Bruschetta (Appetizer)

Bruschetta is a dish coming from the Southern Italy culinary tradition.
There are many types of bruschetta, mainly involving special roasted and/or hard bread which may require particular preparation to be served.
This type of bruschetta is a meeting point between Northern and Southern Italy: it requires Tuscan (Toscano) bread, a kind of saltless bread originating in Tuscania, Italy, usually coming in blocks.

You can adapt this recipe to as many servings as you need. As a guideline, you can serve 1 or 2 bruschette per person.


Ingredients

Tuscan bread
Tomatoes or tomato sauce
Garlic
Oregano
Basil
Black pepper
Oil
Salt


Procedure

Pre-heat the oven at 200°C

Slice out a few 1cm-thick slices from the Tuscan bread (1 or 2 per person)

Put the Tuscan slices in the oven, until they become gold-looking (this takes a few minutes)

In the meantime, you can prepare the tomatoes, if you're going to use these instead of the tomato sauce; there are two alternatives: you can slice them finely (3mm-thick circa), or grossly (1cm-thick circa). If you slice them grossly, you can then cut them down into small cubes
Take the bread slices from the oven and rub them front and back with a slice of garlic, until they acquire an intense smell; then put the slices on a dish

Lay the fine tomato slices, or cubes, or a thin layer of tomato sauce on the upper side of the bread

Add a little oil, oregano, salt, black pepper and 2 or 3 leaves of basil

Serve hot!