Tuscan salad of stale bread soaked in the juice of ripe tomatoes, with red onion, cucumber, basil and a sharp olive oil dressing.
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Everything depends on the tomatoes, so pick ripe, juicy ones, and do not be afraid to let the bread go soft. That is the whole point of this peasant salad.
Canning liquid clouds a sauce and salts it blind: rinse until the water runs clear.
An estimate computed from the recipe quantities and the USDA food composition database. Real values vary with the products used.
Dry fresh country bread in a hot oven for a few minutes without letting it colour. The aim is dehydrated bread that can soak up tomato juice; soft fresh bread would go straight to mush.
Yes, this is the step that makes the dish: salt draws the juice out of the tomatoes, and that juice is what soaks the bread. Without it you are left with only oil and vinegar, and a dry salad.
A fifteen-minute soak takes the harsh edge off raw onion while keeping its crunch. Skip it and the onion overwhelms the tomatoes and lingers on the palate.
Why the everyday repertoire of the Italian countryside does without meat, how to bind a sauce with pasta water, and what stale bread can do.
The tomato reached Europe in the sixteenth century and was distrusted for two hundred years. What each kitchen made of it, and the handling that matters.
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