Scaccia ragusana with tomato, the original grandmother’s recipe for Ragusana scaccia with tomato, basil and caciocavallo. The scacce are a humble dish typical of Ragusan Sicilian cuisine, which the town of Modica also claims to have invented. Made with a leavened dough similar to bread, rolled very thin, they are folded and layered with simple seasonal fillings. Today they are also fantastic and tasty street food; if you are in the Ragusa area you should definitely try them.

The original scacce like this tomato one should be filled with local cheeses such as semi-aged Ragusan caciocavallo and fresh Ragusan provola, but if you can’t find them you can substitute with good-quality fresh provola and a semi-aged hard cheese. They won’t be exactly like the ones eaten in Ragusa, but they will still be delicious!

Today we’ll prepare the Ragusana scaccia with tomato and caciocavallo, one of the most well-known and famous variants of the Ragusan flatbread together with the scaccia with onions and tomato. If you have time, make a homemade tomato sauce; otherwise use a good-quality passata or datterini tomatoes.

Let’s go to the kitchen to discover how to make the original Ragusan scacce with grandma’s recipe. First, if you want to stay updated on my recipes you can follow my page Facebook and my profile Instagram.

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Very inexpensive
Rest time: 3 Hours
Preparation time: 1 Hour
Portions: 4
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients to make Ragusana scacce

3 cups fine re-milled durum wheat semolina
1 1/4 cups water (lukewarm)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast (or 12 g fresh yeast)
1 1/3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sugar
4 1/4 cups passata (strained tomatoes) (better to use chunked tomato pulp blended)
salt
1 tsp sugar
to taste basil
to taste extra virgin olive oil
10.6 oz caciocavallo (semi-aged Ragusan caciocavallo)
10.6 oz caciocavallo (fresh or Ragusan provola)

Tools to make the scacce

Bowl
Pan
Oven
Parchment paper
Rolling pin

How to make Ragusana scacce

Before putting your hands in the dough, I recommend halving and minimizing the yeast; for example, you could mix in the morning and bake in the afternoon, in which case about 1 1/4 tsp of dry yeast would be enough, keeping the dough in a warm place.
If you don’t have time, knead following the quantities I indicated above.
Gather the flour in a bowl, add the yeast, the sugar and part of the water, mix roughly, then add the oil, salt and the remaining water.
Mix the dough in the bowl, then turn it out onto the work surface and knead vigorously for ten minutes; stop when you have a smooth, homogeneous and elastic dough.
Grease a bowl, place the dough inside and let it rise in the oven with the light on covered with cling film until doubled; it may take about 2-3 hours. In high summer the times will be much shorter, so if you want to slow the rise reduce the yeast.
Pour the passata into a pan, add salt, a pinch of sugar and a clove of garlic, and cook over low heat for 30-40 minutes until you obtain a thick sauce. I use chunked pulp that I blend and cook, but when I have time I prefer to make homemade tomato sauce.
Remove from heat, add olive oil and basil and discard the garlic.
Cut the cheese into small pieces and set aside. Take the risen dough and portion it into pieces of about 7 oz (I made more pieces because I had a double batch of ingredients).
Take one dough ball at a time, flour the work surface well and roll out a large, wide and very thin sheet, almost a translucent veil: it must be very thin and if a few holes form it doesn’t matter.
Spread the sauce in the center, leaving about 4 inches clear at the edges.
Distribute the aged and fresh cheeses on top, then fold the clean edges towards the center, without overlapping them.
Spread more tomato and cheese over the long rectangle you’ve created and fold the top edge in, making a double roll towards the center. Spread sauce on the clean edge, add cheese and fold the lower part of the rectangle over it (basically roll so that between each sheet layer there is always some filling).
Carefully transfer everything to a baking tray lined with parchment paper and brush the surface of the scaccia generously with extra virgin olive oil.
Do the same with the other dough balls.
Preheat the oven to 392°F and bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes in convection (fan) mode; I also used a baking stone to simulate a wood-fired oven.
When the desired browning is reached, turn off the oven and remove from the heat.
Let cool slightly and enjoy — scacce are amazing hot, warm, or even at room temperature!
Store leftover scacce at room temperature, covered with a cloth, for up to 24 hours.