My Panzanella Novella

There was a time when I thought panzanella a bit revolting. Stale bread, made soggy with oil and vinegar and tomatoes… yum? Last spring a friend from France was visiting and treated us to the 10-course vegetarian tasting menu at the (now defunct) Nana. At least three of the courses were life-changing, but this one was my absolute favorite. It was a deconstructed (I know, pretentious) panzanella with about a half dozen char-grilled bread cubes, lightly dressed, served with roasted tomatoes, pickled onions, and microgreens. (There’s a camera photo of it and a few of the other items on that menu here. Requiescat in pace, Nana!)

The grilling of the bread was the revelatory part, so while my panzanella is not plated at all elegantly, it’s got the flavor I was after.

So, this is what I do: take a loaf of stale country bread, preferably unsalted. In this case, I had a fresh loaf of pagnotta, so I toasted it in the oven after cubing it.

Do you have one of these? To me it’s essential for roasting vegetables; you can just lightly spray them with olive oil instead of drizzling them (drenching them, really) in oil. I’m sure you could toss the toasted cubes with olive oil too, but this is a lot lighter. Well, considering that this is a salad made out of bread, after all.

After that, we grilled the cubes in our panini press. It would definitely be even better on a charcoal grill, but it’s been threatening to rain all day, so that wasn’t a viable option.

Then I made a simple balsamic vinaigrette with two crushed garlic gloves, freshly ground black pepper, and equal parts olive oil and balsamic vinegar. (Typically, vinaigrettes are 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, but I like this more vinegary ratio better.)

Add mozzarella, tomatoes straight from the garden, Kalamata olives, chiffonaded basil, and the dressing. Quick pickled red onions would be nice too, and I’ve done that in the past. Refrigerate for an hour, if you can manage it. (You can’t.)