TE.NI Bakery in Calabria

TE.NI. is a family run company from Calabria where bread is its speciality. All the products at TE.NI. are those traditional in the countryside of the South of Italy. I've came across this brand during the Welcome Italia event a couple of weeks ago where high quality food manufacturers came to London in order to be acknowledged by the catering and food retail industry in UK. All the oven baked specialities at TE.NI. are by products of bread and they are made with a 6 months shelf life, great for a snack or to complement a rustic meal.

Scaldatelle is a savoury snack round shaped and in its dough it is customary to add chili or rosemary, or anise seeds or make them just plain. Then they are boiled and then dry them in the oven to have that crispy, crunchy characteristic. TE.NI has got a great range of these snack that can be eaten on their own or while sipping a glass of wine. You can find them with anise seeds, or chili, or white wine. The Scaldatelle with Red Onion from Tropea are delicious.

These are Frese and maybe some of you will know them already. They are different from their Apulian counterpart where to eat a fresa you have to sprinkle them generously with water because they are very hard to chew. These Frese by TE.NI. are crumbly so they are great just with some cherry tomato mashed on to them and extra virgin olive oil. It is a great dish and you can add anchovies, tuna, a bit of garlic. Anything flavoured will make this simple dish, that dates back when farmers were using stale bread  dressing it with vegetables and anything that they could find. Maybe it has been one of the first take away in the world.

This is my variation on using the Frese by TE.NI. I've slow cooked some diced beef with tomato sauce at minimum heath for three hours adding chili and two bay leaves. Then I've put on my plate a Fresa and covered with the sauce and the meat. The Fresa softened enough to be eaten , tasting deliciously and I've used the sauce left  the day after with pasta.

The star product of TE.NI. I believe it has definitely been "La Pignatta". During the Welcome Italia event many restaurant owners and food retailers stopped in front of the TE.NI. stand enquiring on this amazing product. It is an empty bread bun  oven dried. This is the perfect serving dish for a soup like a minestrone or a bean soup. It is edible so it is better if it can be placed on a dish because you can eat the lot.

During the Welcome Italia Cooking Show, the chef Joe Hurd, who has worked with Francesco Mazzei, Claude Bossi, Heston Blumenthal and Paul Hollywood, as well as being a presenter for the ITV program "The Munch Box" has  cooked a fragrant beans soup and then he served it inside the Pignatta by TE.NI.

This is the final result of Joe Hurd  cookery show, where The Pignatta stole the show. Joe filled the empty bread with a soup made of beans and tomatoes and it topped it up with a leaf of basil, a bit of burrata cheese and nduja, a very spicy spreadable pork salami  from Calabria. Let's hope that this Pignatta, and all the other products from TE.NI. will find a stockist in UK so that we can cook something so aesthetically nice and at the same time excellent to eat. To know more about TE.NI you can go the website at www.teni.it