Pan de Cecina

If you choose not to make a full recipe of my pizza dough into pizzas, you can use some of the leftover dough to make a focaccia. This is my take on it, a version gone native in Asturias. I start with the Italian idea of a soft pizza-like dough cooked in a steep sided pan. Then I marry it to the French love of filling breads with savory things¹ The result is what I have been calling pan de cecina.

While Spain does have a sort of similar bread to focaccia, namely pan de aceite, it is not exactly the same thing. And I am beginning this recipe from the standpoint of already having about 700 grams of pizza dough to use. Therefore I’m not going to say it is even remotely close to that bread. Perhaps later I will turn my attention to that bread and see what we can learn from it.

My Pan de Cecina

This is my riff on Italian focaccia, informed, of course, by my actual situation here in Asturias. I forego the more traditional herbs of rosemary and sage and add two Asturian (and American) favorites – meat and cheese. To that I add chunky salt, cracked black pepper and Herbes de Provence. You can make your own herb blend, or buy a pre-made dried one. A standard mix is thyme, basil, rosemary, tarragon, savory, marjoram, oregano, and bay leaf.

If I were making this in the States, I would substitute a good Romanian plate pastrami sliced paper-thin for the cecina. It wouldn’t be exactly as crispy, but it would be very very close. In U.S. butchery, the plate of beef (also known as the short plate) is a forequarter cut from the belly of the cow, just below the rib cut. It is typically a cheap, tough, and fatty meat. In U.K. butchery, this cut is considered part of the brisket.

Serving

This can, of course, be eaten on its own. It is particularly good about 30 minutes after it comes out of the oven, just barely still warm. However, I like to serve it the day after baking. Almost all breads improve in flavor after several hours of resting, and this is no exception. It is exceptional paired with both salads and with simple vegetable soups.

Additionally, you can slice it open and use it as a decadent sandwich bread. Stuff it full of your favorite roasted vegetables for instance. Try it as well as an accompaniment to dips like hummus or tabouli.

Ingredients

1. 680 g Basic Pizza Dough
2. 50 g Cecina
3. 50 g shredded cheese. I use a local ahumado de Pría but any semi-soft shredded cheese like mozzarella will work.
4. 20 ml olive oil
5. 1 pinch sea salt. As chunky or flaky as you can find
6. Black pepper, to taste
7. 1 pinch Herbes de Provence

Instructions

1. Remove your pizza dough ball from the refrigerator and let it begin return to room temperature while you get your pan ready.
2. Liberally oil a 9×13″ baking pan. I prefer glass, but you can use whatever you have. A dark metal pan will cook slightly faster than a clear glass one, but in the short time we are baking this bread it will not matter.
3. Gently stretch the dough out into the pan, working with it slowly to avoid tearing it. It may take several minutes of gentle shaping to get it to cover the bottom of the baking dish. Take your time, relax, enjoy the process. Good bread cannot be rushed.
4. Once the dough is shaped into the pan, brush it liberally with more olive oil.
5. Leave the bread in the pan to rise for an hour or two. The exact amount of time needed for the dough to double will depend on too many factors to give you a specific time.
6. Preheat your oven to 250C (475F).
7. Using your fingertips, make dimples across the whole surface of the bread. The oil will pool in these dimples and create different textures in different areas of the finished bread.
8. Tear up your cecina (or pastrami) into small pieces and sprinkle it around the dough.
9. Repeat with you salt, pepper, and herbs.
10. Sprinkle the cheese on and slip the pan into the oven.
11. Keep an eye on the bread and take it out when the top gets a nice golden color and the cheese begins to brown a bit. This will be somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes.
12. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for a half an hour or so before turning it out onto a cooling rack.

Notes

• Serve warm with a salad, or the next day at room temperature with a simple soup.