Strawberry Sumac Fregolotta

This simple and summery strawberry sumac fregolotta is an easy Italian shortbread tart, filled with sticky, homemade strawberry jam.

I’ve been taking the last few days off of Instagram and it has been luxurious. It took me a while to realize, but I’ve been stuck in a creative rut. The realities of the pandemic have finally reached my kitchen. A lot of the inspiration that I draw from food friends and restaurants has run out and I’ve been feeling like I’m grasping for recipe ideas from nowhere. On top of that, spending hours a day on Instagram with a screen that constantly refreshes new recipes and photos wasn't helping. My brain felt like it was both too loud and too quiet at the same time. The last few days have been peaceful. I’ve been working on some backend blog stuff, trying out spontaneous recipes, and playing with my camera so that I’m prepared to get you all sorts of new recipes this summer.

One of the places that where I’ve found inspiration during this restaurant-less spell has been my cookbook shelf. I’ve been going back to old favorites, like my used, beat-up copy of Chez Panisse Desserts, published in 1985. There are no pictures, only pencil illustrations of fruit, and it’s a treasure trove of produce-inspired pastries. (It’s also apparently selling for $240 on Amazon so I will be taking my copy to the grave with me.) The other book I’ve been enjoying lately is Thalia Ho’s Wild Sweetness. I’ve been baking my way through it’s pages over the last month or so and it’s where the inspiration for this tart came from.

What is a fregolotta?

A fregolotta is an Italian tart, made from a coarse, shortbread-like crust. The name comes from “fregole”, the Venetian word for crumbs and the same shortbread dough that gets pressed into the bottom of the pan, also gets scattered across the top haphazardly. Often, the crust incorporates some sort of nut or grain, like semolina or polenta or almonds. In this rendition, the crust is made from ground sunflower seeds, cornmeal, flour, sugar, egg yolks, and butter. This Italian jam tart can be filled with any jam you like, but since we are smack in the middle of strawberry season (and they are my very favorite fruit), I couldn’t resist cooking fresh strawberries down with a little sugar and bright, tart sumac to create a sticky, sweet jam filling. In practical notes, if your jam seems a little too liquid-y, just scoop out the berries and reserve some of the strawberry sauce for drizzling on ice cream later.

strawberry sumac fregolotta

strawberry sumac fregolotta

Yield

makes one 9" tart pan

Author

Anna Ramiz

Prep time

20 Min

Cook time

45 Min

Total time

1 H & 4 M

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Strawberry Sumac Fregolotta

This Italian pastry is made of a shortbread-style crumble crust filled with sticky strawberry sumac jam.

Ingredients

for the strawberry sumac filling

• 1 lb strawberries, trimmed and quartered
• 1/2 lb granulated sugar
• Juice of 1/2 of a large lemon
• 1 tbsp ground sumac

for the crust

• 1 1/4 cup + 1 tsp (160 g) all purpose flour
• 120 g ground sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup (40 g) cornmeal
• 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp (115 g) granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp (200 g) unsalted butter, cold and cubed

Instructions

1. Stir together all filling ingredients in a medium pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, until strawberries have broken down and the mixture has thickened. Transfer to a bowl and chill until room temperature.
2. While the filling is cooling, place sunflower seeds in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Add the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt and pulse once or twice just to combine.
3. Add the butter to the food processor and pulse until butter has broken up and is pea-sized. Add the yolks and pulse until mixed in and dough just begins to come together.
4. Press 2/3 of the dough in an even layer on the bottom and up the sides of a tart pan. Spoon the strawberry filling* (see notes) into the tart pan and crumble the remaining 1/3 of the dough over the top of the tart.
5. Place the tart pan on a parchment-lined baking sheet at bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes, until filling is bubbly and crust is golden brown. Let cool completely before slicing.

Notes:

If the strawberry filling seems like it has a lot of liquid, fish the strawberry pieces out of the jam and don’t add all of the leftover juice to the fregolotta. Keep the juice for topping on ice cream!

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Grapefruit and Thyme Vermouth Spritz

I’m working on a new e-book and crossing my fingers that it will be ready for summer. I’ll give you a little hint…there are cocktails involved. :) Cocktails are the most fun and they make me feel like sitting on the back porch in the sun with friends. This one especially.

In the fall of 2019, I became a vermouth-drinker. Before that, vermouth was simply something that my dad bought every December to mix into his holiday martini. It then sat untouched on my liquor shelf until the next holiday martini go-around. Then I went to Spain and discovered that vermouth is a very fun, very delicious spirit that deserves so much more of our attention. We spent a week in Barcelona, eating fat anchovies atop barstools in tiny, hundred-year old restaurants where vermouth is a big thing. In fact, during Spain’s “happy hour”, vermouth is the drink of choice for locals. And it’s good.

A little later that year, I found myself sipping vermouth and campari on my cousin’s front porch and channeling my inner Spaniard and I was completely sold. We drink vermouth now and we’ve never looked back.

let’s talk about vermouth

If I’m being honest, I am still not a vermouth whiz, so all my knowledge comes from internet research and my friends who happen to be liquor experts. Vermouth is a fortified wine. This means it’s wine distilled with a neutral alcohol and flavored with botanicals, like flowers, herbs, spices, and citrus. Vermouth varieties are a vast range, from dry to sweet, white to red, so there’s a lot of experimentation and exploration awaiting us in the world of vermouth.

I’ve said it before on the blog, but I highly encourage you to find a local wine (or spirits store), go there often, and make friends with the people who run it. They will be invaluable to you when trying something new and stretching out of your comfort zone. (My wine guy, JP, knows me better than I know myself when it comes to wine selection and he never steers me wrong.)

If you’re like me (read: not rich), dropping a ton of money on a bottle of liquor that you aren’t sure about yet can be nerve-wracking. So don’t do it. I recommend going to your local spot and telling your knowledgeable spirits connoisseur that a random blog lady said you should try vermouth. Ask them to help you find something that: 1) would be great for both mixing and enjoying on the rocks, 2) that comes from Spain or Italy or France, and 3) won’t break the bank. I’m sure that they will be able to help you find something great. I’m currently drinking a sweet, white vermouth from Italy with lots of floral notes and it’s excellent (especially in this cocktail).

to make the cocktail

This grapefruit thyme vermouth spritz is simple, floral, and a great way to celebrate spring. Thyme simple syrup is made by simmering fresh thyme sprigs with sugar and water. Then, you mix it with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, your brand new bottle of vermouth, and top it off with something sparkly of your choice. It’s bright and light and perfect for those warm backyard afternoons.

Yield: makes one drink

Author: Anna Ramiz

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Grapefruit Thyme Vermouth Spritz

Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 10 MinTotal time: 20 Min

This refreshing, bubbly cocktail is the perfect spring sipper filled with grapefruit juice, thyme syrup, vermouth and sparkling water.

Ingredients

for the thyme syrup

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme

for the cocktails

• 1 1/2 oz sweet white vermouth
• 1 1/2 oz grapefruit juice
• 1/2 oz thyme simple syrup
• Topo Chico or other sparkling water

Instructions

1. To make the thyme syrup: Combine sugar, water, and thyme sprigs in a small saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes, until sugar has completely dissolved. Strain out thyme sprigs and cool completely. Transfer to a jar and store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
2. To make the cocktails: In a glass filled with ice, stir together vermouth, grapefruit juice, and thyme syrup. Top with sparkling water and garnish with fresh thyme sprigs.

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Schiacciata with Caramelized Onions and Figs

I’ve been feeling pretty old this week. While I haven’t been creator in this food blogging world for very long, I’ve been an avid food blog reader and cookbook enthusiast since my freshmen year of college…which was over ten years ago. Back then, the only way to discover new blogs was to spend hours browsing through Food Gawker or Pinterest, and through their writing, these food bloggers quickly became virtual friends. I would regularly check their websites for new content. Not just recipes, but stories and short little essays about their lives, friends and family, and yes, cookies. I would invite these cooks into my kitchen in the form of their recipes, not because their pictures were perfectly styled or they had massive followings, but because their writing and their recipes resonated with me. I loved this little world of food blogging and dreamed about one day being a part of it. I dreamed about writing stories that people got excited to read, developing new recipes that my own little community looked forward to each week, and through this blogging portal, entering into a stranger’s kitchen and coaching them through making something new.

Fast forward a handful of years and the food blogging landscape looks a little different. Those people whose websites I ran back to time and time again are still out in the blog-o-sphere, and they are still the ones I go to for inspiration, though I’ve added a few new ones to the mix. But sometimes it feels like the future of food blogging hinges on flashy images that catch your attention in a nano-second, or easily-digestible clips that can be viewed (or skipped over) in an instant. At risk of sounding like a crotchety old lady, the thing I love most about food is that it is an experience. Kneading dough takes time and tactile effort. Waiting for bread to rise takes patience, and decorating cakes is intricate work. In order to be successful in this industry, do I have to hack all of that away in an effort to gain more likes? I don’t know the answer to this. I don’t think any of us in this little world really know the answer to this, but I find myself asking if there is still space for my slightly old school approach to food blogging in this fast-paced industry. I think it will be a little give and take and I’m working to find my niche in a way that feels authentic to me, while also using the tools that technology affords me as a way to grow my business. With all of the craziness of the past few months, I think we’ve all had our eyes opened to the importance of slowing down and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to carry that with me as life begins to speed up again.

Now, lets talk schiacciata! Schiacciata is a Tuscan-style flatbread, similar to a focaccia but with a lower hydration level which makes it a little thinner and a little crisper. As if focaccia and pizza had a baby. It’s an easier dough to throw together and only needs a couple of hours to do it’s thing, which means you can start it in the afternoon and eat it for dinner. The recipe for this dough is lightly adapted from Sweet by Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi, which is my very favorite book of all time. The dough is topped with tangles of caramelized onions and fresh figs that have been tossed in za’atar and feels like that perfect time of year when summer nights are waning, but fall hasn’t quite arrived. You can by za’atar at your local Middle Eastern Market or on Amazon, but I made my own using this recipe. It’s fairly simple and uses mostly spices that you already have on hand.

Schiacciata with Caramelized Onions and Figs

Yield: 1 10x16” flatbread

Schiacciata dough recipe adapted from Helen Goh

Ingredients 

for the dough

2 2/3 cup (330 g) bread flour

3/4 tsp active dry yeast

220 g warm water

2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the pan

1 egg yolk

1 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar

for the onions

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

a hefty pinch of salt

for the figs and toppings

1 lb fresh figs, quartered

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp za’atar 

honey, to drizzle

goat cheese

flaky salt for finishing

Procedure: 

1. In a large bowl, stir together water, yeast, and half of the flour, until no dry streaks of flour remain. Cover with plastic wrap and let proof at room temperature for about an hour, until dough is bubbly and swollen.

2. Transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment and add the rest of the flour, olive oil, egg yolk, salt, and sugar. Knead on medium speed for about 6 minutes, until the dough is smooth and cohesive, pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Scrape down the sides, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and proof for another hour, until doubled in size. 

3. While the dough is proofing, caramelize the onions. Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add butter and olive oil to the pan and when they begin to sizzle, add the onions. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are beginning to lightly brown on the edges. Turn the heat down to low, sprinkle with a hefty pinch of salt, and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring frequently, until they are very soft and dark brown in color. Remove from heat and let cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. 

4. In a medium bowl, toss quartered figs with a tablespoon of olive oil, za’atar, and a pinch of salt. Set aside. 

5. When the dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 450° F. Drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil over a rimmed sheet pan and turn the dough onto the oiled pan. Use your hands to gently stretch and push the dough into a rustic rectangle, about 10x16” in size. 

6. Spread the tangles of caramelized onions over the surface of the dough, followed by the figs. Drizzle the entire thing with a little olive oil one more time, then bake for 20-22 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the edges of the crust are golden brown and the bottom of the dough is crisp. 

7. Remove schiacciata from the oven, sprinkle with goat cheese and flaky salt and drizzle with honey. 

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