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Focaccia
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By MARLENE PARRISH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, September 5, 2007 in the Evansville Courier & Press
Focaccia (rhymes with "gottcha") is an all-purpose flatbread made with yeast. Besides being a grill dinner's best partner, it can be toasted for breakfast, split in half and made into sandwiches for lunch, or tucked into a bread basket on the dinner table and served with a small pot of pesto for spreading or dipping.
At our house, we look forward to leftover focaccia. We cut big pieces into half-inch cubes and toast them on a tray in the oven to use for croutons in Caesar salad.
When left out overnight, stale focaccia pieces get dry as a bone, and then we put pieces into a plastic bag and mash with a rolling pin to make crumbs for breading. These are wonderful on pork cutlets.
Focaccia takes well to flavoring. It can be a showcase for delicate herbs, such as basil and tarragon, or for stronger ones, such as rosemary and thyme.
Use the flatbread as a "canvas" for caramelized onions, garlic, olives and peppers and other toppings.
A generous sprinkling of coarse salt adds texture and crunch as well as flavor. Don't even think of leaving it off.
With all the recent chatter about sea salts, there can be confusion over what to use in a recipe.
When a recipe calls for salt or fine salt, use ordinary table salt. Good old Morton's does the job. When a recipe calls for coarse salt, use kosher salt or one of the large, irregular-size crystal sea salts.
Here are a few baking tips:
* The correct pan is called a half-sheet pan, 11 by 17 inches. Every supermarket sells them, and they double as cookie sheets.
* If you find that the dough is quite elastic and hard to shape into the corners of the pan, allow the dough to rest for five minutes or so.
The dough will want to shrink some from the corners of the pan in any case, but after a short rise, the corners will fill in.
* Although focaccia is best eaten the day it is made, it's fine toasted the next day. The trick is to keep it at room temperature, never in the refrigerator.
Basic Focaccia
2 packages active dry yeast
1 3/4 cups warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus 1/4 cup
5 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
2 teaspoons fine (table) salt
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Sprinkle with sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of olive oil, the flour and the fine salt. Stir until a rough ball forms. Scrape dough out onto a floured work surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Add up to 1/2 cup flour while kneading.
Form dough into a ball, transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise until double, 1 to 11/2 hours.
Pour remaining 1/4 cup olive oil evenly into a half-sheet (11 by 17 inches) pan. It will look like too much oil, but it is the correct amount. Turn dough out into pan. Press dough evenly into the pan. Cover loosely with a towel. Let rise until double, about 1 hour.
Position rack in lower third of oven. Preheat to 450 degrees. Dimple dough by pressing your fingertips all the way into it at 1-inch intervals over the entire surface. Sprinkle with coarse salt.
Bake until golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pan. Cut into squares.
Store tightly wrapped in aluminum foil at room temperature for up to a day or freeze for up to 2 weeks. Reheat at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
To make Onion, Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia: Thinly slice 2 yellow onions. In a frying pan over medium-high heat, warm 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add onions and saute until dark brown and caramelized, about 12 minutes. Add 2 garlic cloves, minced, and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary to the onions. Cook for 2 minutes longer. Just before dimpling dough, spread onion mixture on top. Sprinkle with coarse salt.
(Source: Adapted from "Essentials of Baking," Williams-Sonoma)
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