Pondering the pleasure and potential of Panzanella. Salad day #4

Panzanella

It was Tara at Seven Spoons who enlightened me on the seemingly popular and well-known salad which goes by the very catchy name of Panzanella. Where have I been? After some soul-searching I realized that I am indeed guilty of gravitating towards recipes whose names give clear evidence of what ingredients are involved. If I had seen it labelled as Bread Salad with Tomatoes, Olives and Basil, then I would have been right on it. But Panzanella? To the uninitiated, it's just a word. It conjures no images. It really doesn't mean anything at all. I realize now that I've been missing out on a world of wonderful recipes with very clever names. But now that my eyes have been opened, I want to, without doubt, change my narrow ways.

I knew there was no way to rid myself of this tunnel vision unless I started with this stranger called Panzanella. So what is it really? I found this description at What's Cooking America:

Panzanella (pahn-zah-NEHL-lah) - Panzanella salad always includes bread and tomatoes plus vegetables from the garden. Vegetables can include peppers, cucumbers, and onions. Lots of garlic, capers, black olives, and anchovies are added to the salad.
History
An Italian salad that probably was an invention of necessity. Italian cooks waste nothing and this was a way to utilize stale bread and vegetables from the garden. The record of panzanella goes back centuries. In the 1500s, a poem by the famous artist, Bronzino, described the salad.

I thought it sounded very promising. I'm never one to say no to the addition of bread to anything and this would also give me a way to use up all the random leftover vegetables that were waiting impatiently for me in my crisper. Tara had pointed me in the direction of a few recipes, all of which differed in some way, leaving me with the option of choosing the one that appealed to me most. In fact, there are endless variations of Panzanella recipes on the internet, where it is often also referred to as Tuscan Bread Salad. I've found variations with beans or chicken or tuna added. The possibilities are endless.

Martha has 2 recipes for Panzanella on her website. One simply named Panzanella, the other named Asparagus Panzanella. I used a combination of both recipes to suit my taste. And I must say the Panzanella was delicious. The bread I bought (pictured below) was in the day old basket at Gundel Bakery up the street from me. That lovely beast cost me a mere Euro. I was slow to eat my salad (including the time it took to decide on the right bowl and get a proper picture) and right to the very end the bread was still chewy, not at all mushy like I expected it would become after my dilly dallying.



So, I will leave you with a copy of one of Martha's recipes. But I highly recommend that you check out other recipes as well and tailor the Panzanella to your taste. The day old section at your bakery will take on a whole new meaning for you now.


Martha's Panzanella
Serves 6

1 garlic clove
2 pounds ripe beefsteak tomatoes, cored and cut into large chunks
1 medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
5 one-inch-thick slices day-old Tuscan-style bread
4 Kirby cucumbers (about 12 ounces), peeled and sliced
1 cup packed fresh basil leaves

Place garlic on a cutting board; hit it with the side of a large knife to break it open a bit. Place tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a large nonreactive bowl. Drizzle oil and vinegar over the vegetable mixture; season with salt and pepper. Toss; let stand, covered, in a cool place, for 1 hour or more.

Place bread on a hot grill or under a heated broiler; toast until both sides are slightly charred, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat, rub lightly with garlic if desired; tear bread into bite-size chunks. When ready to serve, add cucumbers, basil, and bread to tomatoes.

Toss to coat bread thoroughly with the marinating liquid. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, and remove garlic clove. (from www.mslo.com)

My variations:
-I used white wine vinegar, only because I didn't have red wine vinegar
-I included asparagus and kalamata olives
-I left out the cucumbers, they didn't seem to me to be a good match with the asparagus.
-I did not toast the bread, as most Panzanella recipes that I found seemed not to. Though I love fresh toasty croutons in my salad, keeping the bread untoasted would be new for me, and I'm learning not to always play it safe.
-I also deseeded my tomatoes so there wouldn't be too much extra juice floating around.