Full question
I've just got a load of mush instead of Panzanella, which seems a waste of lovely tomatoes and basil. Isn't it essential to put your bread pieces in the oven to toast them?
Our answer
Nigella's Panzanella (from KITCHEN) is a version of the Italian tomato salad. Traditionally the salad was a way to use up old bread. In the recipe the ingredients list states that the bread should be stale.
Stale bread should be a couple of days old and dry, though with modern preservatives bread can now sometimes stay fresh for several days. You can cube the bread and leave it out on the kichen counter overnight to speed up the staling process. In this case, it should not be necessary to toast the bread. However, if your bread is still soft then it is possible to put the bread cubes on a wire rack and into a low oven (around 150c/130c fan/300F) to dry. We would prefer not to toast the bread itself, but if you do want to toast the bread then you can increase the oven to 180c/160c fan/350F.
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