A popular Italian bakery is making panettone with mortadella
Out with candied fruit, in with meat and cheese
Few foods are as divisive as certain holiday staples: eggnog, fruit cake, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce all draw a figurative line in the sand, with enthusiasts and critics camped firmly on either side. Still, if you’ve spent your life dismissing panettone—dubious of its aggressively fruit-studded interior—Sud Forno’s savoury take is a startling modern riff on tradition that just might turn your convictions on their head.
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“Panettone salato is a variation of the sweet and traditional panettone,” says Luca Rotatori, head baker at Terroni Sud Forno Produzione e Spaccio. “In Italy you can find panettone salato only in bakeries and pastry shops that specialize in artisanal panettone.”
For the Terroni empire (which includes four restaurants, two Sud Forno locations, Spaccio and an online retailer), Rotatori and his team make a mortadella e scamorza panettone ($44.95) loaded with cured pork and savoury cheese—with not a speck of candied fruit in sight. “The mortadella is not very savoury itself, so we needed something that punches a little. The smoked scamorza gives the smokiness. It’s a more complete flavour,” he explains.
Unlike mass-produced panettoni, Rotatori’s artisanal loaves are as extra as the holidays themselves. “It is an almost 48-hour fermentation sourdough,” he says. “And obviously, it’s very rich in fats, made with butter, egg yolks and sugar.”
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Instead of altering the dough recipe based on the unconventional add-ins, the team stuck with the classic. “We did some tests in our bakery, but we are already so happy with our panettone dough that we didn’t want to change it,” Rotatori says.
The result is a panettone crafted to appeal to those with a taste for novelty. “People are hesitant about trying it, but it’s very popular with the people who have already tried it. It is a little bit weird—it’s not a dessert, but it’s sweet, and it’s also savoury,” says Rotatori. “It’s hard to decide when you should eat it, which, to me, makes it even more interesting. There’s never a wrong time to eat it.”
Find the mortadella e scamorza panettone at the Queen West location of Sud Forno and the Spaccio East commissary.
