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ITALIAN BREAD
Level 2
Stale-Bread Pizza
adapted from Donatella Arpaia, Executive Chef of Mia Dona, New York City
The New York Times has called the builder of Mia Dona's five-and-a-half-ton pizza oven -with its volcanic-mud bricks and imported sand and cement - a "pizza sage from Naples." Thankfully in this recipe adapted for the humbler modern kitchen oven, we can enjoy virtually the same stale-bread pizza perfected by Donatella's mother and aunts from their native Puglia.
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups whole milk
15 slices past peak rustic Italian bread (1/2" thick)
3/4 pound buffalo mozzarella, thinly sliced
3/4 pint cherry tomatoes, halved and crushed
2 -3 Tbsp. Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 Tbsp. fresh or dried oregano or fresh basil, torn into bits
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking sheet with about 2 tablespoons oil
- Pour milk into a bowl. Briefly dunk one slice of bread at a time into milk and squeeze out excess. Place bread on baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover with mozzarella slices, and top with tomatoes, Parmigiano-Reggiano and oregano or basil. Drizzle with oil.
- Bake on bottom shelf of oven for 10-20 minutes, being careful not to burn the bottom of the bread.
