Well, according to Wikipedia, lots of famous people said that but the first, perhaps, is John Arbuthnot Fisher, a British Admiral of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
I’m about to do both!
It’s been nearly a year since my last blog post. And many months had elapsed between my next-to-last blog post and that one. I’m sorry!
Semola Remacinata, the finest grind of durum wheat flour in Italy.
It amazes, and gratifies me, however, that during that long dry spell I continued to get messages from new readers of the blog and new subscribers to my emails.
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Now let me explain.
Since August 2021 I have been working on a book about how to make artisan Italian gelato. All the time that I would have devoted to testing recipes and writing blog posts, and more, went to testing recipes for and, ultimately, writing the book.
I sent the manuscript to the publisher on November 1st. I’ve since revised the manuscript based on multiple rounds of feedback from the developmental editor. The text is now undergoing line editing. The photoshoot was completed a few weeks ago and photos were tentatively selected for the book.
A shot of the photoshoot for my upcoming book on artisan Italian gelato.
I’m anxiously awaiting options for page layout and cover design. And not-so-anxiously awaiting feedback from the line editor.
Finding myself with more flexibility, I am planning on doing more baking than gelato-making for the next few months. Winter in Palm Springs is the time to use the oven!
In fact, I had planned to make a coconut almond cake today, my second in less than two weeks. My goal is to keep at it until I reproduce a taste memory of a coconut almond cake that I ate, one and only one time, in 1967 (or summer arrives in Palm Springs, whichever comes first). It’s probably a fool’s errand but it is giving focus to my baking efforts.
My first coconut almond cake of the winter baking season.
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A water leak last evening, while I was making dinner, means that the water to the house is shut off until the plumber gets here later today. No water means no baking. No baking means that I can repurpose my time to do my first blog post in nearly a year.
I promise to do my best to be more regular in posting.
Gelato alla Zuppa Inglese, one of over 75 gelato recipes in my upcoming book. This is an egg-based gelato studded with cake soaked in Italian Alkermes liquore and dark chocolate chips.
Now, let’s pivot to a recipe: Focaccia Barese (Focaccia from Bari).
I like to serve homemade bread with dinner as much as possible. This is a recipe that I turn to over and over to put a really tasty bread on the table with minimal active time and often little advance planning.
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Focaccia Barese (Focaccia from Bari)
Focaccia is a yeast-risen bread that is made from a dough that has such a high proportion of water that it is almost a batter. Crushed tomatoes as well as capers and/or olives are strewn on top. A good sprinkling of dried oregano and a few glugs of good olive oil round out the flavor. In Italy, flour made from durum wheat comes in three grinds: fine, medium, and coarse, called semola (or semola remacinata, meaning “twice ground”), semolina, and semolino respectively. I usually use semola imported from Italy for this bread. If buying domestic semolina (in English, we use the same word, regardless of the grind) look for one that is finely ground.
Put flour, semola, and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle, NOT the dough hook, begin to mix on low.
Slowly drizzle in the water. When the water is fully mixed in, sprinkle in the sugar.
Add the salt and beat on medium high you see strings of gluten form in the dough, approximately 4-5 minutes. The dough will get stretchy and if you pull a bit, it should look stringy.
Drizzle in the extra-virgin olive oil and mix on medium until well combined.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise for about two hours.
Meanwhile, drain the canned tomatoes through a sieve. If the tomatoes are whole, coarsely crush them by hand and allow to drain further. If you are using diced tomatoes, crushing is not needed.
Oil a circular baking pan, 12” in diameter x 2” high with more extra-virgin olive oil.
Pour in the dough. Lightly oil your fingertips and press into the dough, without stretching, until it is evenly spread out in the pan.
Arrange crushed tomatoes, capers, and olives, if using, on top. Drizzle with more extra-virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with oregano.
Cover the pan and allow to rise. If you have another baking pan of the same size, turn it upside down and use it as a cover. If not, invert a large bowl over the baking pan. Whatever you do, be sure there is some space above the rim of the pan so that the dough has room to rise.
When the dough reaches the top of the pan, carefully transfer it to the oven so it doesn’t deflate.
Bake at 375°F with convection (or 400°F without convection) for approximately 35 minutes, turning once or twice, until browned and just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Cool the bread in the pan set on a rack before removing it.
Like many psychiatry residents, I used to moonlight to make extra money.
The money was good and the work was usually not difficult. Many moonlighting jobs required being on-premises overnight. Most of the time, this usually just involved sleeping but, again, not always.
One of my easier moonlighting jobs was at a private psychiatric hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs. I had to do the histories, physicals, and psychiatric evaluations on the newly admitted patients and then be available for any issues that came up during my shift. Usually I got to sleep all night.
This was in stark contrast to one of my other moonlighting jobs at the crisis service that covered a swath of northeast Philadelphia. The patients were more acute and admissions unplanned. Sleep was elusive.
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One morning as I was finishing up some work on one of the units at the private psychiatric hospital I spied a pizza box in the staff lounge, clearly intended for anyone who wanted to have some.
I opened the box and was presented with my first tomato pie, basically a focaccia topped with a prodigious amount of a jam-like tomato sauce. There was no cheese and there were no toppings.
I had never heard of tomato pie like this. Sometimes the term tomato pie was applied to a run-of-the mill pizza, usually by my Uncle Joe, but this was a whole different creation.
Not only was it naked, except for the tomato sauce, the sauce was very dense (almost like tomato paste) and thickly applied to the dough.
Good quality tomato puree is essential for this sauce. I prefer imported Italian tomato puree, called passato (or passata) (both are correct) di pomodoro
Growing up, a regular mid-morning Sunday snack (after church and before our major meal of the day around 1:00 or so) was a bowl of my mother’s long-simmered tomato sauce that was almost always bubbling away on the stove on Sunday mornings and a stack of bread to dip into it. Italian bread was preferred but I’d make do with American “slice” bread if need be…often six slices…to hold me over until mealtime.
Tomato pie was heaven-made for someone like me. It was bread and sauce in an easy-to-eat package. No bowl or dipping required.
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It’s pretty astounding to realize that I had lived in Philadelphia for about 11 years before encountering my first tomato pie. I don’t really understand why. Two of the bastions of Philadelphia tomato pie are on Ninth Street, an area that I started going to my freshman year in college.
I’m a big fan of making dough for pizza and focaccia in my bread machine. If you don’t have a bread machine, use a mixer with a dough hook. Failing that, some elbow grease and a smooth kitchen counter will do the trick.
If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan or Melinda’s Drunken Prunes, take a look. They will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.
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Philadelphia-Style Tomato Pie
Tomato Pie is a thick crust pizza dough topped with copious amounts of very thick tomato sauce. No cheese is put on the pie before baking. Some folks sprinkle grated Pecorino on the finished pie. It is usually served at room temperature. If the garlic taste in the sauce is too strong for you, the garlic can be sautéed in a small amount of olive oil before mixing into the tomato puree mixture. It is best to make the sauce a day in advance and refrigerate it. If you don’t have a bread machine, mix the dough in a mixer with a dough hook for about 10 minutes after the dough comes together. You can also mix it by hand which will give you a bit of an upper-body workout.
Grate the garlic on a Microplane grater or crush to a paste.
Combine all the ingredients for the sauce.
Cover the sauce and refrigerate overnight.
Before using, taste and adjust seasoning.
Dough
Prepare the dough using the dough cycle of the bread machine.
At the end of the cycle put the dough into an oiled bowl or covered container and allow to rise until doubled.
Assembly
Oil a half-sheet pan (13" x 18") with a few tablespoons of olive oil.
Stretch dough into the pan.
The dough will spring back. Stretch it out then allow it to rest a few minutes. Stretch more, then allow it to rest a few minutes. With resting in between stretches, the gluten will relax and the dough won't spring back.
Cover the pan. I invert another half-sheet pan on top.
Allow to rise until doubled, approximately 30 minutes.
Spread all of the sauce on top.
Bake at 350°F until crust is browned and sauce is thick, approximately 35-45 minutes.
Cool in the pan.
Cut into squares and serve at room temperature.
Sprinkle with grated Pecorino cheese, if desired, once cool.
Before my bread machine it was my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Before my Kitchen Aid stand mixer it was my hands. I have always enjoyed making bread.
Junior year in college was when my bead making got started in earnest. That was the year that I lived in the International Residence Project at the University of Pennsylvania. I was notified of my acceptance into the Project, a College House arrangement that occupied two floors of a high-rise dorm, late in my sophomore year. Current and incoming residents of the Project met at a social event where I was introduced to the roommate to whom I had been assigned for the coming school year, Ray Hugh from Georgetown, Guyana.
Ray and I started hanging out together for the last part of sophomore year and found that we really hit it off. Since we were both staying in Philadelphia for the summer, and since students could not stay in undergraduate dorms during the summer, we did what most undergrads did during the summer. We sublet an apartment in Graduate Towers from graduate students who were not staying in Philadelphia for the summer but who, as graduate students, had year-long leases.
I had pretty regular hours working in a research lab for the summer but that left evenings and weekends free to explore cooking which Ray and I did together. It quickly became clear that the kitchen in our apartment in the International Residence Project, which we would begin occupying in September, was going to need an upgrade.
At my request, my father made a five-foot long kitchen counter with a laminate top. There was in integrated pull-out table that would seat two in the regular configuration but four when pulled out. That counter became the epicenter of our cooking universe. Set opposite the Pullman kitchen (three electric burners, an oven, an under-counter refrigerator, and an integrated sink) we had a very efficient kitchen set-up. A deep shelving unit that I made housed equipment and several stacks of plastic milk crates held ingredients for which there otherwise would have been no space.
I made bread on that counter every week, kneading it by hand.
I made bread the way my Italian grandmother did. Flour, water, salt, and yeast went into a big bowl. The yeast was not proofed. I mixed the ingredients by hand, adding more flour as needed. Periodically I would rub the inside of the bowl with lard. After enough flour had been added, I would put the dough on the counter and knead it for about ten minutes. The dough would always rise twice, getting punched down and kneaded lightly after each rise, before being put in bread pans for the third and final rise before being baked.
Decades later I got my first Kitchen Aid stand mixer and started using that to make bread. Good thing, too, because I was starting to have trouble with my joints from all the kneading necessary.
A few years ago I got my first bread machine, a Zojirushi BB-PAC20. While I have no doubt that bread baked in an oven is better I also have no doubt that we would not eat anywhere as much homemade bread if I had to do all the mixing, rising, shaping, and baking unaided.
With less than five minutes’ work spent measuring ingredients, I can push a button and have bread a few hours later. And I am completely at peace with the ingredients in my bread. No sugar. No high fructose corn syrup. No dough conditioners. No preservatives. Nothing but flour, water, salt, olive oil and yeast! The bread machine has more than paid for itself in savings.
My Zojirushi BB-PAC20 bread machine
I especially like the dough cycle. As noted in a previous blog post, I use the dough cycle to make the dough for my focaccia. A quick final rise after being shaped and the focaccia is ready for the oven. The dough cycle also makes pizza dough in a snap. I like to make it at least one day in advance and allow it to rise in the refrigerator. Two days in advance is even better.
I still pretty much use the same recipe for bread dough that I followed in college though I’ve swapped out the lard for olive oil and modified the directions to suit mechanization instead of hands. (Every now and then, I just get the urge to do it by hand, though!)
Usually I bake pizza in a wood-burning oven. Since wood-burning ovens are not very common, the pizza featured in this post was baked in a conventional oven. I don’t have a pizza stone since I don’t usually bake pizza in the oven. All the better though, since I know few people who have pizza stones. I simply went old school and used heavy aluminum pizza pans. I didn’t even use the convection feature!
Our DoughPro wood-burning oven from AustraliaBaking chamber above and fire chamber below
Until a few years ago I always cooked my pizza sauce. Then I tried uncooked sauce as is often done in Naples and found that I really prefer it. It has a fresher taste and it is really easy to make. (Sorry mom!)
I usually use tomato puree because I like a smooth sauce but crushed tomatoes work well if you prefer a chunkier sauce. You can also just whizz a can of whole peeled tomatoes in the blender or food processor to whatever degree of chunkiness or smoothness you want.
An array of tomato products
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Homemade Pizza
Make the dough at least one day before you plan to bake the pizzas. The dough will benefit from the slow rise in the refrigerator. Two days is even better. Be sure to put the balls of dough in containers that seal well to keep the dough from drying out and that are large enough to hold the dough after it rises. Remove the dough from the refrigerator the morning of the day you plan on making pizza. It will take 3-5 hours to warm up and rise. If you’re not ready to make pizza when the dough has doubled in bulk, just punch it down and allow it to rise again. The dough recipe makes enough for two 16 inch pizzas but the sauce is enough for four. Extra sauce will keep in the refrigerator for 4-5 days. Since I make so much bread, I buy dry yeast in bulk. You can substitute one envelop of yeast for the two teaspoons of yeast called for in the recipe. For the sauce, use tomato puree if you prefer a smoother sauce and crushed tomatoes if you prefer a slightly chunkier sauce. In either case, really good tomatoes are called for. Buy genuine San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy, if possible. I find Cento to be a good brand and generally available in the markets in my area.
One or two days before you plan to bake the pizza, prepare the dough.
You can use the dough cycle of a bread machine, the dough hook of a stand mixer, or you can make the dough by hand following the directions in the blog post.
If using a bread machine, follow the manufacturer’s directions for the dough cycle.
If using a stand mixer, put warm, not hot, water in the bowl of the mixer. Add four cups of flour, the yeast, and salt and begin to mix. Gradually pour in the olive oil. Add enough of the remaining flour to make a slightly tacky dough. Chances are you will need all of it. Allow the dough hook to knead the dough for 8-10 minutes.
If making the dough by mixer or hand, oil the dough and place in an oiled bowl. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, covered lightly with a kitchen towel.
After the dough has doubled, or when the bread machine has completed the dough cycle, remove the dough and punch it down.
Divide the dough in half and shape into two balls. Rub the surface of each ball with oil and put each one into a separate oiled bowl or LARGE plastic container.
Cover tightly using plastic wrap if needed.
Put the dough in the refrigerator until the morning of the day you plan to bake the pizza.
On baking day, remove the dough from the refrigerator in the morning and allow it to sit at room temperature until doubled in bulk. This will take 3-5 hours (or maybe a bit longer if your refrigerator is really cold). If you are not ready to bake the pizza, just punch the dough down again and let it rest. It is better to err on the side of taking it out of the refrigerator too early rather than too late!
Pizza Sauce
Mince the garlic.
Combine all the ingredients for the sauce.
Cover and refrigerate overnight to allow the flavors to mellow.
Some brands of tomatoes can be a bit tart. Taste the sauce right before you use it and, if necessary, add up to ½ teaspoon of sugar but no more. (Some people consider this heresy but it is a common Italian technique to counter tomatoes that are too tart. Remember agricultural products vary and sometimes you need to use your judgment to correct a situation that is not addressed by the recipe.)
Assembly of Pizza
Shred the mozzarella on the tear-drop shaped holes of a box grater. Reserve.
Lightly dust a 16 inch round pizza pan with cornmeal.
Put the dough on a metal pastry "board" or a second pizza pan and gently stretch it by pressing on it and moving your hands apart. The dough will spring back. Each time it will stay stretched a little more. After six to eight stretching motions, allow the dough to rest for several minutes to permit the gluten to relax. This will make it easier to stretch. I usually allow two or three such rest periods.
Stretch dough into a 16” round.
Flip the dough over onto the cornmeal-dusted pizza pan. (OK, I don't have the skill to stretch the dough by tossing it in the air and putting it on the pan so this is my hack. If you can toss pizza dough in the air, please give me a lesson!)
Spread the sauce on dough to within one inch of the edge.
Add toppings of your choice, if desired.
Evenly sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.
Bake the pizza at approximately 450°F until the edges are golden brown and the dough is fully cooked, approximately 12-15 minutes.
I really enjoy baking. There was a time when my Sunday morning routine included mixing up a batch of bread dough, then reading the New York Times and sipping coffee with our two Italian Greyhounds cuddled up next to me while the dough rose. The bread would be ready for our main meal, which frequently was around 1 PM on Sunday but often got moved to the evening depending on what was happening that day.
I lost that routine somewhere along the way when work got too busy. I still make bread frequently but I’ve lost the rhythm of baking every Sunday morning.
When I was growing up, my Aunt Margie baked bread rolls every week. I’m not sure why, but I think it was on Thursdays. I remember little balls of rising dough, in neat rows, resting on top of the same cabinet, covered by the same cloth, every week. As a child, I marveled at how they all were exactly the same size. It seemed impossible.
Those rolls were a staple of my childhood. Lunch often consisted of hot Calabrese salami sandwiched inside one of those rolls. Sometimes it was peanut butter and jelly. Other times it was peanut butter and banana, a combination my Italian-born mother-in-law still doesn’t understand!
I still eat sandwiches of Calabrese salami for lunch on a regular basis. Some habits don’t die. The sandwiches are often on my home-made bread baked in a loaf pan or on a split open chunk of focaccia, but unfortunately, not on Aunt Margie’s bread rolls.
Aunt Margie died a few years back. Even though she had stopped baking rolls every week long before that, periodically she would ship me a box filled with her home-made bread rolls. Some I put in the fridge, others went into the freezer. A quick zap in the microwave, a few slices of salami, and I was re-living a favorite childhood memory.
Memories are funny, though. We never know what experiences will become favorite memories. We just have to take them as they come. Maybe the best we can do is to create experiences that will become favorite memories for others. We just never know what they’ll be.
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Focaccia con Salvia (Focaccia with Sage)
This is a sticky dough. Because of that, it is much easier to mix it using a mixer with a bread hook rather than doing it by hand. On a busy day, when I still want homemade focaccia with dinner, I allow my bread machine to make the dough. When the machine indicates the dough is ready, I just shape it and proceed as described below. I do a lot of baking so I buy dry yeast in one-pound packages rather than in those little envelopes. It doesn’t take many of those envelopes to equal the cost of a full pound of yeast so, even if you throw away a portion of the large package on the expiration date, you will probably have saved money. And who knows, all that yeast sitting in the fridge might just prompt you to bake more, which isn’t a bad thing after all.
Fill the bowl of an electric mixer with hot water. Put the dough hook in the water. Allow the bowl and hook to warm up for a few minutes while you prepare the other ingredients. When ready to proceed, drain and dry the bowl and hook.
Add the 220 ml of warm water, yeast and one tablespoon of the flour to the warmed bowl. Using the dough hook, blend the ingredients briefly. Turn off the machine and allow the mixture to sit until it is bubbling and creamy.
When creamy, approximately 10 minutes, add half the remaining flour and the chopped sage. Using the dough hook, mix to combine.
With the mixer running, add the salt then drizzle in the olive oil. After the oil is incorporated add the remaining flour. Mix approximately 8-10 minutes. The dough should be soft and sticky.
Oil a large bowl with olive oil.
Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and shape into a ball. It is easier to do this if you rub some oil on your hands. Place the dough in the oiled bowl and roll it around a bit to coat it with oil.
Put a piece of oiled waxed paper over the bowl and then cover the bowl with a towel. Allow the dough to rise until doubled.
Punch the dough down and form into a ball once again.
Oil a 12-14 inch round pizza pan with a little olive oil.
Put the ball of dough on the pizza pan and begin to press down, using both hands, gently stretching the dough, rotating the pan as you go. The dough will spring back. After six or eight stretches, flip the dough over and repeat. Then, allow the dough to sit for five minutes. Repeat the stretching, flipping, and stretching again. The dough will not spring back quite as much and you’ll be able to get it stretched out a little more. You might have to repeat the stretching-flipping-stretching-waiting routine two or three more times until the dough is shaped into a 12-inch circle. It’s easier use a 14-inch pan because you can overstretch the dough a bit then allow it to spring back to the size you want.
Using your fingertips, press the dough to create a bumpy surface.
Cover the dough and allow it to rise until doubled. This will only take about 20-25 minutes. You can cover it with oiled waxed paper but if you have a deep dish pizza pan, you can just flip the pan upside down over the dough and skip the waxed paper altogether.
While the dough is rising, heat the oven to 425°F.
Make an egg wash by beating the egg with two teaspoons of water.
When the dough has doubled, brush the top with egg wash. Arrange the sage leaves on top of the dough and brush each one with more egg wash.
Bake the focaccia at 425°F until golden brown, 15-20 minutes.
Slide the focaccia off of the pizza pan and onto a rack to cool.
Recipe Notes
If you want to try to mix this in a bread machine, consult the directions for your machine. You can use what I do as a guide, however. Combine the flour, salt and chopped sage. Stir to combine. Put the water in the bottom of the bread pan (do not use warm water). Put the flour mixture on top of the water. Make a small well in the top of the flour with the back of a spoon. Add the yeast to the well, being certain the yeast is above the level of the water. Drizzle the olive oil on top of the flour, not touching yeast. Use the dough cycle. When the dough cycle is complete, remove the dough, form into a ball, and proceed with step 9 above.
I have been planning the launch of this site for several years. It’s going live shortly before Christmas, a time when Italians traditionally enjoy panettone. Panettone for breakfast. Panettone as a gift. Panettone as a snack. While there are wonderful commercially produced products, I prefer to make my own.
The fact that the site is going live now feels like a gift…to myself! So, I’m making panettone!!! One for me, and half-a-dozen for friends.
I’ve been making Panettone for almost 30 years. This year I’m using candied citron from Italy. I plan to try making my own candied citron from the wonderful Buddha’s Hand fruits available from the farmers’ market in Palm Springs, California where I spend time each winter using this recipe from David Lebovitz. For now, though, I’ll be using the citron from Italy.
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Panettone
Panettone is a sweet bread from Italy, traditionally served around Christmas. It is enriched with eggs and butter and contains raisins and candied citron.
This is candied citron from Italy. The flavor is superior to the diced candied citron sold in supermarkets.
If using large pieces of citron, cut them into batons approximately 1/4 inch on a side.
After cutting batons of citron, or if using citron that is already diced, slice the citron into thin slices.
Beat salt, sugar, eggs and egg yolks together. Reserve.
Use a mixer with a dough hook. Put 1200 g flour in the bowl of the mixer. Add yeast and begin to mix. Add warm water and mix. Add egg mixture and mix. Slowly with the mixer running, add 225 grams of melted butter and orange oil or zest. Knead for approximately 10 minutes, scraping the side of the bowl a few times. Add citron and raisins and continue mixing till incorporated. The dough will be sticky.
Butter the inside of a large bowl with 2 tablespoons of the softened butter. Place dough in the buttered bowl and be sure to butter the top with some of the melted butter. Cover dough with waxed paper and place a kitchen towel on top. Refrigerate overnight. It should have at least doubled by morning. In place of a large bowl, you can use a food-service container of approximately 7 quarts with a tight-fitting lid.
Punch the dough down by hand. Cover again with waxed paper and towels and allow to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk.
Butter 3 cylindrical baking pans, approximately 7 inches in diameter, using 3 tablespoons of softened butter. Set the pans aside.
Knead the dough by hand until smooth and the air bubbles have been worked out. Form into 3 balls and place each into one of the baking pans. Butter the tops with the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter.
Cover with waxed paper and a towel. Allow to rise at room temperature until doubled (or a little more), approximately 45-60 minutes.
Cut a deep cross in the top of each loaf. Bake at 350° F for 55-65 minutes. Use a cake tester to be sure that none of the dough clings to tester.
Place on a cooling rack. Cool slightly and remove from the pans. Cool completely on the rack. Wrap tightly until ready to use.
