Michetta · Michetta (Rosetta Milanese)
Lombardy · bread · serves 8 · 300 min total · hard
The michetta is Milan's daily bread — a crisp, hollow, star-shaped roll designed (legend says) under Austrian rule to keep longer in Lombardy's damp climate than the soft Viennese kaisersemmel it descends from. The interior is meant to be empty, ready to be split and filled.
Ingredients
- 500 g low-protein 00 flour
- 240 ml cold water
- 8 g fresh yeast
- 5 g diastatic malt (or honey)
- 15 g lard (strutto)
- 10 g fine sea salt
Method
- Mix all ingredients and knead 12 minutes to a very firm, almost dry dough. Michetta dough is meant to be tight.
- Rest 30 minutes, then sheet the dough through a pasta roller (or fold and roll by hand) repeatedly to laminate — this is the secret to the hollow centre.
- First rise 90 minutes covered.
- Divide into 80 g balls. Stack two balls (one on top of the other), then press the classic 5-point star pattern deep into the top with the edge of a hand or a special michetta cutter.
- Prove 90 minutes upside-down on a floured cloth (seam-up).
- Heat oven to 240°C (465°F) with steam.
- Flip the rolls right-side-up onto a tray. Bake 15–18 minutes until pale gold.
- Cool — the inside should be almost completely hollow, the crust crisp and shattering. Split and fill with mortadella, the Milanese way.