P
Italian · Bari, Puglia
Pitta di Patate Barese al Pomodoro e Origano
A potato pizza unique to the Bari area: a thick, yielding dough enriched with mashed potato (replacing much of the wheat flour), pressed into a well-oiled round pan, dimpled with fingertips, dressed with fresh tomato, olive oil, dried oregano, and black olives, then baked in a hot oven until the surface blisters and the bottom is golden and crisp. Related to focaccia barese but distinct — the potato creates a much softer, almost cake-like interior.
I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
For the dough
500 g
200 g
plain wheat flour
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
7 g
dried active yeast
Your own market
10 g
fine sea salt
Your own market
30 ml
extra-virgin olive oil
for the dough itself
Your own market
For the pan
50 ml
extra-virgin olive oil
to coat the baking pan generously
Your own market
For the topping
400 g
2 tsp
dried oregano
wild if available
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
80 g
black olives
unpitted, Barese-style
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
30 ml
extra-virgin olive oil
to drizzle over topping before baking, plus a second drizzle raw after baking
Your own market
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II
The Method
1
Boil the floury potatoes in their skins until completely tender. Drain thoroughly, peel, and pass through a potato ricer onto a clean surface. Spread and leave to cool completely — no residual steam should rise from the mass. The potatoes must be dry: excess moisture carried into the dough will produce a dense, heavy pitta.
2
Combine the cooled riced potato, flour, yeast, and salt. Work together, adding the olive oil for the dough, until a cohesive, very soft mass forms. The dough will be wetter than any standard bread dough — total hydration including potato moisture reaches 80%. Do not add flour to stiffen it. Oil your hands and the work surface rather than flouring them. Mix until the dough is uniform and no dry flour remains.
3
Pour all 50 ml of olive oil into a round baking pan of approximately 30 cm diameter, tilting to coat the base and sides completely. Transfer the dough into the pan. With oiled fingertips, press and stretch it outward to the edges. Leave to rest and relax for 20 minutes, then press again to the edges if it has retracted. The pan oil is not a precaution against sticking — it fries the bottom of the pitta during baking and is the source of its characteristic crust.
4
With wet fingertips, dimple the surface of the dough aggressively, pressing almost to the base of the pan. Lay the halved tomatoes cut-face-down across the surface, pressing each one lightly into a dimple. Scatter the black olives. Drizzle olive oil evenly over the top and finish with the dried oregano. This step — the quality of the oil, the freshness of the tomatoes, and the depth of the dimpling — is where the dish lives or dies: fresh tomatoes will blister and release their juice into the dough; dried tomatoes will burn at the temperature required.
5
Bake in a fully preheated hot oven until the surface is blistered and the underside is deeply golden and crisp. Lift one edge with a palette knife to inspect the base — it should be a rich amber, crisped by the olive oil pooled beneath it, not merely set and pale. Remove from the oven and immediately drizzle with a little raw extra-virgin olive oil to brighten the flavour.
6
Serve the pitta directly from the pan within two hours of baking. The potato interior stales faster than standard bread; the texture that defines it — soft, almost cake-like, yielding — belongs only to the first hours.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Agria or Russet potatoes from a known grower — uniform starch content, reliably dry after ricing. Wild Apulian oregano, hand-harvested and sun-dried. A single-estate Apulian extra-virgin olive oil from Coratina olives, used both in the pan and raw over the finished pitta.
02
Estate — Any high-starch floury potato from a trusted supplier, riced and dried with care. Good-quality dried oregano of Mediterranean origin. A well-regarded southern Italian extra-virgin olive oil.
03
Market — Standard floury potatoes available at any good greengrocer; supermarket dried oregano. A decent extra-virgin olive oil used uniformly throughout — the 50 ml in the pan should not be an economy grade.
04
House — The pitta is still honest bread food at this rung, but watery potatoes and thin olive oil will betray it. The minimum requirement is that the potatoes are floury, fully drained, and cooled, and that the pan oil is true olive oil, not a neutral substitute.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Touch. The cooled riced potato feels dry and granular against the palm — no residual warmth, no stickiness from retained steam.
◇Touch. The mixed dough is very soft and slightly tacky but cohesive — it pulls away from oiled hands cleanly, though it would cling to floured ones.
◇Sight. The tomatoes on the surface have collapsed and blistered, their cut faces darkened and caramelised at the edges.
◇Sight. A palette knife lifted under one edge of the pitta reveals a deep amber base, crisped to a distinct crust by the olive oil beneath — not pale, not soggy.
◇Smell. A warm, nutty fragrance rises from the underside as the olive oil frys the base — distinguishable from the broader bakehouse smell of the dough and oregano above.
◇Where it lives or dies. The pitta lives or dies on the freshness of the tomatoes and the generosity of the pan oil: fresh tomatoes blister correctly at baking temperature, dried ones burn; and without a full 50 ml of oil beneath the dough, the characteristic fried bottom never forms.
Pillar V
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VI
What to Pour
The pairing
Wine
From British Columbia
Wine
Without alcohol
GT's Synergy Organic Kombucha — Gingerade
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
Non-alcoholic
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The whole pairingPillar VII
Origin and lineage are part of membership.
Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.
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Sourced through Provenance