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Regional Recipe

Acquasale

Stale bread, tomato, oil and water

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Acquasale ready to cook and share

Prep

15 minutes

Cook

None

Serves

4

Difficulty

Easy

Region

Southern Italy

What you’ll need

Ingredients

Serves4

At the stove

Instructions

  1. 1

    Put the torn bread in a wide bowl and sprinkle it with cold water — enough to soften, not to soak.

  2. 2

    Leave it for 5 minutes, then press out any excess water with your hands.

  3. 3

    Add the tomatoes, onion, a good pinch of salt and plenty of oregano.

  4. 4

    Pour over the olive oil and turn everything together.

  5. 5

    Let it sit for 10 minutes before eating so the bread takes on the tomato juice.

Recipe notes

The amount of water depends entirely on how dry the bread is. Add it gradually.

Field versions were often eaten straight from the bowl with whatever the garden gave that day.

Context

Acquasale belongs to the field-and-farmhouse cooking of Basilicata, Puglia and Calabria, where hard bread was softened with water and dressed with oil and whatever was at hand.

Sources: Editorial adaptation of documented southern Italian regional cooking, Ro & Ti Kitchen

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