SCHIACCIATA
The Bread that Makes the World’s Best Sandwiches
By John Garland
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John Garland / Heavy Table
In 2016, Saveur magazine declared Florence, Italy, the best sandwich city in the world. A key part of this claim was a particular bread favored by several of its legendary shops.
Schiacciata (ski-ah-CHA-ta) rocketed to fame through the social media presence of All’Antico Vinaio, one of Florence’s leading sandwich makers. This thin, bubbly, golden bread gets piled high with mortadella or porchetta, wrapped in wax paper, and taken out for eating through the city’s narrow, cobbled walkways.
All’Antico expanded to Milan, Rome, and eventually the United States (over a dozen locations and counting), spreading the gospel of schiacciata along with it. Several new American sandwich shops have since hopped on the trend. Just recently, a deli called Paper Boy has opened in the skyways near 7th and Marquette in downtown Minneapolis, using schiacciata for all its sandwiches.
The bread is like a hybrid of Genoese focaccia and Roman pizza bianca. The dough gains flavor from an overnight proof in the fridge. It’s baked in a hot oven with a lacquer of olive oil. Its many crevices and dimples neatly capture melty cheese and gooey spreads, while its crispy exterior makes it sturdy enough to eat on the go.
John Garland / Heavy Table
All’Antico’s most famous sandwich, La Paradiso, is mortadella with pistachio cream and stracciatella cheese — Paper Boy dutifully recreates this combo, calling it Pistachio Paradise. A copycat recipe is included, below.
But this bread is a great canvas for most any fillings you like. I’ve recently made killer tuna melts on this stuff. (The secret? Cover the tuna salad with a layer of minced hot giardiniera and use American cheese instead of cheddar.)
SCHIACCIATA BREAD
Makes 4–6 sandwiches
360g (2 ⅔ c.) bread flour
300g (10 fl. oz.) warm water, around 110 degrees
10g (2 ½ teaspoons) olive oil, plus more for drizzling
8g (1 ½ teaspoons) kosher salt
2g (¾ teaspoon) instant yeast
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until well-combined (a Danish dough whisk is a great tool to use). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Complete a series of stretch-and-folds on the dough. Dip your fingers in warm water, reach under the far side of the dough ball, and stretch it up and over the dough toward you. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Do this 3-4 times until the dough doesn’t want to stretch anymore. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Complete two more series of stretch-and-folds, resting the dough 30 minutes between them. After the third stretch-and-fold, cover with plastic wrap again and let it proof in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, drizzle a generous amount of olive oil on a large sheet pan. Remove the dough from the fridge and place it top side (smooth side) down on the oiled pan. Lightly press the dough into a square shape. The cold dough won’t want to stretch out very much at this point, and that’s okay.
Complete an envelope fold on the dough, by folding up the bottom third of the dough into the middle of the square, and the top third of the dough down over the first fold. Flip the dough over, now in a long rectangle shape, so the smooth side is up. Cover with a clean tea towel and let it proof for two hours.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Drizzle more olive oil on the top of the dough and use your fingers to form deep dimples all over like focaccia. Stretch out the dough as you dimple it so it forms a wide rectangle with a uniform thickness of about three-quarters of an inch.
Bake for 25 minutes, until deeply golden brown. Let it rest on a wire rack and cool down to room temperature before slicing. (Optional: For an extra-crispy crust, brush with olive oil and broil on high for 1-2 minutes.)
LA PARADISO
Mortadella, thinly sliced
Pistachios
Olive oil
Mascarpone cheese
Stracciatella cheese (or burrata cheese, shredded and mixed with a bit of heavy cream until loose)
For the pistachio cream: In a food processor, blitz 1 cup of shelled pistachios until finely ground. With the blades running on high, drizzle in olive oil until it forms a smooth paste. Add in 4 ounces of mascarpone cheese, and briefly puree until combined.
For the sandwich: Slice open the schiacciata and spread the pistachio cream on both interior slices. Layer the mortadella on the bottom slice of bread. Top with stracciatella, a sprinkle of crushed pistachios, and the other slice of bread.