Panzanella Salad

This classic Italian salad is very unique because it translates to “bread salad”- kind of an oxymoron lol. Rooted in peasant Italian countryside cuisine, the purpose of this salad is to use stale bread and balance it out with fresh vegetables and herbs from the garden. This recipe is a core example of peasant Italian food- no waste, inexpensive, filling and TASTY! Of course, at Pazzo Chow, we ‘made it our way’ but actually didn’t tweak much on this one except for sometimes swapping the bread to roasted potatoes or polenta cubes however for the amount of focaccia we made daily it made the most sense to stick to the traditional way. We did, however, upgrade it by adding anchovy to the dressing and optional tuna in olive oil on top.

feeds 4 ppl

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pan of focaccia/ 1/2 loaf of unsliced rustic bread or sourdough/ 3/4 of a baguette *we often subbed out the bread for roasted potatoes (fresh or left over)
2 cups sweet grape or cherry tomatoes cut in half
3/4 cup fresh basil torn up
1 cup sweet onion mandolined or sliced super thin
2 cups fresh arugula
1/2 cup capers
1 cup of olives (optional)- ideally small anchovy stuffed green olives but any olives you have can work
Tinned tuna (optional)

Dressing
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar or fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard (optional but helps blend the dressing)
1 clove garlic
3 filets anchovy
Pinch white or brown sugar - you may not need this if you are using fresh lemon juice

PROCESS

• Tearing the bread by hand is ideal into about 1 inch pieces, but you can also cut cubes with a knife especially when using potato or polenta

• In a large bowl mix all ingredients, make sure there is enough tomato to hydrate the bread with tomato juice before adding dressing

• Blend in blender, nutri-bullet or immersion blender all dressing ingredients, make sure that all are dissolved and have a thick texture (that will coat the entire salad evenly and not just sink to the bottom)- taste and tweak it to your liking (personally I like it on the tangy-er more vinagry side but toned that down a bit for this recipe)

• Pour dressing over salad and mix together

• If you are adding tuna, break it up in the can and then distribute evenly on top of the salad on individual plates or put in a bowl on the table for people to take themselves