Cheese and bread, all toasty, crusty and melty. Who doesn’t love that? I’m surprised that zuppa Gallurese has eluded my radar until now, given that the dish includes my two favorite food groups, and not much else. I watched an elderly Pasta Granny make this Sardinian specialty recently (never miss an episode of that YouTube cooking series) and then immediately started hunting for recipes. In the end, I merged methods from several Italian food authorities--including Lidia Bastianich and Katie Parla —to concoct a zuppa Gallurese with the bread and cheeses I like. Despite the name, the dish is much closer to bread pudding than to soup.
Doug and I spent three weeks in Sardinia a few years ago and never encountered this dish, perhaps because it was May. Zuppa Gallurese is cold-weather food and also pretty rustic--more cucina casalinga than restaurant fare. I have read that the dish was served at wedding banquets in times past, but I suspect that’s because it’s easy to make a lot of it. Zuppa Gallurese belongs to that enormous universe of recipes that repurpose stale bread, because heaven help you if you toss it. A Calabrian nonna once told me that if I wasted so much as a crust I would have to pick up breadcrumbs with my eyelashes in hell.
Easy cheesy: Zuppa Gallurese with cabbage
Gallura is a winegrowing region in northern Sardinia, known for excellent Vermentino. Wine, sheep and shepherding once defined the region’s economy but tourism and development have taken a toll. Even so, sheep cheese still rules there. Both fresh and aged pecorino figure in traditional zuppa Gallurese, along with mutton broth. But like a lot of other cooks, I’ve taken liberties. I embraced Lidia Bastianich’s idea of adding cabbage to the dish, which makes it seem more like a one-pot meal. And Bastianich also gave the green light to chicken broth, thank goodness.
Zuppa Gallurese
Ready to cook: Stale bread, cheese, cabbage, mint, broth
Omit the cabbage if you like; it’s not traditional but the vegetable helps balance all that bread and cheese. Sauteed leeks would be a tasty alternative. Some recipes call for chopped parsley or mint; I vote for mint. Pecorino romano is a must. The other cheeses can be whatever you like so long as they are good melters. I chose Teleme for texture and Appenzeller for its robust flavor. You can reheat leftovers, uncovered, and the dish will only get crustier. Yum.
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small head Savoy cabbage (about 1-1/2 pounds)
Kosher or sea salt
1 pound stale pain au levain or other sturdy bread
½ pound Franklin’s Teleme or Crescenza
½ pound Appenzeller
3 to 4 cups hot chicken broth
Freshly grated black pepper
1 cup freshly grated pecorino romano
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint plus more for garnish
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Choose a 3-quart baking dish with enough surface area to hold half the bread tightly in a single layer without overlapping. Using 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, grease the bottom and sides of the dish.
Bring 4 quarts lightly salted water to a boil over high heat. Quarter the cabbage and remove the core. Slice each quarter into 1-inch-wide ribbons. Boil until tender, 10 to 12 minutes, then drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Drain again and squeeze to remove excess water. Transfer to a bowl and toss with ¼ teaspoon salt and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil.
Slice the bread ½ inch thick (no need to remove the crust). Slice the Teleme about ¼ inch thick. (I know; it’s sticky.) Discard any rind on the Appenzeller. Slice half of the cheese ¼ inch thick and grate the rest of it coarsely.
Taste the broth for salt and add several grinds of black pepper.
Using half the bread, cover the bottom of the baking dish, trimming the slices as needed to fit and fill gaps. Top with half of the cabbage. Top the cabbage with 1 tablespoon mint, the sliced Teleme, the sliced Appenzeller and half the pecorino. Make another layer of cabbage, using it all. Top with the remaining bread in a single layer, trimming as needed to fit. Press gently with your palms to compress the layers.
Ladle the hot stock evenly over the bread, using as much as you need to moisten everything. You should not see unabsorbed stock along the sides. Top with the grated Appenzeller and the remaining pecorino.
Bake until bubbly, crusty and well browned on top, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let rest 10 to 15 minutes. Garnish with more chopped mint before serving. If there are any unabsorbed juices in the baking dish, spoon them over each portion.
Serves 6 as a main course, 8 to 10 as a side dish