The jar opens and that's how dinner begins.
Not the cooking. Not the chopping. The jar on the counter, the bread already cut, the ricotta or mozzarella cold from the fridge. Everything else is just assembly.
This is the kind of thing you make when people arrive earlier than expected, or when you're standing in the kitchen with a glass of something and the evening is just getting started. It's also the kind of thing you make when you're alone and you want something that feels like more than the effort it took.
Good bread, fresh ricotta, a spoonful of heat.
Ingredients
- 1–2 teaspoons Tutto Sicilia Hot Pepper Cream — to your heat preference
- 4 slices good bread — sourdough or ciabatta, sliced thick
- 150g fresh ricotta or fresh mozzarella, roughly sliced
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Flaky sea salt
- A few fresh basil leaves or a little fresh thyme or even sliced cherry tomatoes (optional)
Instructions
- Toast or grill the bread until golden and crisp at the edges.
- Add a small spoonful of hot pepper cream on top of the toasted bread. Spread it lightly — you want it through every bite.
- Spoon ricotta onto each slice while still warm, spread the sliced mozzarella. Be generous.
- A thread of good olive oil. A pinch of flaky salt.
- Top with fresh basil or sliced cherry tomatoes if you have it. Eat immediately.
Nonna's Notes
Use what you have. No ricotta? Cream cheese softens beautifully on warm, toasty bread.
Hot pepper cream — real Calabrian-style, made from vine-ripened chilis preserved in olive oil — has a heat that's warm and deep rather than sharp. It doesn't attack. It settles in, and then it glows. Spread on good bread with cold ricotta, it becomes something completely its own.
This is the kind of recipe that doesn't feel like a recipe until someone asks you what you made and you realize you have to describe it. Good bread. Soft cheese. Heat. That's it. That's enough.
Good bread. Good cheese. Heat. That's enough.
