In short. Frise are rings of bread cut in half with a thread and baked a second time until hard. You wet them, then dress them with tomato, rocket and olive oil. Once peasant food; now the emblem of a Salento summer.
Legend has it that Aeneas ate frise when he landed at Porto Badisco. What is certain is that a bread which keeps for months was worth inventing.
Ingredients
- frise made of durum wheat
- small tomatoes
- 1 clove of garlic
- oregano
- extra virgin olive oil, salt
Method
1. Wetting. Dip the frisella briefly in water — a few seconds is enough. It should soften, not disintegrate.
2. The garlic. Rub the surface with the clove of garlic.
3. Dressing. Crush the small tomatoes over the top with your hands, add oregano, salt and a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.
How they are made. The bread is baked as a ring, cut horizontally in two with a thread rather than a knife, and returned to a cool oven to dry out completely. That second baking is what makes a frisella keep — and what makes it need water before you can eat it.
A note on the dunking. Salento arguments about how long to wet a frisella are genuine and unresolved. Too little and it breaks teeth; too much and it collapses. Start with three seconds.
More on the bread and pizza page.
