![]() Roasted peppers, firm, de-seeded cucumber, brined olives and fresh basil are desirable. Red onion, tomatoes, garlic, capers and anchovies are essential. Red onion, tomatoes and garlic are essential, plus capers and anchovies. No one should lose a tooth over panzanella. * Particularly when using crust-on sourdough, if you do not do let the salad sit for a while, some pieces will maintain a titanium-hard edge. Plain sourdough (nothing overtly flavoured) or a heavyweight ciabatta will do the trick. Instead, panzanella requires something posh and dense, rustic and well built: the bread version of a rugby union back line. The average sliced white loaf would readily disintegrate into gummy scum. The bread you use must be able to withstand moisture and jostling. Do you want to eat tomato-free panzanella? Of course not. But do bear in mind panzanella was once an onion and bread salad, to which tomatoes were only regularly added as late as the 20th century. ![]() What made sense in 17th-century Florence can in 2021 (may HTE refer you to Saint Yotam of Ottolenghi?), only create pockets of wobbly, waterlogged mulch in your salad. Such advice harks back to a time when people used very old, leathery bread, had no access to an oven and limited expectation of experiencing any pleasure before death. This directly contradicts the many recipes which, obedient to panzanella’s peasant origins, unappetisingly recommend wetting untoasted pieces of stale bread with water, vinegar or vinaigrette and, after wringing them out, adding them to the salad. Baking gives stale bread a second lease of freshness which can only improve your panzanella. Interestingly, heat briefly reverses the retrogradation (starches reassembling into a crystalline structure), that makes stale bread tough. To achieve this, you essentially want to make XL croutons, bite-size morsels of bread (oiled, salted, possibly herbed and garlic-licked), that, after 20 minutes in the oven, take on a bronze, baked firmness. That will ensure it is robust enough to absorb the salad’s juices and retain its structural integrity, but – as the salad is allowed to sit for a few minutes before serving* – in unpredictable ways that produce a variety of textures in the bread chunks: from sodden but still pleasantly chewy pieces to lightly doused shards which, at their edges, shatter with a satisfying crunch. No, rather than stale, the bread must be toasted and dried. Who wants to be restricted to eating panzanella only when you have stale bread to use? It is far too good for that. But unless going down the molto autentico route (addressed below), it doesn’t have to be. Are you sitting down for this bombshell? The bread doesn’t need to be stale. Photograph: Natalia Ruedisueli/Getty Images Serve in a large bowl in the centre of the table.You will want a variety of bread sizes and textures. Tear in the basil leaves and using your hands gently combine all the ingredients. Add the ciabatta pieces to the bowl and leave for at least an hour so that the bread soaks up all the juice.Īfter an hour mix the ciabatta with the tomatoes and peppers. Mix the vinegar, garlic and remaining oil with the tomato juice. Rip the ciabatta into large chunks and put to one side. Mix the olives and capers with the tomatoes and peppers. Cut the flesh into large strips and put in the bowl with the tomatoes. Peel the roasted peppers and remove and discard the seeds. Push the seeds into the sieve to release the juice. Put the tomato quarters into a large bowl. Remove the seeds and place them in a sieve over a bowl. Once they have cooled, the skins should easily peel away.Ĭut the skinned tomatoes into quarters. Using a slotted spoon, scoop out the tomatoes and plunge into a bowl of cold water. (When they have cooled the skin should peel away easily.)Ĭut the stalk out of the tomatoes and blanch them by plunging in to a jug of boiling water for 45 seconds, or until the skins start to peel away. Place them in a large bowl and cover with cling film for about 20 minutes. Place the peppers on a roasting tray, drizzle a splash of the olive oil over and roast for about 15-20 minutes, or until the peppers are softened but not charred.
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