Panzanella: a classical Florentine salad with painterly associations
Bill Breckon, from The Watermill at Posara in Tuscany, Italy, has sent me this tasty recipe which is The Watermill’s take on a classic slad from Florence, called panzanella.
You can try it, too, if you go on one of The Watermill’s world-renowned painting, creative writing, knitting or Italian language courses. See www.watermill.netfor more details.
Bill says:
Panzanella is a famous Florentine salad, also popular in other parts of Tuscany (notably Posara!). Its basic ingredients are bread and tomatoes, dressed in oil and vinegar, but you can add all sorts of other tasty things.
Here’s the recipe:
Stale bread, torn up into small squares. Preferably crusty baguette-type bread. (You could use regular sliced bread, but I won’t lie – your salad will be rubbish.)
1 red onion, thinly sliced.
6 juicy tomatoes, roughly chopped.
A large handful each of capers, black olives and sun-dried tomatoes roughly chopped up small.
Fresh basil leaves, torn. The more the merrier.
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
Glug of extra virgin olive oil.
Squirt of lemon juice.
Salt & pepper
Method:
Chopup everything (except for the basil) and throw it into a nice big dish. Drizzle, glug and squirt seasonings.
Leaveit to rest for at least 1 hour, then scatter the torn basil over it. A bit of green makes the salad look great and basil is ideal for a true Tuscan flavour.
Buon appetito!
Billcomments: “This truly is delicious. The Florentine traditionalists probably forego the capers, olives and sun-dried tomatoes, but I am with Rachel in adding these. It is interesting that Florentine bread (but not the bread we use in Posara) is made without salt. The Florentines say it allows us to taste the flavours of the accompanying food, but I think I like a bit of salt in my bread, too. And it is noticeable that more recipes using day-old bread emanate from Florence than anywhere else in Italy!”
Bill adds: “Of course, if you were a real traditionalist, you wouldn’t use tomatoes anyway: they didn’t arrive from the New World until the end of the 15th Century and they weren’t used in Italian cooking until much later. (Difficult to imagine Italian cooking without tomatoes, isn’t it?) One of the first descriptions of panzanella came from the poet and artist Bronzino*, who wrote of a salad of onions, purslane (Portulaca oleracea) and cucumbers.”
*One of the great Italian painters of the 16th century, Agnolo di Cosimo known as Bronzino (1503−1572) painted glittering portraits of the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany and their families. Here’s his portrait of Eleanor of Toledo and her son Giovanni de’ Medici. They don’t look like they’d enjoy day-old bread do they?”
We usually serve our panzanella at Sunday lunch during our painting holidays and creative writing courses.You can find out more about our painting holidays by clicking here.And about our creative writing courses, by clicking here.Below: More of the Watermill’s Sunday lunch spread. The panzanella is towards the back.