And how to turn this Bakehouse classic into Sicilian pane cunzatu
For those who don’t know it well, semolina is the bread of Sicily. Made from silky, finely milled golden semolina and baked with a sesame-coated crust, you’ll find it in most every bakery on the island. For many Sicilians, it is, literally, their daily bread. Bakehouse Co-Managing Partner Amy Emberling says, “I really enjoy that bread—to eat and just to look at. The color of the crumb is so beautiful!”
A few years ago, the Bakehouse set out to make our Sesame Semolina bread even better by baking it with flour milled fresh in their facility. The experiment elicited stellar results. The bread was already excellent, but milling the grain on-site took it to an entirely new level.
Among many possibilities, one of the things you can do with Sesame Semolina is create a traditional pane cunzatu—essentially, an especially tasty Sicilian version of bruschetta. In dialect, the word “cunzatu” means “dressed” or “seasoned.” It was typically imagined as the food of poverty, something farmers would take with them out into the fields.
Cunzatu is both easy to make and terrific to eat: toasted slices of semolina bread, dressed generously with a really good olive oil and topped with slices of the fresh heirloom tomatoes that are starting to come in for the season. I like to press the tomato into the bread gently, so its juices are all absorbed. Then layer on some anchovies—Ortiz or Fishwife are my favorites—and sprinkle dried oregano on top. I’m partial to the wild oregano on the branch that we get from Greece and the folks at Daphnis and Chloe.
You can, of course, add other ingredients to your taste. My friend Elizabeth Minchilli writes about making cunzatu with wild greens she’d gotten at the market. Some folks like to add capers, others a semisoft cheese. If you want, you can even turn it into a sandwich—in which case you should wrap it in foil and let it sit a bit so the flavors meld—or into salad croutons. There’s so much you can do with Sicilian Sesame Semolina!
