Tuscan Bread Salad - The real deal

Stale Bread to taste!

If the Tuscan Bread Salad recipe is not enought for you watch the video recipe in English!

Since there is much ado about very little, because the real Tuscan bread salad is really simple, here you have the original recipe:



Ingredients: Ripe red tomatoes, better if Vesuvian ones, celery (even the leaves if you like them), peeled cucumber, lettuce, just few chopped leaves, basil 10-15 leaves, red onions to taste, one clove of garlic, olive oil, salt, vinegar, black pepper. Last, but the most important, the bread, one whole loaf of STALE artisan bread. Why stale (not moldy!!) ? Because you have to wet it and squeeeeeeze it with your hands so that it becomes moist crumbles and larger moist chunks. Fresh bread gets moist in a whole different way, and it just becomes soggy bread. If you have fresh bread, dry it in the oven.
To wet it, break it in large pieces, let it soak in the water until you feel the water has arrived to the core of the piece. Remove the pieces from the water and sqeeeeeze away the water with your hands.
Put all the bread in another large bowl, and throw in there all the previously chopped up vegetables.
Add any vegetable to taste and to have a uniform consistency.
Add salt, oil, vinegar (quite a bit of these last two) and sprinkle with black pepper.
Toss very very very well, then let it rest 10 minutes in the fridge. Toss again and then serve.
Makes for even more tasteful leftovers!!!