Focaccia Pugliese

Few evenings ago I made this focaccia to serve as an appetizer for dinner to two very nice friends 'forgetting' that Salvatore is from Puglia where this focaccia is very very common... but he didn't complain !

In fact I hope you will apologize me for the horrible photo but it went away very fast !

I used sourdough, but I'll give you both versions.

I'm submitting this focaccia to Yeastspotting ! If you do not know Susan and her big work at Wild Yeast you should visit soon !

FOCACCIA PUGLIESE CON POMODORINI

250 gr flour

250 durum wheat flour (semola rimacinata di grano duro)

(using sourdough I replaced 200 gr of the flours with it and omitted the yeast)

150 boiled potatoes

6 TBS olive oil

one envelope dried yeast or one cube fresh (20 gr)

1 tsp salt

300 ml water

20 cherry tomatoes

oregano

olive oil

salt

Wash and halve the tomatoes , season with olive oil, salt and oregano and set aside.

Combine the flours, mashed potatoes, (the sourdough), olive oil, the yeast and the salt and slowly add water until you get a soft and a bit sticky dough. Knead (I used a mixer) around 6 minutes and let it rest until doubled.

Oil a round pan, put the dough in the pan and decorate it with the tomatoes . Drizzle the precious juice you got on top of the focaccia and cook in a hot oven until done.

BBD # 26 Birthday Party : Focaccia di Recco

This month we get to bake for a big party for Jamie's best than ever Birthday !!!

I was looking for something savory when I thought of focaccia di Recco. It's a very special focaccia made in the town of Recco in Liguria. Usually the paper thin dough is stuffed with a fresh cheese called crescenza (you might know Stracchino or Invernizzina) and baked in a very hot oven until wonderfully crisp. There is even a site dedicated to this focaccia...and I dared to make it !!!!

While browsing the net and you tube I came across the site of a wonderful home baker who moved to the U.S. some years ago from Liguria and loves to share what he learned from his baker's family about bread. Please visit his site: the videos are great !! (click here for the english version but there are less recipes and no focaccia di recco !!)

The dough is really simple:

Mix 200 gr. of water, 50 gr. extravirgin olive oil and 400 gr. bread flour.

Knead it by hand or with you mixer until smooth (it resembles a strudel dough).

Let it rest covered at least 2 hours.

Take 1/4 of the dough and imitate Vittorio

Divide 300 gr stracchino on top.

Cover with another layer of dough.

Tear(!!!!!) some cuts in the dough.

Drizzle some extravirgin olive oil on top and add some cream if you desire.

Bake in the hottest oven until golden.

I know it seems impossible but if I made it I'm sure you can do much better !!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIE !!!!

BBA Slow and Steady :Focaccia

Hi , and happy new year everybody ! I've read in many blogs about commitments for the new year but I'm not so good in keeping them so I almost repeat the same ones over and over and the first one is: not to procrastinate ! This is the last time (???) , at least I hope, I'm so late baking with the Bread Baker's Apprentice's group . We are baking the whole book by Peter Reinhart in alphabetical order and now it was Focaccia's turn, being born in Roma I would call what I ended up with : Pizza Bianca.

Pizza Bianca (obviously as a pose to Pizza Rossa) is a wonderful creation of the romans bakers and most of us brought it to school for midday snack (no peanut butter and jelly around here). In most bakeries you can ask to halve it and fill it : mortadella is the top choice !

Well you might have understood I was glad of the results I got, and the recipe was not hard at all ! You must start the evening before but that's it ! I made it with sourdough but I want to try it even with yeast next time.

BBD # 23 Something You’ve Never Made Before : Focaccia Genovese

This month it was Ima group who took charge of the BBD, created by Zorra, and they chose a very free theme : "Something you've never made before", now, I'm sure every one of you has a whole bunch of never tried recipes, I didn't know where to start from when I saw this post by a very nice roman girl, Antonella, and that was it !! I don't know if you know who the Simili sisters are but they are quite famous here in Italy as you saw in the video they teach bread and pasta making all over the country. Their parents had a bakery in Bologna and they often bake using sourdough.

Focaccia Genovese with Sourdough

Ingredients:

500 gr bread flour

300 gr sourdough

260 gr water

12 gr salt

2 TBS extra virgin olive oil

Topping:

3 TBS water

3 TBS extra virgin olive oil

salt

Mix the sourdough with water, add the other ingredients and mix well.

Trasfer on a work surface and shape in a log oil it and put it in an oven pan mesuring 30 x 40 cm and let it rest for around 20/30 minutes and after that flatten it to cover the whole pan, cover and let raise for about an hour and a half. With the tips of your fingers dimple (?) the whole surface of the focaccia (so deep you can feel the pan) and sprinkle with water, oil and salt. Let it double or more (about 3 hours).

Bake in an hot oven at 200° Celsius for 25 to 30 minutes.

Grazie Antonella !!