PANZANELLA
This is not only a salad. This is a no food waste salad born in other days, where the bread was baked at home in big wood ovens and the veggies were the ones growing in your own garden or as Italian call it the "orto". This salad maybe was the ancient take away salad of the men working long hours away from home. The history behind recipes is really fascinating for us. As many Italian recipes, also this one is coming with the aim of using all the ingredients in the house and give them a new life. This is the case of the bread, that has to be a bit dry, not soft, just coming out from the oven. There is a step in here that help to make the bread soft again with the help of water and vinegar in a way that is becoming soft again and ready to welcome all the flavours coming from the vegetables and the olive oil. Method is easy and requires a bit of patience following all the steps but it will result really tasty and without the onion over-flavouring the other vegetables.
INGREDIENTS 1 cucumber 4 vine tomatoes, roughly chopped 1/2 red onion, finely sliced 4 slices of ciabatta bread style of around 1-2 cm some tablespoons of white vinegar extra virgin olive oil some leaves of basil torn into pieces
METHOD Prepare a bowl with some cold water and a spoon of white vinegar. Cut your bread in 4 slices thick 1-2 cm and dip them into the water for few seconds and place in a plate to rest. Slice your onion finely and put it in a container with water and one spoon of vinegar and leave it there for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove the water and dry. In the meantime divide your cucumber in half and slice it finely as well. Cut you tomatoes roughly in little pieces. Now take a bowl and start reducing your wet bread into big crums, add the onions, the tomatoes, the cucumber and add some handcut basil leaves. Let it rest in the fridge for one hour. Once ready, take it out of the fridge and add some olive oil and salt