Friday Night Lights: Schiacciata con L'Uva

Leave it to the Italians to put grapes on a pizza, though I have had champagne grape pizza at Grandaisy Bakery in NYC.

It truly is a special thing.

Schiacciata (pronounced ski-ah-CHA-ta) con L'Uva is an Etruscan grape bread or pie and is made to celebrate the grape harvest in Tuscany in the fall.

No grape harvest here and no Concord grapes to be found, so red grapes will have to do!

I tried Mario Batali's recipe but added cooked fennel along with the fennel seed.



I sliced a small fennel bulb super thin and sauteed it in olive oil and added a few fennel seeds for a nice anise flavor.



Many traditional versions of this yeast bread recipe use rosemary instead of fennel.
I will certainly be trying them both!

You can use purchased pizza dough to make life easier.

Rub some olive oil over the dough.
Slice grapes in half and lay them over the dough, open side down, pushing the grapes down into the dough so some of the juice gets on the bread.
Spread some of the cooked fennel around and sprinkle with sea salt.



Bake at 450F for 12-15 minutes, until pizza looks done.
Garnish w/ fennel fronds if you like.



This was lovely served with Friday night antipasto along with cheese and olives and a nice bottle of vino.