🏆 Grandma's Pane Fritto - Sicilian Egg Bread
Most Delish Fried Italian Bread dipped in Egg with Garlic. Plus the Moonstruck Version- Try it!
Grandma’s Version
My grandmother, Lucy DeFelice, used to make this Sicilian fried egg bread for my Sicilian grandfather. She’d make a loaf or two, cut it up and put it out for all of us to eat. This is a treat so good you can gobble down until you get bloated.
It’s called pane fritto. You can use fresh Italian bread or stale bread. I’ve never used stale bread but it is supposed to be just as good. It only uses a few ingredients and takes about ten minutes or less to cook up.
HOW TO MAKE SICILIAN EGG BREAD (GRANDMA’S VERSION):
· Use any of your favorite crusty breads or focaccia.
· Slice it thick
· Scramble the eggs and add salt & pepper to taste
· Dip both sides of the bread in the egg. (just like French toast)
· Over medium-high heat, add olive oil to the frying pan
· Add minced garlic
· Fry one side of the bread until it is golden brown,
· When it’s sufficiently golden, flip to the other side & fry
· Add parmesan when it’s finished and serve (it’s also good cold)
Moonstruck Version
If you’ve seen the movie Moonstruck, in it the Mother (Olympia Dukakis) cooks up a mouth-watering version of Pane Fritto for her daughter Loretta (Cher). This is what she fried up. I found this recipe on ciaochowbambina.com, and I’m including I it just because.
It uses a different preparation method using butter instead of olive oil. You cut a hole in the center of the bread and fry an egg in it, season it, add the long-hots and you’re done. Obviously for people who like hot peppers. Obviously, you don’t need to use the hot peppers.
INGREDIENTS:
· Thick-sliced Italian bread (fresh or stale)
· Olive oil
· Extra large eggs
· Salt & Pepper to taste
· Parmesan Cheese
HOW TO MAKE MOONSTRUCK PANE FRITTO WITH EGGS:
· Use any of your favorite crusty breads or focaccia.
· Slice it up thick.
· Cut a hole out of the center.
· Over medium heat, place a frying pan.
· Add a big pat of butter to the pan and add your hot peppers.
· Once the butter is melted, fry one side of the bread.
· When it’s sufficiently golden, flip to the other side.
· Break an egg in the center, and fry until the egg is cooked but the yolk still soft.
· Top with a couple of hot peppers, a drizzle of olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.
Sugar Coated Egg Bread
Here’s another my friend Rich Raimonde sent over. A suger coated version from sicilianfoodculture.com
If you try it, let me know how it turned out in the comments section. Looks good to me.
Great memories Lou. We were fortunate to have such a sweet loving Grandma. I remember my Mom making “eggy bread” minus the garlic and cheese as a Sunday night dinner. What wonderful memories.