When it’s been a tough day and you feel blue, there's nothing better than getting in the kitchen! Cooking distracts the mind from negative news and can be relaxing.
Try it with the Danubio, an appetizer consisting of many balls of leavened dough, which you can make in a sweet or savory version. Curious to see what it looks like? It looks like a pillow and is also great fun to eat in fact, the sandwiches are perfect to be detached using your hands!
A typical dish of Neapolitan cuisine, with origins also found in Austria, and is one of the most loved rustic dishes around, next to the casatiello. It’s easy to cook but the long leavening times need to be calculated. Below is the original step by step recipe and in the gallery some great ideas for the filling and conservation.
How to make savory Danubio: the recipe
Ingredients
To make at home savory Danubio with about 20 sandwiches, you need: for the dough, 1 cup of whole milk, 1 lb of manitoba flour, 2 oz of evo oil, 1 oz of sugar, 1 medium egg, ½ oz of salt and ½ oz of fresh brewer's yeast. For the filling, 4 oz of cooked ham and 4 oz of scamorza cheese. To brush the surface, ¾ oz of whole milk and 1 yolk.
Method
Take a large bowl and pour in the flour, yeast, salt, egg and finally milk; then, with a fork, start working the dough. Pass it to your hands when you see that the mixture begins to thicken and while kneading, add the oil to the dough. Move the mixture on the pastry board and finish working it until you get a large homogeneous ball, without lumps. Put it back into the bowl, where you will leave it to rise for about 3 hours covered with transparent film. In the meantime, cut the cooked ham into small pieces and do the same with the scamorza cheese. After 3 hours, take the dough out and divide it in half then give each part the shape of a large sausage. Make 10 pieces from each half, for a total of 20. Now fill each piece, flattening it a bit, with ham and cheese. Then close it up and work it into a small ball.
Now take a round baking tray, oil it and place the 20 balls next to each other. Cover it with transparent film and let it rest for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180° and in the meantime prepare the mixture with milk and yolks and brush the surface with it to make the Danubio golden when cooking. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove and serve hot.