Pitta di Patate Barese al Pomodoro e Origano

Ingredients

• For the dough
• 500 g floury potatoes, Agria or Russet — boiled, riced, and cooled
• 200 g plain wheat flour
• 7 g dried active yeast
• 10 g fine sea salt
• 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil, for the dough itself
• For the pan
• 50 ml extra-virgin olive oil, to coat the baking pan generously
• For the topping
• 400 g ripe fresh tomatoes, halved, face-down
• 2 tsp dried oregano, wild if available
• 80 g black olives, unpitted, Barese-style
• 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil, to drizzle over topping before baking, plus a second drizzle raw after baking

Method

1. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.