Recipe: FOCACCIA

Master this, and you will be declared an official Italian

I won’t lie. As uncomplicated as this recipe is, it is nearly impossible to duplicate the fresh and savory flavors of the original. The reason Italian food is so mouthwatering is because the ingredients are grown in Italian soil. Some kind of wizardry happens when you grow rosemary under hot Italian suns and wash it clean in pure Italian rain. Subtleties of flavor pop. Your taste buds tell you you’re in the presence of greatness.

That said, learning how to make focaccia is an important step in your becoming an honorary Italian. It will give you a baseline of comparison, so that when you come to Italy, you will immediately know what good focaccia should taste like, and what constitutes a perfect balance between crunchiness and softness.

While freely acknowledging how irksome the metric system can be when making recipe conversions, it’s the only way to get precise measurements.

Ingredients:

Flour 470 grams

Dry Yeast 5 grams

Sugar 16 grams

Water (room temperature) 230 grams

Whole milk 115 grams

Extra virgin olive oil 45 grams

Salt up to 12 grams

Fresh Rosemary to taste

Salt flakes to taste

Instructions:

1. Mix yeast and sugar together in small bowl.

2. Add flour, and pour ingredients into planetary mixer fitted with single blade (planetary mixers are vertical mixers where the agitator moves around the bowl like a planet orbiting the sun.)

3. While planetary mixer is rotating, pour in milk and water.

4. Add oil, a little bit at a time.

5. After dough has taken on a little consistency, replace blade with hook.

6. Pour in salt and continue to knead for about fifteen minutes.

7. Transfer to lightly floured work surface. Using bench scraper (also known as a dough scraper or bench knife—basically, any flat, rectangular piece of steel with a handle along one edge) and start folding dough, lifting a flap and bringing it to the center, working your way around ball of dough.

8. Transfer mixture to bowl and cover top in Saran Wrap.

9. Place bowl inside oven with the light on and let rise for two hours, or when dough has doubled.

10. Using olive oil, thoroughly grease 35x28 cm rectangular pan.

11. Place dough inside pan. Greasing your hands with olive oil, spread dough to all edges and corners of pan.

12. Cover with Saran Wrap and let rise in oven with light on, approximately one hour.

13. After an hour, create dimples in dough with oiled fingertips.

14. Sprinkle with oil, a few leaves of fresh rosemary, and some salt flakes.

15. Bake 35-40 minutes in lower part of 350 degree oven. Ready to eat immediately.

Buon appetito!