Neapolitan – Sicilian Treccia (Bread Tress) with Sausage, Scamorza, and Broccoli Rabe

Treccia con Salsiccia, Scamorza, e Friarelli

En route to Agrigento from Siracusa, Wally and I had made a car stop smack in the middle of Sicily in a town called Enna. Motor stops in Italy are unlike the boring ones in the U.S. American car stops are famous for loads of junk food whereas Italian ones along the autostrade are generally gastronomic gems – they are loaded with prosciutti crudi, salumi, home-made Italian cakes and pies, hot and cold food, you name it! Italians are fussy about what they consume.
One home-made delicious item that we had that day was the Treccia. The lady who served it to us indicated that she had made it herself, and that it was a specialty that combined Sicilian and Neapolitan ingredients. Her take was that the pizza – like ingredients and broccoli rabe (called friarelli in Napoli) are the Neapolitan influence, whereas the scamorza (sometimes substituted with Sicilian provola [not provolone] which is somewhere between Dutch Gouda and English Lancashire cheeses) is very Sicilian. She also pointed out that friarelli are hard to find outside Napoli, and that the broccoli rabe – very close to the friarelli in taste and texture, work well with the Treccia. Wally liked it a lot, and I wanted more, needless to say! I’ll tell you this – it put Enna on the culinary map for me – Enna became a synonym for deliciousness!

Ingredients:
See Pizza di Napoli: La Margherita, using 00 flour exclusively, and adding an extra tablespoon or two of water to the flour to create stickier dough – thus making a softer pizza
2 lbs broccoli rabe
2 lbs of Italian sausage, mild
1 large red sweet bell pepper, diced
2 c of scamorza (or mozzarella), cubed
1 c white wine
2 T fennel fronds
1 healthy handful of grated Parmigiano Reggiano + extra for the end of braiding
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Preparation:
While the dough is rising, you can cook the sausage and broccoli rabe: clean the broccoli rabe and fry it with extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, and sweet bell pepper. Salt to taste. Drain very thoroughly. Then, fry the sausage with white wine and fennel fronds, making sure the wine evaporates and that the sausage browns. Crumble the sausage into small pieces when cooled.

Making the Treccia

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Roll out dough on parchment paper. Only lay the stuffing at the center of the dough. Distribute the broccoli rabe at the base of the stuffing, then the sausage, then the scamorza and a healthy sprinkling of grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Although the quantity of the stuffing can vary, make sure the layers are consistent with the broccoli rabe and the crumbled sausage. Make sure the broccoli rabe contain no liquid in the stuffing – if there’s liquid in the broccoli rabe, there is the danger of burning the pizza crust.

Cut the dough in strips on both sides of treccia, 1-1½ inches in thickness (see images). Begin to braid the strips as shown in images. At the conclusion of your braiding, sprinkle the treccia with Parmigiano Reggiano and then drizzle with olive oil.

Bake in oven until golden brown as in picture. Keep your eyes on it!
Remove from oven, let cool, slice, and then serve.
Buon appetito!