One of my favourite things to make during summer, we made it several times with the children coming to our weekly family session Green Beans and they absolutely love it. This is a bread and tomato salad from Tuscany, Italy. You don’t even need to turn the oven on to make croutons as the original recipe uses stale bread. Let’s see how to make it!
Ingredients (serves 2 hungry people
- 1 small red onion
- 1 tsp of red wine vinegar plus extra for the dressing
- 250 gr stale bread (sourdough or white country loaf)
- Water to soak the bread
- 1 cucumber
- 2 big ripe (important!) tomatoes or a handful of cherry ones
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Salt, to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil
- A few leaves of fresh basil
Method
Start by finely slicing the onion and soaking it in a bowl with cold water with 1 tsp of red wine vinegar for 10 minutes.
Now break or cut the bread in big chunks/slices and pass them under running water, let sit in a bowl to soften. Depending on the quality of your bread and on how stale it is, it will need up to 5 minutes to soften up. Just make sure it doesn’t become a soggy mush! The bread should absorb the water like a sponge but still hold some nice texture.
Slice the cucumber thinly, roughly chop the tomatoes (don’t lose any juices!) and place everything in a large bowl.
Squeeze the excess of water from your bread and break it with your hands into the bowl with the vegetables. If you have added too much water, make sure to give your bread an extra squeeze to remove the excess liquid before adding to the salad.
Drain the sliced onion and add to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Season with a pinch of salt, some black pepper, a generous dose of olive oil, a good splash of red wine vinegar and toss (you can use your clean hands too!) until well combined.
Add the basil leaves, torn into pieces just before serving.
Notes
Panzanella comes from the word panzana, which means “pane bagnato”, wet bread. This ancient Florentine dish is a trick to revive stale bread, and prevent it from going to waste. It is different from a crouton salad!
A few variations exist for this recipe, including the addition of mozzarella, cannellini beans, purslane, rocket or even tinned tuna fish.
Resources
Food writers Emiko Davies and Giulia Scarpaleggia
