The Breadstick

One of the first food things you notice in northern Italy is the long, skinny, crisp breadstick, found on every restaurant table, upright on coffee bars, in bakeries. Grocery stores have several styles arrayed in boxes, in plastic bags, and loose, wrapped in paper or ribbon. There are gourmet breadsticks, artisan breadsticks, breadsticks with fennel seed or cheese. The bread stick is ubiquitous. Why so?

The home of the breadstick, called grissini, is Turin, home of the Savoy.

The story goes like this: It was 1679. Carlo Emanuele II, the Duke of Savoy, had a son named Vittorio Amedeo II. He was ill, refusing food. The duke asked his court baker, Brunero, to come up with something that his son could enjoy that was easy to digest.

Brunero came up with a thin, crispy stick similar (but thinner and smaller) to ghersa, a popular style of loaf in Turin. This word morphed into grissini and now, to be terribly technical, we have two kinds, straight, stirato and rolled, rubata.

Evidently grissini did not help poor Vittorio as he died young, but the fashion for thin,

How emblematic of Piemontese food is the grissini? Consider that the Grand Hyatt Honk Kong named its restaurant featuring Northern Italian cuisine Grissini, and features the oven in the entrance of the room.

There are several kinds of grissini available in Edmonton, with the Italian Centre north side location having the largest selection to choose from.

Eat them alone, serve with other antipasti such as olives or wrap proscuitto around them for a quick appetizer. Or, make your own.

La Rei, the restaurant in Il Boscareto Resort offered a stellar breadstick, slightly chewy, crunchy and flavourful. They were kind to share the recipe.

La Rei Restaurant Grissini Stirati

1 kg flour Tipo “00”

80 gr corn flour

120 gr extra virgin olive oil

35 gr baking powder

5 gr malt

365 gr water

21 gr salt

Prehead oven to 400.F. Mix all the ingredients together and let it leaven for 1/2 hour. Divide the dough into 3 and make 3 loaves. Let them stand and extend them until the loaves have a 5 cm circumference. Brush them with oil and cover with film. Let them leaven for 1/2 hour. Sprinkle with corn flour and cut them in cylinders, stretch them and put them on a baking pan and cook in the oven for 8 minutes.*

* La Rei breadsticks had large sea salt crystals on the outside. Sprinkle on after cutting in cylinders.

Grissini Torinesi

1 T active dry yeast

11/2 c lukewarm water (about 100.F)

3 c + 2 T unbleached bread flour

2/3 c semolina flour

2 T unsalted butter, softened

1 T extra virgin olive oil

1 T kosher salt

In a small bowl dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup of the water and let stand 2 minutes to soften. Whisk with a fork to dissolve the yeast and let stand 5 minutes until it bubbles. (If it doesn’t bubble, use new yeast.)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the yeast-water mix, bread flour, semolina flour, butter, oil, salt and remaining 11/4 cups of water. Mix with a dough hook on medium speed for about 10 minutes until the dough clears the sides of the bowl. Or mix by hand with a wooden spoon and then knead by hand for 10 minutes.

Shape the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Coat the dough with the oil, cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Shaping and Baking

1/2 c unbleached bread flour

1/2 c semolina flour

1/4 t salt

2 T extra virgin olive oil

1 T water

Shaping

Lightly oil 4 heavy-rimmed baking sheets (or bake in batches).

Combine the bread flour, semolina flour and salt in a small bowl and stir to blend. In another small bowl, combine the olive oil and water. Sprinkle the work surface thickly with the flour mixture. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and flatten it with a rolling pin into a large rectangle, about 18 x 6 inch. If the dough is too soft, transfer it to a floured sheet pan and put in the freezer to firm (about 10 minutes). Return it to the floured work surface before continuing.

Brush the surface of the rectangle with the oil-water mixture, then sprinkle generously with some of the flour mixture.

Cut the dough into 6 inch by 1/4 inch strips, cutting just a few at a time. Keep the rest of the dough covered with plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out. Pick up each strip by the ends and put on the baking sheet, and allow each strip to become only as long as the sheet. Arrange side by side, close but not touching. Let rise about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350.F. Bake the breadsticks until light brown and crisp all the way through, about 30 minutes. Cool on a rack. Makes about 5 dozen. The sticks keep well in a closed container for about two weeks. It may seem like a large yield, but they are addictive.