Italian Piedmont Hazelnut Rubatà Breadsticks | Grissini Rubatà alle Nocciole del Piemonte

Sep 30

11 min read

Grissini Rubatà alle Nocciole del Piemonte (Italian Piedmont Hazelnut Rubatà Breadsticks)

Rubatà are the grissini Turin made before the machines: rolled under the palm, a little fat, a little crooked, crisp outside and faintly bready in the middle. Here they carry finely chopped Piedmont hazelnuts folded into the dough, so every bite snaps and then tastes of toasted nut.

The method is simple, but the strands are thin and unforgiving, and the dough rewards patience more than muscle.

Yield: 24 breadsticks, 12 inches (30 cm) long. Prep: 40 minutes. Rise: 1 hour 30 minutes. Bake: 20 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Region: Piedmont.

The Story

Every Italian table has a breadstick, and every breadstick descends from Turin. The traditional account dates the grissino to 1679, when the court physician Teodoro Pecchio asked a baker from Lanzo, Antonio Brunero, for a bread that the frail young Vittorio Amedeo II could digest. Soft crumb upset the boy's stomach, so Brunero stretched dough into thin sticks and baked them until they were almost all crust. The tale is a little too tidy to be proven, but it explains why grissini are a Savoy court invention, and it explains their reputation as a light, dry, digestible bread. Napoleon is said to have admired them so much that he had them sent to Paris, calling them les petits bâtons de Turin.

Turin makes two kinds. Grissini stirati are stretched, pulled from a flat strip of dough by a baker who walks the length of his arms, and they come out thin, straight and regular. Rubatà take their name from the Piedmontese word for rolling: each one is shaped by hand under the palm, so it is thicker, knobbly and never quite straight, with a rustic crumb and a deeper wheat flavor. They are the older way, the bakery and home version, and no two on a tray look alike. That irregularity is not a flaw but the whole point. In old Turin trattorie the basket of grissini arrived before the menu did, and a customer judged the kitchen by whether the sticks snapped when lifted, a small test of honesty that the city has never quite abandoned.

The hazelnut is the second half of the story. The Langhe hills around Alba, together with the Roero and the Monferrato, grow the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe, the round hazelnut behind the protected Nocciola Piemonte. It is prized for its high oil content, its clean sweetness and skins that slip off easily after roasting, and it is the same nut that made Piedmont the home of gianduja and its chocolates. Alba's confectioners turned that harvest into an industry, while the farmers of the hills kept a handful of nuts for the family table, for the Sunday tart, and for the bread. Putting it inside a rubatà is a natural step for a region that already puts bread and hazelnuts on the same table: a breadstick pulled from a glass beside a plate of salumi, a slice of cheese, or a small glass of wine before dinner. This recipe keeps that spirit: nothing is hidden, nothing is decorated, and the hazelnut speaks quietly rather than loudly, as it does in the hills where it grows.

Ingredients

Weigh the flour and water if you can, since a stiff dough like this one is unforgiving of a loose cup. Use a strong flour with about 12 percent protein, or Italian tipo 0, so the dough has the strength to be rolled thin.

For the dough

Bread flour or Italian tipo 0 flour, 3 cups plus 2 tbsp (400 g)
Lukewarm water, at about 80°F (27°C), 1 cup minus 1 tbsp (225 ml)
Mild extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Instant yeast, 3/4 tsp (2.5 g)
Barley malt syrup or honey, 1 tsp (7 g)
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (10 g)

For the hazelnuts

Raw skinned Piedmont hazelnuts, 1 1/2 oz (40 g), Tonda Gentile if you can find them

For serving

Thinly sliced Piedmont salame, 4 oz (115 g)
Fresh robiola cheese, 6 oz (170 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, for dipping, 1/4 cup (60 ml)

For shaping and finishing

Semolina, for dusting, 2 tbsp (20 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, for the bowl and trays, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Flaky sea salt, 1 tsp (3 g)

Barley malt syrup deepens the crust color and adds a faint sweetness, though honey works equally well. Semolina rimacinata, the finely reground durum, is the best dusting flour. Fresh yeast can replace the instant at three times the weight.

Preparation

Toast and prepare the hazelnuts

Heat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Toast the hazelnuts on a small tray for 10 to 12 minutes, until the flesh is pale gold and the kitchen smells of nuts. Wrap them in a towel for a minute and rub off the loose skins. Let them cool completely, about 20 minutes, then chop them fine as described in the next section. Reserve a few whole nuts for the serving board.

Mix and knead the dough

Stir the yeast and malt into the warm water. Put the flour and salt in a large bowl, add the water and oil, and mix until no dry flour remains. Turn it onto the counter and knead for 8 minutes, until smooth, elastic and slightly tacky. It should feel firmer than pizza dough, because a stiff dough rolls into a strand that holds its shape. If it sticks to your hands, knead in a teaspoon of flour, not more, and if it feels dry and cracks, wet your hands and knead again.

Let the dough rise

Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave at room temperature for 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes, until it has grown by half. A modest rise is enough. An overproofed dough turns slack and sticky, and a sticky dough will not roll into an even strand.

Fold in the hazelnuts

Pat the dough into a rectangle about 8 by 12 inches (20 by 30 cm). Fold the left third over the middle, scatter the chopped hazelnuts over that folded layer, then fold the right third over the top to close it. Press lightly with your palms and turn the block a quarter turn.

Test one strand, then rest

Cover the dough and rest it for 10 minutes so the gluten relaxes. Cut off one piece and check that it rolls out to full length without tearing, as explained in the next section. Line two baking sheets with parchment and brush them with oil. Clear the counter so you have a full arm's length of space in front of you, because a 12 inch (30 cm) strand needs room.

Cut and roll the grissini

Press the dough into a rectangle about 12 inches (30 cm) wide and cut it into 24 strips of about 1 oz (28 g). Dust the counter very lightly with semolina. Roll each strip under your open palms, working from the center out, until it is 12 inches (30 cm) long and about 3/8 inch (10 mm) thick. Leave the waves and bumps, and if a strand shrinks back, set it aside for a minute and return to it, since dough that is resisting will give if you let it rest.

Rest and bake

Lay the sticks about 1 inch (2.5 cm) apart on the trays and rest them for 20 minutes. Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Brush the tops with a little oil and sprinkle with flaky salt. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, swapping the trays and turning them front to back halfway, until deep golden.

Dry the grissini in the cooling oven

Switch off the oven, prop the door open with a wooden spoon and leave the trays inside for 10 minutes. This last drying pulls out the moisture that would otherwise soften the center. Cool completely on racks before storing.

Plating

Rubatà look best when they look casual. Stand a dozen in a tall clear glass or a rustic ceramic jar, points and bumps facing up, so guests can pull one out with a hand. For a plated antipasto, lay three or four across a linen napkin on a wooden board, with thin slices of salame, a wedge of robiola and a little bowl of good olive oil beside them.

Serve at room temperature, never cold. Keep the board plain, since the grissini already have color and texture, and let the white robiola and the pink salame supply the contrast. Set the plates out at room temperature so the cheese does not sweat. A few extra chopped hazelnuts scattered next to the cheese echo the flavor inside the bread.

Professional Technique

A solid piece inside a thin strand of dough creates a fracture point. A rubatà is only about 3/8 inch (10 mm) across, so one chunk of hazelnut can fill a third of that width. The gluten around it stretches thin as you roll, and the strand snaps at that spot. That is why the hazelnuts are chopped fine, to the size of coarse sand, with no piece larger than 1/16 inch (2 mm). Shake them through a sieve and rechop anything left on top.

Quantity matters as much as size. Keep the nuts to 8 to 10 percent of the flour weight, here 1 1/2 oz (40 g) against 14 oz (400 g) of flour. Past 12 percent the fragments interrupt the gluten network faster than it can rebuild, and the strands tear as they lengthen.

Toast the nuts, then cool them completely. Raw hazelnuts hold moisture, so they chop into soft waxy pieces, while toasting dries them into brittle fragments that cut cleanly. Warm nuts release oil and smear into a paste that greases and weakens the dough, so wait 20 minutes.

Scatter the nuts inside the last fold, never on top. Buried in the core they are shielded from the oven, while nuts on the surface burn before the crumb sets. Roll the strand slightly thicker than an ordinary grissino so it can carry them.

Test before committing. Roll one 1 oz (28 g) piece to full length, lift it by both ends and let it sag. It should stretch without cracking. If it tears, rest the dough 10 more minutes or chop the nuts finer, then test again before rolling the whole tray.

Texture and Moisture Control

A good rubatà is dry and snappy on the outside and slightly tender at the center, and moisture decides which one you get. The dough is deliberately stiff, at about 56 percent hydration, so that little water needs to leave the oven. Olive oil coats the flour proteins and shortens the crumb, which is why it breaks with a clean snap rather than a chewy tug, and why the bread tastes rich without tasting greasy.

The bake has two stages. At 400°F (200°C), the crust sets and browns through Maillard reaction and caramelization, and the steam inside the stick pushes outward. The drying in the cooling oven does the rest: at falling heat the remaining moisture migrates to the surface and evaporates, and the crumb sets crisp. Skip that step and the grissini feel crisp when hot and go limp within the hour.

Humidity is the enemy afterward. Baked grissini are hygroscopic and pull moisture from the air, so cool them completely on racks before they meet a jar, and never store them warm. A stick that bends instead of snapping was either underbaked or stored damp, and a 5 minute return to a 300°F (150°C) oven will fix it.

Professional Mise en Place

Equipment and tools

Two heavy baking sheets and parchment paper, so the bottoms brown evenly
Food processor or a sharp chef's knife, and a fine mesh sieve for sorting the chopped nuts
Bench scraper, ruler and a kitchen scale for cutting equal pieces
Wire racks for cooling, and a clean towel for covering the dough

Prepared ahead

Hazelnuts toasted, skinned, chopped and cooled the day before, kept in a sealed jar
Dough kneaded and left to rise while the oven is not yet needed
Trays lined and oiled before the dough is cut, with the oven heating as the last rest begins
Serving board set with salame, robiola and oil an hour before guests arrive

Service setup

Grissini at room temperature in glasses or on boards
Salame, robiola and olive oil sliced and ready
A small brush and flaky salt for a last touch if the grissini were baked earlier in the day
Extra hazelnuts chopped and set in a small dish beside the robiola

Chef Tips

Weigh every piece of dough. Strips of equal weight roll to equal thickness, and equal sticks bake in the same time, so the tray finishes together. A kitchen scale is the cheapest tool in this recipe.

Roll from the middle outward and keep your hands open and light. Pressing hard with the fingertips produces thin necks and bulges that snap in the oven.

Use semolina, not flour, to dust the counter. It gives the dough just enough grip to roll, and it will not burn or taste raw on the finished stick.

Bake one tray at a time if your oven runs uneven, and rotate it once. Take the darkest stick out to test: it should snap cleanly and taste toasted, not bitter. Make a double batch, because the sticks disappear faster than expected and the dough keeps well through the first rise.

Common Mistakes

Using too much flour on the counter. It dries the surface, so the dough slides instead of gripping, and the strand will not lengthen evenly. Use only a dusting of semolina.

Rolling from a cold, tight dough. Dough straight out of the fold springs back and tears. Give it the 10 minute rest before you shape anything.

Skipping the last drying. Grissini that come straight from the oven and go into a jar stay soft in the middle and turn chewy overnight.

Baking at too low a temperature. Below 350°F (175°C) the sticks dry before they brown and taste flat and floury. Keep the oven at 400°F (200°C).

Making the strands uneven. A thick end and a thin end bake at different speeds, and the thin end burns while the thick one stays pale. Roll evenly along the whole length and check the ends, which tend to run thin.

Adding extra yeast to save time. A fast rise gives a puffy, open crumb that steals the snap. A slow, modest rise gives the dense, crisp texture that a rubatà needs.

Wine Pairing

Alta Langa DOCG: A Piedmontese metodo classico is the natural aperitivo for a bread that is salty, crunchy and rich in nut oil. Its fine bubbles scrub the palate between bites, while its bright acidity cuts the olive oil. The yeasty, toasted brioche notes of long lees aging echo the roasted hazelnut. Serve it well chilled, around 45°F (7°C), in a tall flute or a white wine glass.

Roero Arneis DOCG: Arneis grows a few miles from the hazelnut groves of the Langhe, and it tastes of pear, almond and a faint bitter finish that follows the nut in the dough. It is dry, soft in the mouth and low in acidity, so it never overwhelms a delicate wheat flavor. It is also the best choice if the board includes fresh robiola, whose lactic tang it matches rather than fights.

Erbaluce di Caluso DOCG: Its high, mineral acidity and firm structure suit the salt on the crust and a plate of salame or robiola alongside. It is lean rather than fruity, so it cleans the palate after every stick and leaves the toasted flavor clear. Choose the dry version and serve it cold, since warmth exposes its sharpness.

Dolcetto d'Alba DOC: For a board of cured meats with the grissini, this is the local red. Its soft tannin and low acidity stay gentle with a light bread, and the bitter almond finish that defines the grape runs parallel to the hazelnut. Serve it slightly cool, around 60°F (16°C).

Storage & Reheating

Store completely cooled grissini in an airtight tin or a tall jar at room temperature for up to 5 days. Add a folded paper towel to absorb stray humidity. Do not refrigerate them, because the cold cabinet is damp and softens the crust within a day.

To freeze, layer the cooled sticks between parchment in a rigid container and keep for up to 2 months. To revive any stick that has softened, whether stored or frozen, lay it on a tray and warm at 300°F (150°C) for 5 to 6 minutes, then cool on a rack for 10 minutes so it crisps again. The unbaked dough can also be refrigerated overnight after the first rise, but the chopped nuts are best added on the day, and the finished sticks should never go back in the refrigerator.