes, rotating it frequently to keep it from being scorched and flipping it over from time to time to cook it evenly on both sides. When done it should have a dull, parched, white surface mottled by random burn marks.
5. Take the piadina off the fire, cut it into 4 pie-like wedges, and prop them up anywhere where they can stand on their curved edge, letting air circulate around the wedges while you cook another piadina. Repeat the procedure until all the disks of dough are done. Serve as promptly as possible, preferably while still warm. If necessary, piadina wedges can be reheated in a very hot oven.
Consum—Griddle Dumplings
Consum, both the word and the dumpling it designates, are not to be found outside of Romagna. The dough closely resembles that of another native Romagna product, piadina, and the cooking method is identical, over the same sort of flat griddle. The robustly savory stuffing is a mixture of greens sautéed in garlic and olive oil.
For 6 servings, 6 or 7 dumplings
FOR THE STUFFING
Make the Sautéed Mixed Greens with Olive Oil and Garlic from this recipe, using 3 pounds of greens divided as follows:
2 pounds “sweet” greens, such as Swiss chard, spinach, or Savoy cabbage
1 pound “bitter” greens, preferably cime di rapa, also known as broccoletti di rapa or rapini, OR Catalonia chicory OR dandelion
FOR THE DOUGH
All the ingredients required for making Piadina
FOR COOKING
A cast-iron skillet or a soapstone griddle (see note)
1. Follow the directions in the piadina recipe to prepare the dough and roll it into thin disks about 6 to 7 inches in diameter.
2. Over one-half of each disk spread a ½-inch thick layer of sautéed greens, drained of their cooking oil. Fold the other half of the disk over the greens, to meet the edge of the lower half, thus making a large half-moon-shaped dumpling. Seal the edges tightly together, pressing them down with your thumb or using a pastry crimper.
3. Heat up the skillet or griddle as described in Step 4 of the piadina recipe. When hot, put on it 2 dumplings, or 3 if they fit. Cook them 4 to 5 minutes altogether, turning them frequently, and using a pair of tongs to stand them on edge briefly. They are done when the dough is a dull, parched, white mottled by random burn marks. Serve promptly.
Note The dough for consum can be thinned out through the rollers of a pasta machine set to obtain a thickness no greater than ⅛ inch. If it is easier for you, you can cut the dough into squares and make the dumplings triangular in shape, or even rectangular. As long as the dough is all the same thickness, and the dumplings are more or less the same size, the shape is not important.
Variation: Cassoni
When consum are fried they become cassoni, and they are very, very good. Prepare them exactly as described above, but if you are using melted lard in the dough, reduce it to 1½ tablespoons. Fry the dumplings in vegetable oil, if you prefer, but they are most delicious and crisp when fried in hot lard.
Focaccette—Cheese-Filled Pasta Fritters
THERE IS no exact equivalent abroad for the fresh, tart, savory cheese one would use in Italy as the filling of these focaccette. I have tried to come close by combining fontina, for its silkiness and delicacy, Parmesan, for flavor and fullness, and ricotta, for its tart accent. If you have access to other cheeses that you think would produce a similar or possibly even more appealing mixture of soft, rich flavor and piquant freshness, try them.
For 4 to 5 servings
FOR THE DOUGH
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons warm water
FOR THE FILLING
3 tablespoons imported Italian fontina cheese, chopped fine
7 tablespoons fresh ricotta
2 tablespoons freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
PLUS
1 egg white
Vegetable oil
1. For the dough: Pour the flour onto a work surface, shape it into a mound, and push down its center to form a hollow. Into the hollow put the olive oil, salt, and lukewarm water, and draw the sides of the mound together, mixing all ingredients well with your hands. Knead for 8 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball, and put it in a bowl. Cover the bowl with a plate or a cloth towel, and let the dough rest for about 2 hours.
2. For the filling: Combine the three cheeses in a bowl, adding to them a pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper.
3. When the dough has rested the 2 hours, flatten it into a not too thin sheet with a rolling pin. At first it may fight you, but it should soon relax and open out easily. If you prefer, you can thin it through the rollers of a pasta machine, stopping at the setting that produces dough 1/16 inch thick.
4. Cut the sheet of dough into rectangles about 3¼ to 4 inches wide and 6 to 7 inches long. Over half of each rectangle, spread a thin layer of the cheese mixture, about 2 teaspoonfuls. Fold the other half of the rectangle over the cheese, joining it edge to edge with the lower half. Pinch th
e edges together, then dip a fingertip into the egg white and brush it over the edges to ensure a tight seal.
5. As you finish filling and sealing each fritter, lay it on a clean, dry cloth towel spread out on the counter. If you are not ready to fry them immediately, turn them from time to time to keep them from sticking to the towel. Do not overlap them or stack them.
6. Pour enough oil into the frying pan to come ½ inch up its sides, and turn on the heat to high. When the oil is very hot, slip in as many focaccette at one time as will fit loosely without crowding the pan. Fry them to a golden color on one side, then turn them and do the other side. Often the fritters will puff up and parts of them may jut above the oil level. Use a long-handled wooden spoon to tip them over and dunk them under the hot oil so that they fry as evenly as possible all over.
7. With a slotted spoon or spatula, transfer them to a cooling rack to drain or to a platter lined with paper towels. If there are more focaccette left to fry, repeat the procedure until they are all done. Serve promptly.
Note Use caution when you take your first bite: The cheese oozes out quickly and it may be scalding.
I Ripieni Fritti—Fried Stuffed Dumplings
A GREAT VARIETY of savory fillings can be put into these dumplings that look like large triangular ravioli. One of the tastiest combinations is strips of raw tomatoes with anchovies and capers. Another is cheese and chopped parsley. Once you have tried the basic versions and seen how they work, you can devise your own fillings. You might try putting in thin strips of fried eggplant and roasted peppers. Or mushrooms sautéed in garlic and olive oil. With taste and imagination, you can easily dream up many more.
TOMATO FILLING FOR 20 DUMPLINGS
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Page 71