Italy and Mexico lie an ocean and sea apart, but the two share a dish with an uncanny resemblance. I’m sure you know the Mexican quesadilla. Less familiar, perhaps, is Italy’s piadina. Born in Emilia-Romagna, where it began as a simple flatbread cooked on a terra-cotta griddle (called a piastra) over wood embers, the piadina has evolved into a pan-Italian fast food. It starts with a white flat bread that looks for all the world like a flour tortilla. (Both contain white flour, water, and lard, but piadina also contains a little baking powder.) Inside, you’ll find melted cheese, which in Italy might be stracciatella (a gooey, spoonable cheese, like the inside of a burrata), scamorza (smoked mozzarella), provola, fontina, or another Italian cheese. Unlike its Mexican counterpart, piadina also contains salume (Italian cold cuts), such as thinly sliced prosciutto, speck (smoked prosciutto), mortadella, or one of Italy’s hundreds of salamis. The crowning touch: a handful of cool, crisp, peppery arugula. It’s a quesadilla Italian-style, and you’ll definitely want to add it to your repertoire.
Heat your griddle or plancha to medium-high and oil it well.
Meanwhile, arrange the tortillas on your work surface. Spread a little Calabrian chile paste on each (if using). Don’t use more than you mean to: This stuff is hot! If using stracciatella, spread it on each tortilla. If using the other cheeses, thinly slice or coarsely grate and arrange them on top of each tortilla. Top with the mortadella or other salume. Top each with a piece of parchment paper. just large enough to cover the tortilla
Arrange the piadinas on the hot griddle, parchment paper side down. Cook until the meat is sizzling and browned, 1 to 2 minutes.
Use a spatula to invert the tortillas and peel off the parchment paper. Cook until the bottom of the tortilla is sizzling and browned, 1 to 2 minutes.
Transfer the piadinas to plates. Top each with a generous pile of arugula. Fold in half and dig in.
Recipe Notes
A purist may wish to make the piadina (flatbread) itself by hand: You’ll find an excellent recipe in The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper. But honestly, it’s so similar to a flour tortilla, you might as well save time and use that. Calabrian chile paste (optional) is Italy’s most fiery condiment—one good brand is L’Oro Del Sud (available on Amazon.com). Like quesadillas, piadinas are infinitely customizable. A piadina parlor I visited in the baroque city of Lecce in southern Italy, proposed eight kinds of meat, a dozen kinds of cheeses, and vegetables ranging from asparagus to zucchini. While I love the crisp, cool crunch of the arugula against the melty hot cheese and salume, I also like two other traditional toppings: sautéed broccoli rabe and sautéed chard.
