Anthony's Onion Tomato Bread Recipe
Cipolla, Pane Del Pomodoro!

How to make the Onion Tomato Bread Recipe...
*Please email any comments/questions you may have to:
anthony.d.baker@gmail.com
Stuff you will need to make Anthony's Onion Tomato Bread:

What you need for the Dough
  • 3-3/4 Cups Bread Flour
  • 2-1/4 Tsp. Dry Yeast (Or 1 packet of dry yeast)
  • O1-1/2 Cup Water
  • 2 Tsp. Salt
  • Cornmeal (You will need hand full of this stuff to put on the bread stone and to dust the top of the bread with)
  • Bread or Pizza Stone (This is a round or rectangular stone that you put right in the oven. Here is one you can get online)
What you need for the filling.
  • 2 Cans of Whole Tomatoes (Preferably Hunt's)
  • 3 Med. Sweet onions.
  • Fresh Spinach Leaves
  • Garlic (Finely chopped)
  • Olive Oil
  • Red Wine (Just a splash)
  • Coarse Black Pepper
  • Basil
  • Parmesan Cheese (Fresh grated from a block of Parmesan)

OK, are you ready? Here we go....
Read on for Onion Tomato Bread recipe instructions...

First...
I should mention that I learned how to make perfect bread dough from this awesome cookbook! Dough: Simple Contemporary Breads by: Richard Bertinet. Richard has an unconventional way of making bread dough that is very easy and the dough just comes out beautiful every time!!! Thanks Richard!

Next...
Ready to make the dough? Here we go!!!!!!!... Put 3-3/4 cups of bread flour into a nice large bowl. Then add 2-1/4 Tsp. of Dry Yeast. Mix the yeast into the flour by grinding them both with your hands. Mix the yeast and flour well, while continuing to squeeze the two together with your fingers. It's important to do this before you add the salt. YOU DON'T WANT THE SALT TO MIX DIRECTLY WITH THIS YEAST. Why? I have no idea, but this is what Richard said in his book about dough, so I'm sticking to that :-) Now add 2 Tsp. of salt. Note: With this dough recipe you do not soak the yeast in warm water like traditional dough recipes do. Also, if you can get fresh yeast, use that instead of the dry yeast! Here is a great page that will tell you a whole bunch of stuff about yeast!

Next...
Now you will add your water. You will be adding 1-1/2 Cups of water into your flour, yeast, salt mix. Slowly add the water while you stir it all together with a plastic scraper. Cut the water into the flour, mix it well until it's hard to use the scraper. Now switch to using just your hands. Keep mixing until you have a nice sticky bread dough ball. Now here is the unconventional part. Do not put any flour on your hands or on the counter. Just plop the dough right onto the kitchen counter. You are going to work with the dough right on your counter with no flour. You do not need to add any flour to the recipe, which is what you would be doing if you added flour at this point. A marble counter top works best, but the old generic counter top will suffice. Now, your hands are going to be messy with sticky dough. Don't worry about that, eventually as you work with the dough you will end up with a nice smooth elastic shiny dough that is just beautiful!!!

Next...
Here is the trick to making this dough. First, make sure that once you start getting your hands dirty that you won't be interrupted. If the phone rings, just let it rings, you are busy making incredible bread, nothing else is as important at this point in the process. What you want to do is pick up the dough, flip it, and then smack hard onto the counter top. It should stick to the counter, this is good, at first you want it to. So you flip and slap hard onto the counter top, then you pull it toward you while part of the dough is sticking to the counter top. Then you fold the dough back over on itself trying to capture air while doing so. Then you press it with the palm of your hand, pick it up and BAM! Slap it hard onto the counter top again, fold it over capturing air and flip slap fold, flip slap fold. You keep doing this for about 15 minutes. It's going to take some muscle and real effort! You need to slam it onto the counter top hard, I mean... things on the counter should shake a little bit, if they are not shaking when you slap the counter, then you are not slapping it hard enough. This is a great moment to get out some built up aggression you might have hidden somewhere.

Next...
You will keep working with the dough in this manner. As you go, you will notice the dough getting less sticky. Keep working the dough. Common! You can do it! Yes it's hard work, but it's going to taste so good!!! After about 10 minutes the dough should be less sticky and should start to take on an elastic consistency. Another 5 minutes and you should be done. Once you finish working with the dough, you will want to throw just a little bit of flour onto the counter and just a little on your hands. Work with the dough a little more until it's nice and smooth. Now throw a little bit of flour into a new bowl and place your nice dough ball into the center of the bowl. You can give it a name if you want at this point. I like to call mine fluffy ;-). Of coarse, this is not crucial to the outcome. Um, Uh... that is unless you become emotionally attached to Flufffy, or wahtever you ended up calling. Now where was I, oh yes. You will need to place a kitchen towel over the bowl and now you are going to let it rise for 1-1/2 hours. The dough needs to rise in a warm moist place. A great way to achieve a warm moist place if you do not have such a place in your home, is to take a cup of water and boil it in a microwave. Let it boil for a few minutes, then quickly take out the cup of water and put Fluffy.. er.. um.. I mean the the bowl with the dough in it and shut the door. Let the dough sit there for 1-1/2 hours. This gives it a nice warm moist place to rise regardless of the temperature in our house.

Next...
Ok, so while the dough is rising you will want to work on your filling. First thing you need to do is chop up 3 medium sweet onions and 1 large clove of garlic. Put the garlic in the oil and let it sit for a few minutes then throw in the chopped onions. Well, you want the sliced really, not chopped. You need to saute' the onions and garlic on medium heat for about 5 minutes or so. While sauteing, sprinkle in some basil, splash of red wine, balck pepper and chopped fresh parsley if you have that. The parsley is not crusual but it helps.

Next...
Add in the whole tomatoes smashing them up with your hands. Important note: Be sure to drain all the liquid you can from the whole tomatoes. You want the tomatoes as dry as possible. Try to break apart the tomatoes with your hands into small pieces. Now continue sauteing with the tomatoes. Mix in everything well. Cook for another 5 minutes or so, then add in some freshly grated Parmesan. This recipe really comes out better if you use a fresh block Parmesan cheese and grate the cheese right into the pan. Now cook a little more so the cheese is mixed in and melted a little bit. Then turn off the heat and try to drain out any liquid left in the pan. Let the filling sit so it can cool off. Then wait for the dough to finish rising.
Next...
When your dough is ready, all finished rising that is, take out the dough from the microwave and start to work with it. You need to be gentle with the dough at this point. Throw some flour on the counter and start to spread out the dough with your hands, stretching it as you go but doing it gently. Keep spreading it out until you have reached a size of about 18" x 12" or so. This part is not an exact science. You want to get it large enough so you can put in the filling as seen here in this photos to the right. So once you have the dough all spread out. You then spread the filling out onto the dough. Make sure you have not spread the dough out too thin. After you have spread out the filling sprinkle some more freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top and then add fresh spinach leaves to top it off. Then you will fold over the dough and seal up all the edges. The you take the whole thing and move it onto a bread stone. Note: Before you put the bread on the stone, sprinkle a handful of cornmeal over the stone. If it does not fit properly on the stone, it's OK to bunch up the dough with the filling a little bit. This will add a little artistic flair to the bread anyway :-)


Next...
At this point you need to preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Once you have the bread on the stone and looking all pretty you need to do a few things at this point. You need something pointy like a meat thermometer, use this to poke holes in the top of the bread. Then get a sharp knife and make some artistic slits, not too big, just enough to show a bit of the filling, this helps with the presentation. Then dust the top with a little bit of flour and cornmeal. Just lightly sprinkle. Now, is your oven preheated? Yes? OK! Put your masterpiece in the oven, center rack. Cook at 425 degrees F for 25 minutes. Keep an eye on it, make sure it does not get too brown. After it's finished cooking, place the bread on a cooling rack and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then DIG IN!!!!!!!!! You can also brush a little bit of olive oil on top of the bread when it comes out of the oven, but if you like a nice crunch to the bread do not do this. You serve this sliced on a plate with fork at the ready just incase the filling falls out of the bread while your eating it, you won't want to miss a crumb! This goes really well with a nice Italian red wine :-) EnJoY!

Leftover Note:
Of coarse it's best to eat this lovely bread when it is hot out of the oven. But if you end up eating this later on in the same day "which you just might want to do!" or the next day, cut off a slice and toast it. This is a wonderful way to eat this Cipolla, Pane Del Pomodoro!!!
That's it you're done........
Easy as Pie!



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