MILIDDI: I CAN'T FORGET YOU, SICILY. WORLD BREAD DAY 2013

Here we are!
In the last year I wrote so few posts that I'm ashamed of this.
But Zorra is a genial friend with so genial idea that I can't resist.
This is my contribution for the

http://www.kochtopf.me/announcing-world-bread-day-2013-8th-edition

What are miliddi?
I can't traslate, there's not a traslation, it is just a name for a toasted ancient bread aromatized with wild fennel or anise seeds.
They are a sort of dry cookie served sweet or savory.
Tipically we eat this miliddi either with pecorino cheese and possibly a good glass of wine or plunged into Passito wine for a sweet after dinner.

They were the old cookies for children, crushed and put into the feeding bottle.

As many of you know, our cookery is suspended beetween a decadent rich manner and a poor one.

We are in the second case.
A poor old cookery.
At the end of the work for the weekly bread, sicilians women used to throw into the oven little pieces of this pasta to avoid wasteness of wood and fire.

Anything must be waiste and we must remember this wise lesson.

My recipe come from a turistic advertising site of one of the most beautiful little village, Custonaci, with an astonishing view to the beautiful gulf.

I just copy and this is the referred link

Just translate the

RECIPE

500 gr of semolina durum wheath flour
1/2 tbs of anise seeds
100 gr of melted lard (in sicilian language: saìme)
15 gr of fresh bakery yeast
salt
water

Just knead (in the way you prefer: hand, kitchen robot, bread machine....husband...) energically all the ingredient except lard that will be added at last.

Wait until the dough will raise, doubled, and form small cordon about 4 cm in diameter.
Cut the dough in small pieces and roll in small ball-shape
Wait again and bake at 200°C for 15 minutes until they'll have a golden and crunchy crust.
They can be stored for 1 week in a dry place.

and now...as you expected...

MY TWO CENTS

First of all, I apologize for the awful photos.
My camera is definitely out of order.
I love this bread's biscotti.
My grandpa called them Biscotti di pane, cookies and bread at the same time.

They are my favourite one, bringing me memories of my grandpa, he bought and store this biscotti into a ceramic pot and delighted himself watching at my sister and I eating them for breakfast.
I loved him and I miss all my grandparents so much.

Every sicilian bakeries sell several marvellous bread-derivated: miliddi, grissini seasoned with sesame seeds, treccine a sort of fluffy brioche topped with granulated sugar, pizza, mattonelle (a sort of savory puff pastry pie filling with tomato and cheese), pane cunzato, biscotti di san Martino, mufuletti...

For this recipe I decided to follow my memories.

I've rolled the dough in a long cordon and baked for 15 minutes 'till they were slightly golden.
Let them cool in a tray and then cut in thick slices.
Put again in the oven on a grid at 100 °C instead of 200 °C to achieve definitely brown colour and to dry them.
This lasts about 1 hour and depends on the thickness of the pieces.