Bread. This is the Bozza Pratese, which is the typical unsalted loaf from Prato, my city in Tuscany. This loaf will last around 5 days and will taste better starting from its second day!!
Since I moved to London, I missed this unsalted crusty bread so much. Being unsalted is the ideal base to enhance the flavours
I was looking for it to prepare some classic tuscan dishes, such the "pappa al pomodoro", "fett'unta", "minestra di pane" and of course the "panzanella".
Unfortunately I couldn't find it in London, so I decided to bake it by myself!
I read a lot of blogs about baking your own bread and I found them terribly difficult to understand, so I've tried to remember what my Grandmother told me when I was a child and she used to tell me how she made it.
So this is what and how I've done it.
The result?
I coudn't prepare any of my favourite dishes, because the bread was finished after 2 days only!!
I must admit that doing your own bread is one of the biggest satisfaction you can achieve in the kitchen...


Ingredients:

• 10 gr. fresh yeast
• 600 gr. plain flour
• 1 pint of warm water

1) In a large bowl put 270 gr. of flour.


2) In an another bowl put 5 gr. of yeast into 1\2 pint of warm water. Add it to the flour and start to work.



Work it very quickly but gently for 5 minutes circa, until you get a nice ball shaped dough.
Cover it and rest for 18 hours.

The next day.
Take the dough and cut it in small pieces. Now repeat the passages 1) and 2) and whilst you add the watre, also add the small dough pieces. Work the new dough until you reach an homogeneous texure and give it a rectangular shape. Fold it like pictured, sprinkle with flour and rest for a hour and half.
The whole procedure was done on a wooden chopping board sprinkled all over with flour.



After that, give it the shape you want and do some cuts with the knife and let it raise again for another hour.

Pre-heat the oven at 250°C, leave inside the oven tray you'll use for the bread. It needs to be really hot when you'll lay the bread.
Put an oven pot filled with water on the bottom of the oven, because the bread needs humidity whilst  baking.
Bake the bread and after 10 minutes remove the tray with the water and set the temperature at 190°C for circa 30 minutes.
When it is ready rest it for 15 minutes and cover the loaf with a tea towel, it will loose its humidity.
 

Now it's ready!  My suggestion is to eat it with Salame Toscano or Prosciutto di Parma.