My mother gave me several issues of the magazine Saveur that she was finished with. They have been sitting on the coffee table in the living room for several months and recently, I found myself flipping through one, Issue 182 from April 2016. The cover promised a Taste of Sicily, and I went through the article in search of bread recipes and I wasn’t disappointed.
Scaccia is favorite snack food in Sicily and can be easily found in shops and is made with many thin layers of semolina bread stacked with tomato sauce and a traditional cheese called Caciocavallo, a traditional stretched cheese curd. Having never traveled to Sicily, I will accept that fact and add this to it, it is not easy to find here! The recipe looked easy enough and after checking my pantry for semolina flour, I mixed up a batch of the dough. This recipe instructs you to also make the tomato sauce but I suspect that you could use just about any sauce, homemade or purchased. Caciocavallo, which translates as cheese on horseback in English, is similar to Provolone in flavor and is made from either sheep or cow’s milk and as much as I would like to try it, I didn’t go out in search of it and just substituted some grated Asiago.
First, the dough is rolled out into a large rectangle. The result is a very thin sheet which gets topped with sauce and cheese before being folded up. Then more sauce and cheese, more folding and finally, a log of layered dough, sauce and cheese is folded in half and placed into a pan lined with parchment paper.
The loaf is not given a rising period but I did let mine sit for at least 30 minutes while the oven preheated.
Looking at the loaf, I was worried. Knowing that only 1/4 teaspoon of yeast was used to leaven the dough was obvious; it did not appear to rise much, if at all.
After baking the loaf for nearly and hour, I was surprised to see that it did rise a small amount. The aroma that filled the kitchen was undeniably that of lasagna or of a similar baked tomato sauce and pasta dish. Having waited for about 20 minutes, I carefully sliced into loaf and revealed the layers of spongy dough, tomato sauce and cheese. Not only did it smell like lasagna, it tasted like it too, both in flavor as well as the texture of the interior.
The verdict, this is a recipe that I will turn to when I want something besides the usual layers of pasta, sauce and cheese, especially for a pot luck or picnic-it travels well and can left to cool, sliced an hour or two later without being reheated. This recipe has a lot of potential for variations. The sauce could be varied; pesto, alfredo, butternut squash and mushrooms all come to mind. Even the cheese could be swapped but, I look forward to finding a chunk of Caciocavallo so that I can taste it.
If you can find a copy of issue 182, open it to page 70 and get to work, take note that a detailed set of instructions with illustrations on the folding methods is also included on page 74. For those of you that would rather just see the recipe, rejoice! Saveur magazine has the recipe posted on their website and it is available for free, find the recipe here, and the folding instructions here.
Summer fruit pies are one of my favorite things. When the fruit season is at its peak, freshly picked, ripe and juicy, fruits just about beg to be baked into a pie. With a dozen peaches and a basket of blueberries in the house, I couldn’t resist the temptation and I baked a pie, a whole 9″ pie just for the two of us!
Of course, I also used homemade pie dough. Before you start panicking, before you go on about how you just cannot roll out pie dough, let me tell you that you can, you absolutely can!!! First, make the dough ahead of time and chill it for at least an hour. Take it out of the fridge and let it soften until it is pliable but not sticky or squishy. Now do you see all of the flour on my table? That’s the secret, cool dough, lots of flour and short strokes with the rolling pin. Lift the dough and turn it as you go, spread out more flour on the table if it sticks, don’t worry you can brush it off before you put it into a greased dish. Make sure the circle of dough has an overhang of at least 2 inches to make the pleats like I have in the photo. Start by taking one small section and folding it in over the fruit but leave the center open. Section by section, fold the dough in towards the middle of the dish, creating the pleats until you get to the last section. Lift the first pleat up and carefully tuck the last one into place and lay the first one back down. Then brush it with some egg wash and sprinkle on some sugar before baking.
To get a deep, even color, just use one temperature in the oven. Many recipes tell you to start high and drop it down low but I think one temperature is better. It prevents that “OH I FORGOT TO TURN DOWN THE OVEN” disaster and also prevents uneven coloring. My pies only bake at 350F.
For this pie, I chose peaches and blueberries but you could easily switch out the blueberries for raspberries or blackberries and if you are lucky to have rhubarb on hand, it would be lovely too! Sweeten the pie according to taste but you will want at least half a cup of sugar, and if you use rhubarb, you will have to increase the sugar.
Peach-Blueberry Deep Dish Galette
Preheat the oven to 350. Place the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla seeds, lemon zest and spices into a bowl and rub them together. Peel and slice the peaches, you need a pound of them-the extra weight is for the skin and pits you remove. Add the peaches and blueberries to the sugar with the lemon juice and toss them to coat them. Place the rolled out pie dough into a greased 9″ pie plate. Scrape the mixture into the pie crust and fold as directed above. Place the pie plate on a sheet pan and bake until the juices are bubbling in the center and the crust is a deep caramel color, about 1 hour. Allow it to cool for a few hours before cutting so the fruit can set up a bit. We enjoyed it like this but a generous scoop of ice cream would also be nice!
will garden for cake 