Easy Italian Recipes

Temperature
Bakeries are warm places, so try to mimic them in your kitchen. Close the doors, turn up the oven and get cosy with your dough. Although yeast will work slowly even in the fridge overnight, a kitchen temperature of 20-23°C gives an unhurried rise; to speed up fermentation, try a temperature of 24-38°C. Some ovens have settings for rising dough, but a warm, draught-free place is ideal. You will find the perfect place in your home, such as an airing cupboard or a shelf over the tumble drier - I taught one lady who found that her humid indoor pool room was perfect!
Bread needs to be baked at a very high temperature. Most of the recipes here call for around 220-250°C (425-500°F/Gas Mark 7-9). This heat allows the dough to expand until it reaches 60°C, when the yeast is killed. If the oven is not hot enough, the dough will continue to rise and the top of the bread will be forced away from the bottom. This 'oven spring' also happens if the dough hasn't risen enough before going into the oven.

Photo: Woman baking a traditional sardinian Curasao Bread "Pane Curasao della Sardegna"

Water
A dough recipe generally comprises 60-65 per cent water to flour. The Neapolitans swear that the dough for their famous pizza is better than anywhere else because of the region's water. I am sure that water can make a difference - a heavily chlorinated water, for example, could affect the growth of natural yeast - but I find my tap water is fine. And whether your water is hard or soft makes little difference to the finished bread. If you are concerned, though, simply use bottled water, especially for making starters. When I refer to tepid water, it should be the same temperature as your hand - 22-24°C. You can test the temperature by looking away as you put your finger in a jug of water. If it is tepid, you should be unable to tell when your finger is in or out of the water, since there will be no sensation of hot or cold.

Salt
There is usually 2.5 per cent salt to flour in a dough recipe to inhibit the yeast from working too quickly and give depth of flavour. Mix salt into the flour before the yeast - direct contact soon kills the yeast. In Tuscany bread is made without salt, but I find it pretty unpalatable

Sugar or honey
If used at all in a dough, these comprise 0.5-1 per cent of the ingredients, to 'push' the fermentation. If using honey, add it to the water; mix sugar into the flour. Sugar gives a better colour and crust.

Covering the dough
Dough should be covered when left to rise or prove. Give it a light coating of oil first - put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, then turn until all its surfaces are covered. This will stop it developing a crust. Then cover with clingfilm or a linen tea-towel. In hot weather, wet the tea-towel first. Dough can also be left in a floured, linen-lined bowl.

Rising
It is possible to shape a loaf straight after kneading and achieve a perfectly good close-crumbed bread. If you require more spring and airiness, let the dough rise before shaping and then let it prove (rise a second time) before baking. When the dough has doubled in size and remains depressed if you touch it lightly with a finger, it is ready for baking, or for shaping before the next rising.

Steam
For a good crust, steam is required at the beginning of baking. Bakers use steam-injection ovens. To simulate this at home, spray the oven (being careful to avoid the light and the loaf) 10-15 times with water from a refillable spray bottle. Some people put a tray of hot water in the bottom of the oven to create steam.

When is the bread done?
I have always found tapping the base of bread to see if it sounds hollow quite difficult. Although it may not help first-time bakers, I feel it is better to trust your instinct and feel the weight of the loaf. Bread loses 20 per cent of its weight during baking, so if it feels heavy, it is probably underbaked and should be left in longer. After you have baked a particular bread a few times, you will get the feel of this. Don't be afraid to adjust the oven temperature; all ovens are different and often have a hot spot. Allow loaves to cool on a wire rack before cutting.

Storing bread
Wrap completely cooled focaccia tightly in clingfilm. It will be slightly hard but still good next day. Focaccia is good toasted when past its best - use it for crostini.

 Photo: Original Piadina Romagnola

Equipment

Digital scales
Weighing using digital scales is a quick and exact way to measure ingredients. I wouldn't be without mine, especially when using very small amounts of yeast or salt. You can measure water using these scales, since millilitres of water weigh the same as grams, making a measuring jug unnecessary. However, don't worry too much about weighing when you are used to a recipe; most Italians don't even have scales in the house - all is done all'occhio (measuring by eye).

Tablespoons and teaspoons
Having an accurate tablespoon and teaspoon measure to hand helps when measuring oil and salt, although salt can also be measured on a digital scale.

Measuring jug
This is necessary if you don't use digital scales.

Mixing bowls
Ours are very cheap plastic bowls bought from Italian markets for a euro each. The thin plastic adapts quickly to the temperature around it, easing the rising process.

Mixer
I like to use a mixer with a dough hook for kneading if I am short of time, if the dough is very wet, or I want to get on with something else while the dough churns and turns all by itself. However, since I hardly ever knead any dough for longer than 10 minutes and enjoy the exercise, I usually do it by hand - the other plus is that hand-kneading means less washing up.

Dough scraper
This essential bit of kit is used for mixing the dough, transferring it to the bowl, cutting shapes and cleaning the work surface afterwards. Our chefs used to cut their scrapers from disused plastic containers. However, you can easily buy metal or plastic dough scrapers through cook shops today; once you get used to using one, you will wonder how you survived without it.

Linen cloths
Ideal to place beneath the rising dough, since floured linen does not stick. In very dry conditions, wet cloths are good for introducing humidity into the dough.

Sharp knife or razor blade
Use these to slash dough before it goes into the oven.

Pala or peel
This thin wooden board is great for transferring the bread from work surface to oven. If you don't have one, a thin baking sheet without a lip is ideal.

Refillable water spray
Use for misting the oven to ensure a good crust.

Baking stones
Buy from a cook shop to transfer heat to the bottom of a loaf and help a home oven simulate a baker's oven. A large stone or tile from a DIY shop works fine, too. We use a terracotta tile to make pizzas in our oven at home.

Bread is eaten throughout the day, every day in Italy, dipped into coffee in the morning, used to scoop up food or mop juices from the plate at lunch or dinner (the Italians call a piece of bread used for this purpose scarpetta), and dipped into soup, served with salad or eaten as a snack. In Tuscany, bread is used for tasting the first olive oil of the season, simply rubbed with garlic and drizzled with the olive oil. It's called Fettunta.

Italians especially love bruschetta (bread toasted on a grill), usually rubbed with olive oil and topped with chopped tomatoes and basil, or crostone (large toasts) and crostini (small toasts) topped with a variety of ingredients, such as dressed beans, chicken livers or vegetables. These are eaten on their own at family gatherings and parties, or served as antipasti. The words bruschetta and crostini often seem interchangeable, and Italians are usually vague about the difference, but in general, bruschetta refers to simple, chargrilled bread — the bread itself is the hero, often only with good oil drizzled over — whereas crostini is toasted bread that acts as the carrier for all kinds of combinations of ingredients.

There is still a great deal of religious symbolism surrounding bread and pastries. At one time it was considered sacrilegious to turn a loaf upside down because it symbolises Christ's body, and I have seen Italians kiss dough or bread before throwing it away as a sign of respect. Various specialities and specific shapes of bread are often only made at the time of religious festivals. To celebrate Easter, for example, bread is formed into a ring in Naples and baked with whole eggs still in their shells — this symbolises fertility and spring, and probably has pre-Christian origins. In Liguria at Easter, torta pasqualina was originally made with 33 layers of pastry, each one symbolising a year of Jesus's life, and the famous Easter colomba cake is made in the shape of a dove.
In this spirit of celebration, I love to give home-baked Italian bread as presents. At the risk of sounding like a 1950s housewife who has nothing better to do than bake, when I go to someone's house for dinner it makes me happy to take a freshly baked loaf wrapped in baking parchment and tied with rustic string, perhaps decorated with a sprig of rosemary. The recipient may be secretly less than grateful and wish I had brought flowers or chocolates, but thanks to the polite manners of my friends I will never know! A selection of grissini also makes a lovely gift since breadsticks keep well. When we were taking photos of grissini in Sardinia, Anna, whose house we had borrowed, showed me how she folded a piece of baking parchment in half and cut out a semi-circle shape. She then folded it again and made several snips with a pair of scissors around the edge to make little decorative holes. It was so simple but effective that I have copied her many times since when putting bread or cakes on a plate.

It was the Greeks who taught the Romans how to bake bread with natural leavens and wheat flour in around 170BC. Before that they ate puts, a sort of grain mush. It became cool for Romans to have a Greek baker in their local bakery or to keep a Greek slave baker at home, and by 147BC, these bakers were considered important in Roman society. The Greeks baked around 50 kinds of bread using fine-milled flour and large ovens.
In her fascinating book The Italian Baker, Carol Field talks of bakers in 25BC leavening bread with pieces of dough left over from the previous day and using beer yeast introduced by the Gauls and Germans. At the same time, they were also using a biga, or starter dough, made from fermenting wheat flour and grape must. They also made enriched doughs containing egg, oil, honey and cheese in various forms.

According to Field, in later Roman times less wheat was grown as fields were given over for cattle, and with the expansion of the Roman Empire, wheat was brought in from abroad. When the Roman Empire fell apart, Rome was no longer able to import wheat from Egypt and Africa, so bread virtually disappeared. It was the Byzantines who brought it back by growing wheat at the edges of the Tiber River. Fortunately, breadmaking skills had been preserved in the monasteries and by AD800, under Charlemagne's control, bread had become more important again and mills re-established. The legacy of the Romans persisted into the 1950s, however, with bread being eaten according to class: pane nero, or wholemeal bread, was still typically for the poor, while the rich ate bread made with fine white flour.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Italian regions became better established and more local styles of bread developed. By the Middle Ages, bakers were concentrating on elaborate speciality breads, using ingredients specific to their locality. The Black Death had a devastating effect in the 14th century, bringing famine to Italy, and the high cost of wheat at this time made bread scarce.

By the Renaissance, however, things had improved again, and bread was baked with sophistication by Italian bakers until the Viennese, across the border, began to rival the Italian bakers with the beautiful pastries and breads in their coffee houses, and Napoleon introduced French white bread to Italy. Puff, flaky and other pastries were developed at this time and became commonplace over the following years. There is great debate about who taught whom. In her Gastronomy of Italy, Anna Del Conte says that the Tuscans claim to have taught the French how to make choux pastry; apparently, one of Caterina de Medici's cooks, Pantanelli, took the recipe with him when he accompanied her to France. Certainly profiteroles and the similar bigne are still popular all over Italy today - but who knows who really made such things first?

Loaves were traditionally marked with an identifying symbol in Italy before being baked. This sign, called a marchio, was particularly important before the 1950s and 60s, when bread began to be made on an industrial scale. Before this time, ovens were often shared, or you would take your bread to the local bakery to be baked for a set fee. Obviously each family's loaves had to be recognisable after baking, hence the mark. This was still the case when easy italian Chef was young; he remembers families taking it in turns to fire up their ovens so local people could come and bake their bread. Every fortnight it would be his family's turn and they would get up at 4am to stoke the fire and start baking. He says it was his favourite day of the fortnight as it caused a big commotion and the smell was so wonderful.

An Italian artisan baker I work with in London still makes marks on his loaves and can recognise those of other bakers. Frequently, a cross is made in the dough before it goes into the oven. This helps the loaf to expand easily, but the intent is also to bless it, so that the bread is good.
In Italy, as at home in the UK, artisan bakeries producing traditionally made bread have been making a comeback in the face of more industrialised breadmaking. Stalls at markets sell bread made by small producers, or you can buy loaves from the back of an ape, (one of those annoying little scooters converted into a small van). As well as traditional and regional specialities, you will find a whole range of breads these days, including organic, wholemeal, spelt and seeded loaves. Fashionable flours include manitoba, a Canadian flour that is high in gluten and therefore strong and good for bread, and kamut, a type of low-gluten wheat sold in America and Europe and made by a company of the same name. The original kamut grains are supposedly descended from a few grains found in a stone box in a tomb near Dashur in Egypt in the 1940s. This is unlikely, however; there is no evidence that the ancient Egyptians grew any wheat other than spelt, and the maximum life-span of wheat (unless frozen) is 200 years. It is more likely that kamut is a strain that, over the centuries, adapted itself to grow away from its source in Egypt. Rice and soya flour are also becoming popular in Italy, with the increase in numbers of people with a wheat intolerance, and pasta and bread made with these flours are available from health food shops.

 Bread Baking and Bread Basic Recipes