Romagna, Emilia-Romagna
Piadina romagnola
Romagna's flatbread
Romagna's flatbread, protected since 2014: flour, water, salt and lard, rolled into a disc and cooked on both sides on a hot plate, as its PGI specification sets.
- Course
- Pizze e PaniPizza & Bread
- Serves
- 4
- Hands-on
- 35 min
- Cooking
- 5 min
- Resting
- 30 min+
In breve
In short
Also called piada romagnola, piada and Romagna flatbread.
- Wheat or spelt flour, water, salt and lard or olive oil: no preservatives, flavourings or additives.
- At most 250 g of fat and 25 g of salt for every 1 kg of flour, as the specification sets.
- Flattened only by rolling, into a disc 15 cm–25 cm across and 4 mm–8 mm thick.
- Cooked on both sides on a hot plate, turned again and again, for four minutes at most.
La provenienza
Where this recipe comes from
Piadina is the flatbread of Romagna, the eastern half of Emilia-Romagna, where it was long eaten in place of bread, which was scarce. The poet Giovanni Pascoli, who made the Romagnol word ‘piè’ into the Italian ‘piada’, called it ‘the national bread of the people of Romagna’. Since the 1970s it has been made and sold from small kiosks all over Romagna.
It has been a PGI since 2014, and its specification, amended in 2022, fixes it: wheat or spelt flour, water, salt and lard or olive oil, divided into balls, flattened only by rolling, and cooked on both sides on a hot plate for four minutes at most. It recognises two types: the Piadina Romagnola, 15–25 cm across and 4–8 mm thick, and the thinner Piadina alla Riminese, 23–30 cm across and up to 3 mm thick. The specification sets limits, not a household recipe; the quantities here are a home batch within them.
- Provenance
- The dish itself is protected by an EU specification (TSG, PDO or PGI) that fixes how it is made.
- Defined by
- European Union
- Reference
- PGI ‘Piadina Romagnola / Piada Romagnola’, Regulation (EU) No 1174/2014; specification amended by Regulation (EU) 2022/2264
- Sources
- EU Official Journal C 278 of 20 July 2022: the application to amend the PGI, with the amended single document (EUR-Lex, Italian)
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2264, approving the amendment (EUR-Lex, Italian)
- Scatti di Gusto: piadina romagnola made at home, the traditional recipe (Italian)
- Dissapore: piadina romagnola, the recipe (Italian)
Ingredienti
Ingredients
Equipment
- A testo (a flat terracotta or cast-iron griddle) or a heavy pan with a flat base at least 25 cm across
- Kitchen scale
- Wooden board and rolling pin
- Fork
- A clean cotton cloth
- Infrared thermometer (useful to check the heat of the plate)
Preparazione
Method
About 1 hour 15 minutes: 15 minutes for the dough, 30 of rest, a few minutes to divide it while the plate heats, then 3–4 minutes on the plate for each of the 4 piadine, rolling the next one while each cooks.
- 35 minhands-on
- 5 mincooking
- 30 minresting, at least
The dough
-
Hands-on 5 min
Put the flour and the bicarbonate in a large bowl, add the lard in small pieces and work it into the flour with your fingertips until no lumps of lard are left.
Tip The specification allows a raising agent such as bicarbonate up to 20 g per kilo of flour; both household recipes use 2 g for 500 g.
-
Hands-on 10 minOfficial text
Dissolve the salt in the lukewarm water. Pour it in a little at a time, mixing, until the dough comes together; you may not need all of it. Turn it out onto the board and knead for about 10 minutes, until smooth and firm.
Check Smooth, firm and no longer sticky: a finger pressed in leaves a dent that fills slowly.
Tip Knead only until smooth: the specification warns against working the dough too long.
-
Rest 30 min
Cover the dough with a damp cloth, or wrap it in film, and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes. It relaxes and rolls out without shrinking back.
Rolling and cooking
-
Hands-on 3 minOfficial text
Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces, about 215 g each, and roll each into a smooth ball. Keep the balls covered while you roll the first.
-
Cooking 5–8 minTemp 200 °C–250 °CHeat high, then medium
Heat the testo or pan, dry, over high heat for about 5 minutes, then lower it to medium, so the surface stays at about 200 °C–250 °C.
Check On a metal pan, a drop of water beads up and skates across the surface instead of sizzling away. On terracotta, which can boil a drop away even when very hot, check with the infrared thermometer.
Tip The original specification of 2014 cooked at 200 °C–250 °C; the amended one allows anything from 150 °C to 300 °C.
-
Hands-on 2–3 minOfficial text
While the testo heats, roll the first ball on a lightly floured board into a disc about 22 cm–25 cm across and 4 mm–5 mm thick, turning it a quarter turn every few strokes so it stays round and even. Roll each of the others while the one before it cooks, so the discs never wait stacked and stick together.
Check An even thickness of 4 mm–5 mm all over, with no thin spots.
Tip It need not be perfectly round: the specification describes an irregular round, and a hand-rolled piadina never is.
Tip For a neat edge, trim it around a plate with a knife or a pastry wheel.
-
Hands-on 12–16 minOfficial text
Lay a disc on the dry, hot surface. After about a minute bubbles rise: prick them with a fork. Turn it, and keep turning it every 30–40 seconds, pricking any new bubbles, until both sides are ivory with amber spots, 3–4 minutes for each piadina.
Check Amber spots on both sides, no pale, raw patches, and it smells of fresh bread.
Tip The specification allows four minutes on the plate at most: longer and the piadina dries out.
-
Hands-on 1 min
As each piadina is done, stack it in the folded cloth, so it stays soft and warm while you cook the rest.
-
Hands-on 2 min
Serve hot, cut into wedges, or filled and folded over, the two ways the specification describes.
The essentials, for cooks who know the dish. Switch to Detailed for quantities, temperatures, times and checks at every step.
Press “I’m here” on the step you are on, and again when it is done.Tap the pin on the step you are on, and the tick when it is done. Timers keep running while you scroll.
Da sapere
Good to know
- KeepingConservazione
- Once cool, wrapped in film, it stays soft for a couple of days (paper dries it out); reheat it for about a minute a side. Raw or part-cooked, it freezes with foil between the discs: take them out and cook them directly on the testo or pan. Source
- VariantsVarianti
- Piadina alla Riminese: The specification's thin type: 23 cm–30 cm across and up to 3 mm thick. Source
- With olive oil: Olive oil or extra virgin olive oil in place of the lard, as the specification allows, within the same limit of 250 g per kilo of flour: about the same weight as the lard, 100 g for this batch. Source
- With spelt flour, milk or honey: Since 2022 the specification also allows spelt flour, up to 300 ml of milk and up to 20 g of honey per kilo of flour. Source
Errori comuni
Common mistakes
- Pressing the dough flat. The specification allows flattening only by rolling, by hand or by machine.
- Working the dough too long: knead only until it is smooth.
- Leaving it on the plate too long. Four minutes in all is the specification's limit.
Fuori dall'Italia
Cooking it outside Italy
- If you cannot find good lard, the specification itself allows olive oil or extra virgin olive oil, within the same limit of 250 g per kilo of flour: about the same weight as the lard, 100 g for this batch.
- Use a plain soft wheat flour (all-purpose in the US, plain in the UK), not a strong bread flour.
