Pane carasau is a thin, crispy bread from Sardegna. It used to be the bread of fishermen because it stays good for a long time. They would take it on their boats and soak it in sea water before eating it.
You can it as a bread, with a sauce or a dip, or you can cook with it (using it on layers as the pasta in the lasagne, for example). It takes some time to prepare it but the fact that it stays good for a long time makes it a great thing to have in your kitchen.
TIME: 30 min + 2–3 hours leavening time
250 g flour 00 and 250 g durum wheat semolina
280 g water
6 g fresh yeast (or 2 g dried yeast)
5 g salt
- Melt the yeast in the water and mix all the ingredients to obtain a very elastic and compact dough. Cover with a plastic film and leave to rest for 10–15 minutes.
- Form six little balls, cover again with plastic film and a clean kitchen towel, let it rest for 2–3 hours.
- Heat the oven at 250°, leaving a stone or an upside-down baking tray inside. Roll the dough in round discs of 20 cm, leave to rest a bit and then roll again so that the discs are very thin and even.
Leave to rest between clean kitchen towels for 15 minutes. - Slide the first disc on the hot stone/baking tray, after circa 40 seconds it will inflate and form an empty ball. Take out and separate the upper from the lower part. Let it cool down on a kitchen towel and reapeat this procedure with all the discs. At the end bake again each disc for a couple of minutes (you can put three or four at the same time in the oven) until they reach a nice gold color.
You can keep the bread in a paper bag for many days.
I tried it with a really fantastic tomato paste from Fattoria di Gèsu, a Slow Food farm in Valle del Bilìci, Sicily. It’s made from a variety of tomatoes called siccagno, that grows in an extremely dry soil without being watered. They are extremely tasty and sweet. At the moment the farm di Gesù is the only one having this variety of tomato.