Provence & the Midi · Starter
Pissaladière Niçoise
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with savory depth stacked from the pantry’s bass notes, a briny, maritime salinity.
Ingredients
- 500 g strong white flour
- 7 g fine salt
- 5 g dried yeast
- 300 ml warm water
- 60 ml olive oil, plus more for the tin
- 2 kg onions, halved and finely sliced
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 24 salted anchovy fillets, rinsed and split lengthways
- 24 small black olives from Nice, left whole with their stones
- Black pepper
The skills inside
Kneading doughSweating aromatics: soft, never brownedProofing: the rise before the oven
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · fish
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Work the flour, salt, yeast, water and oil into a slack dough, knead it smooth and leave it to double.
- Cook the onions with thyme, bay, oil and a pinch of salt under a lid on the lowest heat for at least an hour, stirring now and then, until they are a pale gold jam with no liquid left in the pan.
- Press the dough into an oiled shallow tin of about 30 by 40 cm, no thicker than a finger, and let it puff for 30 minutes. 30 min
- Spread the cooled onions right to the edges, lay the anchovies in a lattice, drop an olive into each diamond and grind over pepper.
- Bake at 220C (430F) until the underside is crisp and the anchovies have darkened, 20 to 25 minutes. 25 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Kneading dough 57 recipes
- The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
- The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
- Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
- Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
- After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.
Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.
Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes
- Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
- The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
- The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
- Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
- It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.
Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Fino or Manzanilla Sherry
- Also Right
- Muscadet or dry Riesling
- From the Taps
- Pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with lemon
Salt-cured fish wants a bone-dry, saline partner: Sherry and Atlantic whites answer the cure without fighting it.
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