Ciabatta Bread with Olives. There are many recipes for making olive ciabattas. Naturally, mine is just one of them, but I assure you it is easy to execute.
One of my goals is to encourage home cooking by offering simple recipes. In a fast-paced life, managing healthy eating is a critical challenge. For this reason, I believe it is essential to offer solutions accessible to everyone, rediscovering together the flavors of tradition. The simplicity of dishes, combined with their nutritional and economic value, shows that it is possible to eat well on a budget. Efficient meal planning is the element that generates the greatest satisfaction.
Now that I am writing the recipe, the bread is already gone. My husband couldn’t stop making trips to the kitchen to ‘steal’ a piece as soon as it was ready. I used crushed and spicy Calabrian olives and also added chili pepper to make it decidedly inviting and delicious.
More recipes for making bread at home will follow.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 4 Hours
- Preparation time: 40 Minutes
- Portions: 3 ciabattas
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
The simplicity of flour and oil meets olives and chili pepper
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 1 3/4 cups remilled durum wheat semolina
- 2 tsp compressed yeast
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp salt
- 7 oz green olives (crushed with chili pepper as I used.)
- 1 1/4 cups water (lukewarm)
Useful Tools
A bowl for kneading, a work surface for folding and dividing, and final fermentation on silicone mats before going into the oven.
- Bowls
- Ovens
- Baking Mats
- Knives
- Containers
- Cutting Boards
Steps
Not many steps are needed after kneading, let it rise, and then shape it after adding the olives.
Mix the salt with the flours in a bowl or mixer. Then add the lukewarm water with dissolved yeast inside. Mix well and add the oil. Knead until you obtain a smooth and soft dough. Make a three-fold and set it aside for rising, away from drafts, but I recommend using an unheated oven preheated with a cup of boiling water, which allows the dough not to lose moisture and maintains a good rising temperature. It will take about two hours
After the necessary time has passed, roll out the loaf on the work surface into a rectangle and arrange the olives, fold in three and in each fold add olives; cut 3 loaves which you will place on the mat for the final rise. Another pause of about an hour
Bake in a preheated oven at 356°F and cook for about 40 minutes
Once well browned, remove from oven and let cool. I recommend enjoying it immediately after baking with two slices of cooked salami from Piedmont.
Serve the bread accompanied by cold cuts, green sauce, and anchovies
