Schiacciate Integrali
December 11, 2009
As mentioned by Gail Aggen in the previous post, the industrial-grade pizza you find in your local supplier is a bastardization of the real thing. Italian bread, whether it be rustic pane Toscano, foccaccia, pizza, casatiello, ciabatta, or coccodrillo, carries a long and exalted tradition. It is the greatest bread, if not the greatest edible, in the history of the world.
The Romans learned to bake bread from the Greeks, who brought their immense dynamism to the art and worshipped bread through Demeter, the goddess of grain and abundance. In the Roman Empire, bread baking reached its zenith in the time of Augustus. In 25 B.C., there were 329 public bakeries in the city of Rome alone, according to Carol Field, a genius when it comes to Italian carbohydrates.
Field, in her wonderful book The Italian Baker, writes:
The big central bread market in Rome boasted round breads; breads notched into eight sections, which were easy to break off into individual pieces; breads shaped like keys, cubes, or braids; breads that looked like mushrooms; and breads that looked like wreaths. There was a bread for each social class – senators’ bread, knights’ bread, citizens’, people’s, and peasants’ bread. White bread was already a status symbol, even though some writers knew that darker, coarser loaves were healthier and gave sustenance to hard-working peasants and farmers. The rich ate siligo,the finest wheat flour, which was so white that the women of Rome powdered their faces with it. Pliny noted that “in some places bread is named after the dishes eaten with it, such as oyster bread, in others from its special delicacy, as cake bread, in others from the short time spent making it, as hasty bread, and also from the method of baking, as oven bread, or tin loaf, or baking pan bread.”
It is surprisingly easy to reenact the ancient traditions of Italian bread making in one’s own home. One doesn’t need a wood-fired oven or a fancy commercial mixer. One doesn’t need enormous wooden boards or the arm muscles of a 16th century peasant. One needs, at bare minimum, flour, salt, yeast and olive oil. I have made enormous loaves of peasant Italian bread that would look at home in a bakery on a side street in Tuscany, a place I have never visited beyond the confines of my own kitchen. They were a cinch. I used no fancy equipment to knead the dough beyond that with which God endowed me. I am very fond of kneading dough. It is a great form of release and if I were a psychotherapist I would write my clients’ prescriptions for bread recipes. I like throwing a wet Italian dough against the table. It does not mind in the least.
Here is an excellent recipe for Schiacciate, or whole wheat flatbread, with onions that is a great alternative to the deadening pizza in your local outlet. It is easy to make and is from Field’s wonderful book. I have lessened the amount of yeast Field uses. In general, I cut the yeast in half for most bread recipes. You just don’t need as much as they say.
Schiacciate Integrali
1 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 cups war water
1 T. plus 1 tsp. lard or extra virgin olive oil
About 2 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup less 2 T. whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
Olive oil for brushing tops
2 thinly-sliced red onions
2 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
thyme
rosemary, sea salt, garlic (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees one half hour before baking flatbreads. Use baking stones if you have them.
2. Stir the yeast into the water; let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the oil/lard. Mix the flours and salt. Whisk the first 2 cups, one cup at a time, into the yeast mixture. Stir in remaining flour mixture with a wooden spoon. Knead on a lightly floured surface for eight to ten minutes, until elastic. The dough will still be very moist.
3. Place dough in lightly-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise until puffy, not doubled, about 1 1/4 hours. (Note: Who cares if you let it rise for much longer? I don’t.)
4. Knead lightly. Cut in half for two large flatbreads or into 5 or 6 pieces for smaller ones. Shape each piece into a ball; roll out to a 10-inch circel for larger breads and 5-inch circle for smaller ones. Place on lightly-oiled pans. (You may need to stretch the dough and then let it relax for a few minutes under towels and then stretch it again to get it fully roled out.) Brush the tops with oil. Cover with towels and let rise until puffy, about 45 minutes.
5. Sauté the onions in oil and butter over very low heat for 15 to 20 minutes. Spread onions over dough and sprinkle lightly with thyme. Sprinkle with salt and, if you wish, rosemary and sauteed garlic.
6. Spread onions over dough. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
7. Place pans in oven or place breads directly on baking stones. Bake larger breads for 22 to 25 minutes; smaller ones 15 to 18 minutes.
