Puccia 

This Apulian classic is made of pizza dough stuffed with meats and cheeses, particularly popular in the town of Lecce. It is made specifically in Lecce that consists in stuffed bread with poor ingredients such as eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, rocket and a slice of cheese. Although, nowadays you can find la puccia filled with any kind of food. But it is considered as Italian fast food. In my travel to Lecce, I ate the puccia in two places. The first seemed more as a restaurant and the second one as a fast food place.

The puccia salentina is a round sandwich typical of the Apulian tradition, more precisely of the central-southern area of Salento and Taranto, made with flour, extra virgin olive oil, salt, water and yeast. A loaf without crumbs to be stuffed with cured meats and cheeses, meats and vegetables, but also with fish such as tuna or octopus. The name of this sandwich derives from "buccellatum", a term used to call the bread of the military and which means "morsel". Now very famous, puccia is the most popular Apulian street food, which you can taste in the traditional puccerie, where it is traditionally cooked in a wood-fired oven, but which you can also make in the home made version with our recipe. The real gem of the puccia is definitely the filling: in our preparation we stuffed the puccia with cooked ham, rocket and cherry tomatoes, but you can experiment with the fillings with the ingredients you like best, from the simplest to the most elaborate fillings.

Ingredients

FLOUR 400 gr

COLD WATER 350 ml

SEMOLINA FLOUR 100 gr

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL 25 gr

SALT 15 gr

DRY BAKING POWDER 2 gr

FOR FILLING

HAM

CHERRY TOMATOES

ARUGULA

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

STEPS

Place the cold water in the bowl and dissolve the dry brewer's yeast. In a separate bowl, combine one part of flour, semolina flour and water with the yeast. Stir with a wooden spoon. Add salt. Add more flour and knead with your hands until you get a soft dough. Pour in the extra virgin olive oil and knead to compact everything. Place the dough on the floured work surface. Fold the dough several times until you have a ball. Grease the bowl with olive oil and place the dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in the oven with the light on for 2-3 hours or until doubled in size. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Form 4 loaves (about 200 gr each), put them on the baking sheet and sprinkle with semolina flour. Cover with a towel and let rise for 3 hours. Crush the loaves with your hands. Bake in the oven at 190°C for 20 minutes. Fill the buns with the ham, arugula, cherry tomatoes and olive oil or however you like.

Preservation

It is advisable to consume the puccia immediately after preparation, to enjoy it hot and fragrant. You can still store it for 1-2 days inside a tightly closed paper food bag.