Panzanella is a poor, traditional recipe of peasant cuisine, created to recycle ingredients that you have in the pantry.
Difficulty: easy
Method: 40
Difficulty: easy
Method: 40
Start preparing the bread, which must be very stale to properly absorb the seasoning. Cut it into small pieces and let it soak in the water and white wine. It must not fall apart but it must be very soft. If you like, you can also add a drizzle of white vinegar, like in the recipe for Tuscan panzanella. Also add extra virgin olive oil, in our case an organic one from the Castelli Romani. Mix very well.
Now move on to the dressing, adding the cherry tomatoes, pachino or other quality juicy ones, chopped fresh basil and very thinly sliced onion. You can use the onion you like best or even fresh spring onion, it’s up to you. Season with salt and pepper and mix everything very well, until you get a mushy mixture. Let the panzanella rest even for a whole day, it will absorb all the aromas in the best possible way.
When you decide to serve the panzanella, we add a touch of modernity to the recipe and prepare the crispy bread: put the pieces of bread in a very hot pan with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and brown them, without burning them.
Serve the panzanella, deciding whether to serve it as a starter, main course or aperitif. In any case, after placing it in the chosen serving dish, add the cubes of crispy bread, a drop of extra virgin olive oil and decorate with a fresh basil leaf.
Panzanella is a poor, traditional recipe of peasant cuisine, created to recycle ingredients that you have in the pantry; in this Castelli Romani version we do not have the addition of other vegetables as in the Tuscan one, but if you have them you can happily use them.
In the Castelli Romani, the excellent P.G.I. Genzano bread is used, which you can replace with another homemade bread.
300 g stale bread
20 pachino cherry tomatoes
5 basil leaves
1 onion
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Approximately 50 ml water
Approximately 30 g dry white wine
