So now what, smart guy?

Well, it’s a weird week, what with Christmas Eve being tomorrow, but of course I’m still baking away. Maybe I’ll dial you all in on a bread project I’m working on: Pulgiese (pronounced pool-yee-AY-zee). As you’ve probably guessed, it’s an Italian sort of thing, actually a southern Italian sort of thing, from, of course, Apulia, which is the “heel” of the great geographical boot that is Italy. Pugliese bread is called a “peasant” bread, though today’s iterations are anything but, being made of very finely milled white and durum wheat flours. I guess it’d be fair to call it “rustic” since it’s not quite as fine as mass-market “Italian” breads. It also has fairly large holes in it (i.e. an “open” crumb). This is due to the fact that Pugliese is a rather wet dough. Hard to handle? Mmm…a bit, but the results are stunning, even if you don’t have a monster brick oven like I do. Shall we?