A PIADINA BY ANY OTHER NAME IS....DELISH!

KYLE PHILLIPS, over at ABOUT.COM, sends out a weekly newsletter about Italian cooking. (You can SIGN UP HERE) , and a few weeks ago he wrote about learning to make piadine while on vacation.

Piadine are a specialty of the Romagna region, and really, they're not all that different from a flour tortilla. Generally they're eaten spread with soft cheese or served with prosciutto, but of course I have some more American uses for them as well....like wraps for sandwiches, or brushed with a bit of olive oil. baked in the oven, and used as chips for salsa. (I prefer flour tortills over corn tortillas for almost everything.)

The recipe didn't sound all that different from pie crust either, except that instead of using ice water you use hot water. And it's kneaded. And then it's grilled on a hot griddle instead of being filled with apples and baked! Other than that...exactly the same. Since I make a great pie crust, I figured I might as well give piadine a try.

You can read about HOW TO MAKE PIADINE but to make things easier I cut and pasted Kyle's article into some easy to follow directions that I printed out and stuck in my recipe folder.

Although the original recipe calls for lard (strutto here in Italy), Kyle did mention that you can also use olive oil for a lighter version, so of course I decided to try both. I made half a recipe of each type, then Art and I sat down with some fantastic homemade salsa our friend Wendy had given us last week.

"Real" piadine (and I guess torta al testo is another name for them) are supposed to be cooked on a testo, a round griddle that's heated over coals, or on the stovetop for those of us who don't build a fire every day. I have a wonderfully large cast iron griddle, and decided to use that instead.

We both liked both types of piadine, with Art slightly preferring the 'original' version with lard, and me preferring the lighter, olive oil version. The reason I say 'slight' is because the difference is really minimal. Either version is great, especially hot off the griddle....give 'em a try!

You can read Kyle's full article about piadine HERE.