Sunday 10 November 2013

Tomato and Garlic Pugliese

The Dough Boy was keen to try something new this week for a family gathering.

What follows is a example of the perfection of Italian cuisine... Simple, only a handful of ingredients, but combined in such a way to create something really special. 

So, this is Tomato and Garlic Pugliese....

A bit of homework is required: crushed garlic infused in olive oil overnight, and whilst your dough is proving you need to make a strong salt solution: 30g salt in 100ml water. A little of the former and the latter will be washed over the bread before it goes in the oven, creating a crust that can be unequalled in flavour.

Garlic and olive oil. A marriage made in heaven.



Salt solution. Do not mistake this for your normal water for your dough! 


The white flour dough is heavily yeasted and a portion of the water is replaced with the infused olive oil. I added a fair bit of the crushed garlic to the dough as well .

The dough is knocked back after only one hour, so the yeast is kept in check.... You then roll it out quite thin to about an inch in height all over. 

The evolving loaf is then washed with the salt solution and with some infused olive oil which was retained for this purpose from the dough. The surface is then pricked all over with a knife before topping with thinly sliced tomatoes. Something like this:

Ready for the oven

It then proves for a further 45mins to an hour, before enjoying about 25mins in the oven. 

Best served whilst still warm, though by this stage of the game your kitchen smells so good you will probably have a queue of people waiting to be taste-testers for you. 

Not all bread is created equally. Making this from scratch is a case in point.











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