What to do with bread that is a few days old?
Make Bruschetta and crostini.
What is Bruschetta? Bruschetta is a slice of bread that is heated in the oven or on the embers of the fireplace. As soon as the bread becomes slightly darker take it is taken out of the oven and is seasoned with salt and oil. A little secret, take a clove of garlic and rub it on the hot bread before putting salt and oil. The bruschetta fresh from the oven can also be seasoned with oil and tomato salt.
Bread is one of the most important foods of Italian cuisine. Every day on the Italian table, together with pasta, bread is always served.
On a well-laid table with a beautiful tablecloth, cutlery, a bottle of water, wine, where the freshly cut bread: fresh, fragrant and crispy is a staple.
The reasons for its importance lie in the fact that bread is a simple, nutritious and healthy food. It is delicious a lot of satisfaction is derived to those who eat it.
Even in religious prayers bread is a fundamental element. In prayer in fact people ask God to bless them every day with a little bread.
Bread is a simple food made from yeast salt flour and water, but its simplicity is only apparent. We need a great attention to all the ingredients that compose it and to the bread making process to make quality bread.
The scent of warm bread is special, enveloping, fragrant and irresistible. It’s absolutely delicious, crisp and at the same soft and gratifying. You can eat it on its own or with oil, cheese or cold cuts, which makes bread extremely unique.
Bread is made by mixing flour, salt yeast and water together and then leaving it to rise for hours and hours. In the mixing process the yeast brings out the gluten, the sugars contained in the flour and, thus, the volume rises where the bread increases its volume.
Well fermented bread is one in which were you can see and hear the sound the bubbles of in the process of bread making.
Bread is composed of an outer part called crust, which is hard and crispy and a soft inner part, which we call the crumb.
Are you in Italy or are you planning a trip to Italy? As you may have guessed, bread is among the main things to taste, let’s not be satisfied with the first piece of bread that is served in the restaurant. Eating bread can be a special experience, so we have covered some points to make your experience truly unique.
As you can imagine Italy has many different types of bread.
The type and shape of bread can change from one city to another.
Let’s get to know some aspects together to be able to guide you well in choosing the best bread to eat.
First, let’s look at what to avoid while choosing to eat bread. The basic advice is to not eat the first thing served to you, Are you at the restaurant and waiting to order and you are served some bread? These bread baskets are not always about quality bread. If the crust, the outer and darker part is not crispy; if the crumb, the inner white part is dry and not soft, that bread is old and cut long ago. Do not eat it. No major health hazards, just that it isn’t tasty.
Where to eat some good bread? Good bread can be bought in bakeries or a Panetterie, where their only activity is to make bread.
Which store to choose? Where your nose takes you, if the bakery has a delicious smell and warm temperatures, it means that the bread is in the oven and ready for you. Freshly baked bread is the best bread to taste. Truly exclusive.
One more thing to avoid, is buying bread in supermarkets where often, bread is first prepared, then frozen and finally warmed in the electric ovens. This is an industrial version of bread, best avoided.
Therefore bread where you can see its warm golden hues and smell the delicious scent, is the best kind of bread to buy.
The time of day to buy bread is relatively early in the morning at 8.30, when it has just come out of the oven. The bread is usually prepared by bakers during the night.
The price and the formats.
Bread is inexpensive in Italy, and how its sold depends on the weight and its size. Bread can be in large forms and in small portions, which are called Panini. Usually the price per kilo of sliced bread is more because their processing is more complex. There is no fixed price for bread, but a kilo of bread on average costs between 2 euros and 3.50.
Esisstono poi altri tipi di pane, un po’ diversi dal tipo classico. Ad esempio il pane carasau tipico della Sardegna, le frise e i taralli pugliesi o i grissini torinesi. Questi prodotti dell’arte bianca, l’arte del pane, sono diversi dal pane classico fatto di crosta e di mollica.
Types of bread.
There are many types of bread in Italy. Bread which is of large size for large families. This bread is appreciated essentially for its taste and its quality, made by the simple but refined ingredient. There small format breads which are for one portion namely the Panini’s.
This type of bread is usually appreciated due to the shape and the types of flavour because of the the added ingredients that enrich the flavour like oil, butter, dried fruit, sesame seeds, olives or other ingredients.
They are other types of bread, which are a bit different from the classical type. For example, Crasau typical to Sardinia, the Frise and Taralli Apulian or breadsticks Turin. These so called white art products, art of bread, are different from the classical bread made of crust and crumb.
How to eat bread.
The best way, if the bread is really delicious, is to eat it on its own, without adding anything and savor it in all simplicity, in order to appreciate the crunchy taste of the crust and the soft crumb and appreciate all the skill of the baker and the quality of the ingredients used.
Another very popular way to eat bread is to slice the bread and season it with salt and oil. Bread and oil is another very simple but absolutely fantastic way of enjoying the experience. Take some good bread, sprinkle a few grains of salt and then some extra virgin olive oil. The taste of the olive, fresh fruity dense sapid and oily blends to perfection with the taste of the baked bread.
Salami and cheeses can also be delightful with bread.
In this case the flavour of the bread is dampened and creates a perfect harmony with the flavour of the ingredients accompanying it. It softens the intense and sour flavour of the cheeses and ssavoury meats.
Bruschetta and crostini.
Bread which is well made is stays well even when it was purchased later. The bread which is a few days old loses its water content and becomes harder. In Italy it is said to be sin to throw bread.
What to do with bread that is a few days old? Make Bruschetta and crostini.
What is Bruschetta? Bruschetta is a slice of bread that is heated in the oven or on the embers of the fireplace. As soon as the bread becomes slightly darker take it is taken out of the oven and is seasoned with salt and oil. A little secret, take a clove of garlic and rub it on the hot bread before putting salt and oil. The bruschetta fresh from the oven can also be seasoned with oil and tomato salt.
Costini’s, Crostini’s are bread baked in electric ovens and seasoned like a pizza with tomato, mozzarella, sausage, or ham or mushrooms….Delicious… and can be seasoned according to everyone’s imagination.
Here is a very special recipe. Il pane in carrozza (bsread in the carriage). Take some old bread, soak it with milk andeff which has been beaten. Place it the oven with baking papeer underneath. Put some cooked ham and a small piece of pecorino cheese and let is bake in the oven…….. delicious…
Just to show you some small but respected common traditions in Italy to do with bread.
On your journey you can look for tradition, you can also meet (quality-free solutions?), or you can come into contact with Italian cuisine that gradually evolves into new recipes day after day ……
Only by getting to know these small traditions in the world of bread, you can have good journey and that journey can be rich in flavor….
Extras… Sandwiches
Sanwiches are not real bread bread but they are snacks made from the soft part of the bread, they are quick snack or they can replace a meal. You can put many ingredients in a sandwich: tuna, salmon, ham, mozzarella, mayonnaise…They are really delicious and rich in flavor. It’s called Tramezzini and they were invented in Torino, at Caffè Mulasano.
