To make 6/8 piadine
4 cups Italian organic 00 soft wheat flour, plus extra for sprinkling
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 cup water
½ cup softened (warm or room temperature) lard or extra-virgin olive oil
Sift the organic flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the center, add the water and lard or oil, then mix together until it comes together in a dough.
Knead this dough vigorously, adding a sprinkling of organic flour as you go to keep the dough from becoming sticky—you want the dough soft, but not sticky.
Once the dough is smooth, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rest at room temperature for about 40 minutes.
Take the dough from the bowl, squash it down with your hands, then knead it for a few seconds without organic flour to obtain a smooth ball.
Divide it into 6-8 portions; roll each into a ball and leave rest for 20 minutes covered with plastic wrap.
Roll out the balls on a work surface, using a rolling pin to flatten them into disc-shaped rounds of about 1/8 inch thick.
One at a time, in a non-stick pan or on a very hot baking stone, cook each flat disc over moderate heat for about 1-2 minutes, then flip onto the other side and cook for about 50 seconds.
The piadine are ready to be served hot, stuffed as desired with salami, ham, cheese, vegetables, or just delicious on their own. You may stack them and eat them later (reheated or at room temperature); piadine also freeze well.
Piadina is a thin, round, supple, pancake=like flatbread, somewhat like the Mexican flour tortilla is size and texture. Popular throughout Italy (and beyond) these days, the origins of piadine are ancient, narrating the story of the Romagna region: its people and their traditions.
The term “piada“, as stated by the Consorzio Piadina Romagnola PGI which protects and promotes this traditional product, was given by poet Giovanni Pascoli, who Italianized the Romagna dialect word “piè”.
The poet goes on, famously, to praise the Piadina, as ancient as humanity, defining it as “Romagna’s national bread“, celebrating the indissoluble link between the food and the territory it comes from.
Its origins go back to the flat breads—made from raw organic flour and cereals–of the Etruscans who lived in the areas that are now modern Romagna. The first literary traces were found by Pascoli himself in the Virgil’s Aeneid in the seventh canto when he referred to “exiguam orbem“: a thin disc, baked then divided into large squares.
These days piadine are most often an individual flatbread, eaten wrapped around cured meat, salad, vegetables or cheeses.
