Local products18 September 2016

Recipe of the Week: Carpasina (barley bread)

Carpasinn-a is Carpasio’s traditional barley bread. In fact, there was a time in which wheat was hard to find and other grains were used to obtain flour; barley was among them and in Carpasio it replaced wheat in the production of bread.

Recipe of the Week: Carpasina (barley bread)

Carpasio, in the Argentina valley - heart of the Brigasca region, is an ancient village made of stone houses and slate roofs.

Carpasinn-a is Carpasio’s traditional barley bread. In fact, there was a time in which wheat was hard to find and other grains were used to obtain flour; barley was among them and in Carpasio it replaced wheat in the production of bread.

Today, barley comes from Piedmont where, however, is still milled in a stone mill as metal cylinders would oxidize the flour and the bread would burn.

During Summer, old ways of transhumance are back in Carpasio with a festival whose star is "Carpasina". Kept in water and then topped with tomato, basil, anchovies and other ingredients, carpasina was - along with milk and cheese – staple food for shepherds when they were on pastures for months.

Ingredients:

  • barley flour,
  • water,
  • yeast

Directions:

Mix the flour with water and yeast. Let rest the obtained dough covered with barley flour. Resume working the dough well and long, then form long loaves.

With a piece of string cut slices to arrange in trays and bake them in a not-too-hot wood oven for an hour. Remove from oven, turn the bread on the other side and put back in the oven for an hour to complete the baking, again at low temperature.

When cutting with a string and putting in the oven, it is important not to touch the loaves with hands, as they would become waterproof to liquids otherwise; they are, in fact, to be savored with extra-virgin olive oil, milk, wine or simply water .

Deborah Bellotti

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