Palermo Style Sfincione | Sfincione Palermitano

Sep 30

11 min read

Sfincione Palermitano (Italian Palermo Style Sfincione)

Sfincione is the bread pizza of Palermo: a tall, soft slab of dough under a wet, sweet topping of slow cooked onion, tomato and anchovy, finished with caciocavallo and a blanket of toasted breadcrumbs. It is sold warm from bakeries and street vans, eaten by hand, and judged on two things: how airy the crumb is and how dry the top stays.

Yield: 8 squares. Active time: 50 minutes. Rising: about 3 hours. Bake: 25 minutes.

The Story

Sfincione is the bakery bread and street food of Palermo, and its name explains it. It comes from the Latin spongia and the Arabic isfanj, both meaning sponge, a reference to the soft, open, absorbent crumb that defines the bread. Sicily lived under Arab rule from the ninth to the eleventh century, and the Palermo kitchen still carries that period in its citrus, its almonds, its fried street snacks and its habit of naming foods after their texture. Sfincione is one of the plainest survivors of that layer: a thick yeasted dough, baked in a pan and dressed with whatever the market and the pantry offered.

The topping is where the Palermo of the poor and the Palermo of the feast meet. Onions were cheap and sweet, anchovies kept in salt all winter, tomato arrived from the Americas and settled in later, and caciocavallo, the aged stretched curd cheese of the Sicilian interior, gave salt and depth. Breadcrumbs from stale loaves finished the top, because nothing in a Sicilian kitchen was thrown away. Tradition ties the dish to the convents of the city and to the feast of San Vito in June, and it is still sold at Christmas and around the Immaculate Conception in December, when bakeries turn out trays by the hundred. The sfincionari, the street sellers, once carried it through the old quarters calling out the price, and a few still work from three wheeled vans.

Not every town makes it the same way. In Bagheria, just east of the city, the sfincione bianco leaves out the tomato and leans on onion, cheese and breadcrumbs alone. The Palermo version keeps the red topping, and that is the one built here. Whatever the variant, the logic is identical: a tall, wet, soft bread that stays soft because of the crust sitting on top of it.

In the bakeries of Palermo, sfincione comes out of the oven in huge trays in the early morning and again at midday, and the smell of onion and oregano announces the shop before the door appears. Locals ask for a pezzo, a piece, and eat it standing, still warm, from paper. It is soft enough to fold and heavy enough to make a full lunch, a food of ordinary days that turns up unchanged at every feast, which is exactly why Palermitans defend the recipe so fiercely and argue over the cheese, the crumbs and the thickness.

Ingredients

For the dough

Bread flour, 3 cups (390 g)
Semola rimacinata, 1 cup (160 g)
Water, lukewarm, 1 2/3 cups (400 ml)
Instant yeast, 1 1/2 tsp (5 g)
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
Sugar, 1 tsp (4 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 5 tbsp (75 ml), divided

For the topping

Yellow onions, thinly sliced, 1 1/2 lb (680 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Anchovy fillets in oil, 8 (1 oz, 30 g)
Canned whole peeled tomatoes, crushed, 14 oz (400 g)
Tomato paste, 1 tbsp (16 g)
Dried Sicilian oregano, 2 tsp (2 g)
Caciocavallo, thinly sliced, 4 oz (115 g)
Black pepper, to taste

For the breadcrumb crust

Coarse dry breadcrumbs, 3/4 cup (75 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Grated pecorino, 1 oz (30 g)
Oven temperature, 450°F (230°C)

For finishing

Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Dried oregano, 1 pinch
Flaky sea salt, to taste

Ingredient notes: buy canned tomatoes packed in juice rather than puree, and anchovies packed in oil, which melt more easily into the onions. If caciocavallo is unavailable, a young provolone gives a similar milky pull. Semola rimacinata is finely milled durum flour, and fine semolina is the closest substitute.

Preparation

Mix the wet dough

Stir both flours, the yeast and the sugar in a large bowl. Add the water and 2 tablespoons of oil and mix with a wet hand for 2 minutes until no dry flour remains. Rest 15 minutes, sprinkle over the salt and fold the dough over itself in the bowl for 30 seconds. It will be sticky and slack. That is intended, because a dough this wet is what builds the sponge. Do not add extra flour to make it easier to handle, and use a scraper and a wet hand instead of a floured surface.

Give the dough its first rise

Cover the bowl and leave it at 75°F (24°C) for about 2 hours until doubled and full of bubbles. Halfway through, wet your hand and fold the dough from the edges to the center once. The rise is slow on purpose, since time develops flavor and strength that extra yeast would not. The dough is ready when it jiggles like a soft custard when the bowl is shaken and a wet finger poked into it leaves a slowly closing dent.

Cook the onions and tomato

While the dough rises, warm the 1/4 cup of oil in a wide pan and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook over low heat for 25 minutes, stirring often, until soft and golden but not brown. Melt in the anchovies, stir in the tomato paste, crushed tomatoes and oregano, and simmer 10 minutes until thick enough to hold a spoon upright. Cool completely, since hot topping would wake the dough. The onions should taste sweet and jammy, with the anchovy no longer recognizable as a fish and only a deep savory note left behind.

Shape the dough in the pan

Brush a 10 x 14 in (25 x 35 cm) pan with 2 tablespoons of oil. Tip the dough in and stretch it gently toward the corners with oiled fingers, resting it 10 minutes if it springs back. Cover and let it rise 45 to 60 minutes until puffy and nearly level with the top edge of the pan. Press a fingertip into a corner: the dent should fill back slowly. If it springs back at once, give it another 10 minutes.

Season the crumbs

As the dough finishes rising, stir the breadcrumbs, pecorino and 3 tablespoons of oil in a bowl until the crumbs look damp and darker, like wet sand. Do this now, not sooner, so that they are ready the moment the dough is. Taste a pinch: it should already be pleasantly salty and rich, because the oven will not add anything.

Dress the dough and bake

Heat the oven to 450°F (230°C) with a rack in the lower third. Press the caciocavallo slices lightly into the dough, spoon over the cooled topping without pressing down, and scatter the breadcrumbs thickly and evenly across the top. Bake 25 minutes until the crumbs are deep gold and the edges pull away from the pan. If the top browns before the base does, move the pan to the middle rack for the last 5 minutes. Lift a corner with a spatula: the underside should be golden and firm.

Rest and cut

Slide the sfincione out onto a rack and let it stand 10 minutes so the steam escapes upward and the crumb sets. Cut into 8 squares with a serrated knife, using short sawing strokes so that the crust does not shatter. Finish with the raw olive oil and a pinch of oregano.

Plating

Serve sfincione warm, not hot, on a wooden board or a plain white plate at room temperature. Cut squares of about 4 inches (10 cm) so each keeps its full height and a clean edge of crust. Leave the top untouched: the crumbs are the garnish, and nothing else is needed on top of them.

A few drops of raw olive oil and a small pinch of oregano finish each square at the table. In Palermo it is eaten standing, from paper, with nothing else. At home it suits a plate of olives, bitter greens dressed with lemon, or a few slices of salami, and it can open a meal or be the whole of it. Present it on the board at the table and let each guest take a square.

Professional Technique

The breadcrumbs on top of a sfincione are a technical sponge, not a garnish. The base is thick and heavily hydrated, and the topping is wet: onion, tomato and oil. Left alone, that moisture would sink into the top of the dough and leave a pale, gummy layer. The crumbs sit in the path of the moisture. They drink the oil and the water from the topping and, as the oven dries them, they toast into a dry, brittle crust that keeps the crisp outside and the soft interior apart.

That is why the crumbs are tossed with oil before they are scattered. Dry crumbs cannot brown properly, because they have no fat to carry heat to every surface, and they stay pale, raw and dusty. Oiled crumbs fry and toast in a thin film of fat and turn golden and crunchy. They also go on at the end of the rise, not before. Spread earlier, they would absorb the wet topping for an hour and collapse into a soggy paste, and their weight would flatten the dough as it proofs.

Crumb size decides the result. Coarse crumbs leave air between the pieces, so steam escapes and the crust turns crunchy, open and shatteringly dry. Fine crumbs pack tightly, absorb more liquid and bake into a dense, sandy lid that is closer to a paste than a crust. For a thick pan bread with a wet topping, use coarse crumbs, made from a day old loaf crushed by hand or pulsed briefly, and sieve out the dust before oiling them, because powder behaves like fine crumbs.

Texture and Moisture Control

Hydration builds the crumb. At about 73 percent water, the dough traps large, irregular gas cells and bakes into a tender, elastic sponge. A stiffer dough gives a drier and more bready result. Semola rimacinata adds a faint sweetness and a resilient chew without making it heavy.

Moisture in the topping needs the opposite treatment. Cook the onions until they have lost most of their water and reduce the tomato until it is thick. A loose sauce will soak through the crumbs before the oven can dry them. Cool it completely as well: warm topping starts the dough cooking from the top and softens the crust before it forms.

Heat completes the job. A hot oven on the lower rack drives the base upward quickly and sets the crust before the steam can soften it. Standing on a rack, not in the pan, lets the underside breathe as it cools. Wrapped in a cloth or covered with foil, the same bread would sweat in minutes and lose its crunch. Cut it only when the steam has gone, and serve it while the crust still crackles under the knife and the crumb underneath is soft and slightly springy.

Professional Mise en Place

Equipment and tools

10 x 14 in (25 x 35 cm) metal pan with tall sides
Wide heavy pan for the onions and a wire rack
Serrated knife and an oven thermometer
Wide bowl for the dough and a bench scraper
Small bowl for the oiled breadcrumbs and a metal spoon

Prepared ahead

Topping made a day ahead, chilled, brought to room temperature before use
Caciocavallo sliced and kept cold
Dough mixed the evening before and refrigerated, then shaped after a 1 hour rest
Coarse breadcrumbs made, sieved and stored dry in a jar, for several days
Pecorino grated and anchovies drained on paper

Service setup

Breadcrumbs oiled only at the end of the final rise
Oven fully preheated, rack in the lower third
Rack ready beside the oven for the bread to rest on
Serrated knife, cutting board and serving board within reach
Olive oil and oregano at the pass for the final drizzle
Oven mitts and a spatula ready to lift the corner and check the base

Chef Tips

Weigh the flour and the water. At this hydration, a few extra spoonfuls of flour turn a sponge into a loaf. Measure the water first and add all of it, even when the dough looks too loose in the bowl.

Slice the onions thin and even so that they melt into the tomato and vanish. Season lightly at first, because anchovy and cheese are salty. Taste the finished topping cold, since flavors seem stronger while warm.

Press down on nothing once the dough is proofed. Spoon the topping on and let it fall where it lands. Any air pressed out of the dough now is air the oven cannot give back.

Toast the breadcrumbs yourself from stale bread, crushed by hand into pieces about the size of a lentil. Dry them in a low oven first if the loaf is still soft, and store the extra in a jar for the next batch. Freshly made crumbs always taste better than the boxed kind.

Common Mistakes

Spreading the crumbs too early. They soak up the topping during the rise and bake into a wet paste. Add them just before the oven, when the dough is already puffed and the oven is hot.

Using dry crumbs. Without oil they stay pale and dusty. Coat them until they look like damp sand, and toss again if any pale patches remain.

Adding too much flour. The dough should feel too wet to shape, and it is that stickiness that gives the soft crumb. A stiff dough bakes dense, dry and bready.

Topping a warm dough with hot sauce. It softens the surface and starts a gummy layer that never crisps. Chill the sauce, or at least cool it to room temperature.

Cutting it straight from the oven. Ten minutes on a rack lets the crumb set and the crust dry. Cut too soon, the steam flattens the crust and the squares collapse into a soft heap.

Crowding the sauce. A thick layer of tomato weighs down the rise and floods the crumbs. Keep it a thin, even coat, and leave the edges clear so the crust can form there too.

Wine Pairing

Etna Bianco DOC: Volcanic minerality and sharp acidity cut through the olive oil and match the sweetness of the onions. Its saline finish also answers the anchovy and the cheese. Serve it well chilled: the cold sharpens the citrus and cleans the palate between bites of the rich, oily crust. This is the wine that grows on the same island as the recipe, and it seems to know it.

Grillo Sicilia DOC: A dry Sicilian white with citrus, herbs and a saline edge. It lifts the tomato and the oregano, and the wine has enough body to stand up to the caciocavallo. It is the everyday white of Palermo and it costs little. Its gentle bitter almond finish echoes the toasted breadcrumbs, while the freshness keeps every slice from feeling heavy, so the glass empties as fast as the board.

Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG: A light and fruity red with soft tannin. Its cherry acidity meets the tomato directly, and it stays fresh against the fat, so it never overwhelms the bread. Serve it slightly cool, around 58°F (14°C), which brings out its red cherry and keeps the tannin soft against the onion and cheese.

Etna Rosso DOC: Nerello Mascalese gives red fruit, herbs and firm acidity with fine tannin. It handles the salt of the anchovy and the toasted crust without drowning the onion. The volcanic mineral edge and the faint smokiness suit the roasted, toasted top, and the wine is structured enough for a second square, or a third.

Storage & Reheating

Cool completely, then keep uncovered squares in a paper bag or loosely wrapped for 1 day at room temperature. In the refrigerator they keep 3 days in an airtight container, though the crust will soften. Never store it warm, because trapped steam makes the top wet and the base gummy.

For the freezer, wrap squares individually and freeze up to 2 months. Reheat straight from frozen on a rack at 400°F (200°C) for 12 minutes, or from the refrigerator for 8 to 10 minutes, until the crumbs crisp again. Do not use a microwave, which turns the crust to leather. If the crumbs have gone soft, a few minutes under a hot grill restores the crunch. Sfincione is good the next day, and many bakers claim the flavors are even better, once the onions have settled into the crumb.