Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour

Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour is a specialty of Puglia previously obtained by grinding wheat toasted; It has an intense color and aroma. In the past, it was obtained by milling the grain collected after burning the stubble after harvest. This wheat was recovered and milled by people who could not afford regular flour.

Characteristics of Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour

It is not only the peculiar toasted flavor that characterizes this flour, in fact, but many other properties are also determining its success. It is wholemeal and contains a smaller amount of gluten, so much so that it is suitable for those suffering from gluten intolerance, naturally in its "pure" version.

Compared to classic wheat flour, Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour has a higher protein content and mineral salts, however, it is not possible - at the moment - to determine the actual quantity of gluten. This reason, added to the fact that it is not usually present in a percentage higher than 30% in bread-making, means that although suitable for intolerants, it cannot instead be considered a 100% safe food for celiacs to whom it is advisable to deal with one's doctor before consuming it.

The burnt wheat was long exclusive of the peasant tradition, driven by the necessity to recover the ears of wheat fallen on the ground and covered by vegetation. The only way to easily harvest the wheat grains left on the ground was to burn the stubble, also promoting soil fertilization. The landowners allowed the farmers to collect those burnt wheat grains, which represented a great resource for them since the price of white flour was too high to buy the right amount. Ground in stone mills or mortars, the burnt wheat grains were mixed with a paltry quantity of white flour: the result was a kind of wholemeal flour with a bitter aftertaste, which we can only imagine today.

Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour today

Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour is a result of a long tradition and are the custodians of an important history that may have been forgotten. It is worth rediscovering them and savoring them again.

It is flour with ancient and poor origins and interesting history: the landowners after the wheat harvest burned the stubble (a process that made the soil even more fertile) and left all that remained in the field available to the farmers. In those periods when there was not much else available, virtue was made of necessity, and here the burnt wheat grains left on the ground were collected and ground to make flour.

How to use Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour:

It can be used to prepare any sweet and tasty baked product, supplied in combination with flour this gluten-free product (wheat, spelled or Kamut).

The most popular preparation made with this flour is strascinati (in the strasc-net dialect), very dark wheat flour obtained with flaming orecchiette and white flour in equal parts; the ham bread (in llen dialect prusutt), black bread with white streaks and finally focaccia.

Today as then, Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour is never used alone (30% of the total dough should be put) but mixed with gluten-rich flour. Its uses in the kitchen correspond with those of normal flour: pasta, bread, focaccias, and leavened products in general. Very common are cavatelli or orecchiette, a typical Apulian dish, to be accompanied absolutely with genuine and delicate condiments such as tomatoes and basil and perhaps a sprinkling of caciocavallo cheese, since the wheat in question already has a somewhat decisive palette of aromas. It can then be used in stuffed focaccias, lasagne, and pizzas (mixed with soft wheat flour and hard semolina).

Grano Arso Burnt Wheat Flour is mixed with other types of flour, to prepare bread, focaccia, and pasta. Given its region of origin, it should not surprise us that it is also used for orecchiette, taralli and other Apulian delicacies.

It is perfect, for all types of fresh and short pasta, such as cavatelli and cicatelli, because burnt wheat flour makes the pasta flake more easily. Attention to cooking, especially seasonings there are no particular restrictions: try the classic with turnip greens, but also cherry tomatoes, burrata, and cacioricotta.

This type of flour is also used to prepare some sweets, to which it gives a bronzed color. It combines particularly tasty with homemade jams, which maintain that more rustic and authentic flavor. Go ahead, therefore, with cakes and pies, remembering to follow the rule that it takes 30% of burnt wheat flour and 70% of traditional wheat flour.

From Puglia, literally meaning burnt grain - Grano Arso is a product that was born out of the abject poverty that typified rural areas in Italy during the 19th century. Peasants too poor to afford flour would sweep up the grains burnt by the hot steam engine machines that harvested them in the fields. They would grind the grain into flour and mix it with water to produce pasta with a smokey flavor.

Suggestion: We recommend only 30% of Grano Arso flour be mixed in with regular flour. Great to make bread and pasta.

2.2 pound (1 kilogram) or 11 pound (5 kilogram)

Ingredients: Burnt wheat flour

Packaging: Plastic Wrap or Paper Bag

Region: Puglia

Product of Italy