Ciabatta Polesana · Ciabatta di Adria
Veneto · bread · serves 6 · 1080 min total · hard
Invented in 1982 by baker Arnaldo Cavallari in Adria, in the Polesine plain south of Venice, as a deliberate Italian answer to the French baguette taking over panini. The name (ciabatta = slipper) describes the shape. Within ten years it had conquered the world's sandwich bars.
Ingredients
- 200 g strong bread flour, for biga
- 100 ml cool water, for biga
- 2 g fresh yeast, for biga
- 300 g strong bread flour, for dough
- 280 ml warm water, for dough
- 3 g fresh yeast, for dough
- 12 g fine sea salt
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Method
- Biga: mix the biga flour, water and yeast to a stiff ball. Cover and ferment 16 hours at cool room temperature.
- Final dough: tear the biga into pieces in a bowl. Add the remaining yeast dissolved in the warm water, then the rest of the flour, salt and oil.
- Mix to a very wet, sticky dough (~80% hydration). Slap-and-fold in the bowl for 10 minutes until it pulls cleanly from your hand.
- Bulk ferment 3 hours with stretch-and-folds every 45 min — the dough should be alive with bubbles.
- Heavily flour the work surface. Tip the dough out without deflating. Cut into two long rectangles with a bench scraper — these are your 'slippers'.
- Transfer to a floured tray. Rest 30 minutes.
- Heat oven to 240°C (465°F) with stone and steam.
- Slide the loaves onto the stone, no scoring. Bake 22–25 minutes until pale gold with a crisp, blistered crust.
- Cool on a rack — the crumb should be wildly open, full of glossy holes.