Neapolitan Saltimbocca

The Neapolitan saltimbocca is a Neapolitan recipe for making a sandwich with pizza dough with a classic elongated shape. The Neapolitan saltimbocca is a sandwich made with pizza dough, very similar to another Neapolitan product, the panuozzo. It is said that the difference between panuozzo and saltimbocca lies in the size, the former being larger, the latter smaller. In reality, the change of name is probably mainly due to the fact that the panuozzo is a registered trademark of the Mascolo family, as the Gragnano pizza maker Giuseppe Mascolo invented it in 1983, for his children's dinner. The panuozzo is now a tradition of Gragnano, and also a tourist attraction, and has spread throughout the Neapolitan territory so as to be prepared in families in a smaller form and with the most diverse fillings, in this case we speak of Neapolitan saltimbocca. The dough is very simple: just flour, salt, water and yeast, completely fat-free. It involves kneading the ingredients for a long time until you get a smooth mixture and then letting it rise until doubled in size. You won't get a particularly hydrated dough, but rather firm and therefore easy to work with. The ideal would be to cook the saltimbocca in a wood-fired oven, to obtain the typical patchy burns of the surface, but it is obviously not necessary. What is important, however, is that the cooking is done quickly, so as not to dry out the dough too much, the ideal would be to use a refractory stone, in order to shorten the cooking time, which can be brought to 4 minutes. The stone also dries the surface of the dough, making it particularly crispy. Finally, the saltimbocca can be cooked in a pan, which must first be heated on the fire.

INGREDIENTS

Flour 500 g

Lukewarm water 250 ml

Salt 10 g

Fresh brewer's yeast 10 g

For filling

4 sausages

160 g fiordilatte

120 g cooked prosciutto

400 g broccoli

METHOD

Prepare the pizza dough, pour the flour into a bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water and add it to the flour then add the salt and knead well. Make a ball and let it rest for an hour then put it in the fridge overnight. The next day, take the dough and leave it at room temperature for an hour, then make 3 rounds of folds with a rest of 15 minutes between each round. That is, take the dough, make a rectangle, bring one long side towards the center and cover with the other side, do the same with the short sides and let it rest. After the last rest, take the dough and divide it into 4 pieces and roll them out like ciabatta, not too thin, about 1.5 cm. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for about 15-20 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool. Cut the sausages into small pieces after removing the casing and cook in a pan with a lid. Remove the hard stems from the broccoli, wash them well and cook them in a pan with oil, without water and over medium-low heat. Fill the bread with broccoli, sausages, cheese and prosciutto.

Preservation

The Neapolitan saltimbocca can be kept fragrant for a couple of days, if it is closed in a bread cupboard, in a paper bag or in a tightly closed cotton canvas bag. You can also freeze it, to thaw it you leave it out of the fridge for a few hours, and then you can cut and stuff it.

Variations and tips for filling

The dough can also be made with very little yeast, 2 or 3 grams, in this case the leavening may be longer, but not necessarily, especially if you prepare this recipe in summer when the room temperature is higher. The fillings can be the most disparate, but some are particularly delicious, and very Neapolitan. Mortadella, chopped pistachios and stracciatella is the most contemporary, inspired by food porn, but sausage and broccoli or sausage and bacon are also excellent. For something more summery and vegetarian, there is the everlasting arugula, cherry tomatoes and burrata.