- 1
Ingredients
- The Campanian Recipe **
- 4 thick slices crusty stale bread, at least a half pound (225 g)
- 3-4 bay leaves
- Salt
- 1 quart (1 liter) water
- The Lucanian Recipe **
- 8 tablespoons olive oil
- A clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 4 eggs, well beaten
- 1/2 pound (225 g) stale crusty Italian bread, crumbled
- Ground hot pepper to taste
- A small bunch of basil, chopped
- 1 pint (500 ml) water
Preparation
Step 1
Bring the water to a boil, salt it, and add the bay leaves. Let the mixture boil for a few minutes, and in the meantime crumble the pieces of bread and put them in your soup bowls. Spoon the broth over the bread, let it absorb the moisture for a few minutes, and serve.
Note: this is very, very frugal. You could add substance by using chicken or meat broth (or unsalted bouillon) instead of water, and jazz it up by adding one or two cloves of peeled crushed garlic to the pot, and dusting the soup with freshly grated Pecorino Romano at table. Or you could do more, stirring a beaten egg or two into the broth before ladling it over the bread.
Indeed, this is what they do in Basilicata; to prepare their Pane Cotto you'll need the Lucanian (the residents of Basilicata are called Lucani) ingredients listed above.
Set the water to heat, crumble the bread into 4 bowls, beat the eggs, and chop the basil.
Heat the oil in a pot big enough to contain the water as well, and saute the garlic and hot pepper to taste for a minute or two. Add the water, bring the mixture to a boil, and cook for a couple of minutes. Vigorously stir in the eggs and the basil and cook a minute more stirring all the while. Ladle the mixture over the bread and serve at once.
Again, you could use broth or stock to add substance, and as a variation, you could add some freshly grated Pecorino Romano.
And there we have it, two simple variations of a peasant dish. You may be wondering why the Italian recipes call for water: Because these are true peasant dishes, made by people who could afford meat once a week if that. Broth would have been entirely beyond their means.