Sfincione

A thick spongy Palermo tray pizza topped with breadcrumbs instead of mozzarella.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains caciocavallo whose rennet the source does not name, fish.

Ingredients

• 600 g strong white flour
• 450 ml water
• 7 g fresh yeast
• 12 g salt
• 60 ml olive oil
• 3 large onions, sliced thinly
• 8 salted anchovies, rinsed and boned
• 400 g passata
• 150 g caciocavallo, in small dice
• 120 g coarse breadcrumbs
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano

Method

1. Make a very wet dough, 75 per cent water, and fold it in the bowl every 30 minutes for 2 hours. It should be too slack to shape by hand.
2. Oil a deep tray generously, tip the dough in, and dimple it out to the corners. Prove 2 hours until it is visibly bubbled and at least 2 cm thick. THE CRUMB IS THE DISH: sfincione means sponge, and a thin one is a different pizza altogether.
3. Cook the onions slowly in the oil for 30 minutes until sweet and collapsing, then melt the anchovies into them and add the passata. Cook it down thick.
4. Press the diced caciocavallo INTO the dough, so it sits under the sauce rather than on top.
5. Spread the onion sauce over.
6. FINISH WITH BREADCRUMBS, NOT MOZZARELLA. Scatter them with the oregano and a thread of oil. The crumbs toast and give the top its texture, and this is the clearest difference from any Neapolitan pizza.
7. Bake at 220C for 30 minutes. Eat it warm, cut in squares.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes