Regional Recipe
Acquasale
Italian bread salad with tomato, onion and oregano
This is a bread salad: dry bread revived with a little water and olive oil, then dressed with tomato, onion and oregano.
Tested and written by Erika A. Cochran
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Prep
15 minutes
Cook
None
Serves
4
Difficulty
Easy
Region
Southern Italy
What you’ll need
Ingredients
Written for 4.
Showing quantities at 1× the original recipe.
- 14 oz stale country bread, torn into large pieces
- 14 oz ripe tomatoes, chopped (about 3–4 medium tomatoes)
- 1 small red onion, sliced thin
- 5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- Dried oregano
- Cold water
- Sea salt
At the stove
Instructions
Put the torn bread in a wide bowl and sprinkle it with cold water — enough to soften, not to soak.
Leave it for 5 minutes, then press out any excess water with your hands.
Add the tomatoes, onion, a good pinch of salt and plenty of oregano.
Pour over the olive oil and turn everything together.
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, Casa Magnelli Kitchen
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