Thursday, August 09, 2007

Focaccia

I learned to bake this bread when I took up Italian baking lesson at New York Culinary School with the famous pastry chef Nick Malgieri and I've been making this bread ever since. Is rustic and very easy bread to make and you can put any topping you want but the most common one will be rosemary and olives. You can even put all kinds of herbs, anchovies and also onions. I always like my foccacia with fresh cherry tomato and olives. The other one is with sun dried tomato with olives.

For the bread :
3 tbsp of olive oil
2 1/4 cups of unbleached flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of sugar
1 envelope of dry yeast
1 cup of lukewarm water (if might need a bit extra if the dough is too dry)

Mix sugar, yeast into the lukewarm water. Set aside until it bubble
In a mixing bowl combine flour and salt. Add in the yeast mixture and turn on the mixer and knead dough. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth. It might take about 5 min but if you knead by hand it will take longer. Transfer the dough to a lightly grease bowl and cover with a kitchen towel and let it raise in a warm place for an hour. It should double it size. Punch down the dough.

Lightly oil a baking pan and put the dough into the centre of the pan. Lightly oil your fingers and push the dough evenly out on the pan. Put a bit of indentation on the surface of the dough to creates a nice little pockets for the topping and olive oil.

Rest the dough again for 20-30 min. When the dough is risen, scatter the topping all over and drizzle with some olive oil. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree F oven for 30 min or until it golden brown and cooked through. Slice and serve with soup or eaten on its own.
Topping (suggestion)

1 cup of cherry tomatoes (halve)
1/2 cup of olives (halve)
slice onions
sun-dried tomatoes
Parmesan cheese
chopped rosemary
roasted peppers

Note : I made a mistake by putting the basil on the bread and it was burn. So sprinkle the basil only after the bread is done.

13 comments:

boo_licious said...

That looks so delicious - foccacia is always my fav when I visit a bakery. We don't get it most of the time.

Cat Cat said...

Looks good Gert. The first picture kinda look like cherries on some kind of bread (dessert).
Yet another good & easy recipe.

Zue Murphy said...

Gert, I love this delicious recipe of yours. I must try it. Should I get plain olives or with spices? Must it be green olives or black will do?

Beachlover said...

Gert..5 star for you!!.This recipe look easy to me.Can I replace cheese and meat for topping a version of pizza?.I never bake this kind of luxury bread.Hubby crazy for pizza.

drNO said...

would like to try this.
have been looking everywhere for foccacia recipe.

may I not, how many grams is one envelope of instant dry yeast.-because in Malaysia- one env is 11grams.

Lia said...

drolling seeing ur foccasia on breakfast time here :D

Kiersten said...

Gert, it's so nice to be living abroad - you get the freshest ingredients ever! I can only dream of planting my very own herb garden.

Has anyone tried it yet in Malaysia?

ICook4Fun said...

Boo, thanks for stopping by. You cake bake it yourself. Is easy.

Cat, those cherries tomato are from my garden :)

Zue, is really delicious to eat it with soup. You can use any kind of olives.

Beachlover, you should make it for your hubby. He will really sayang you. You can put any kind of topping but remember this bread is much thicker than the pizza.

DrNo, one envelope of dry yeast here is 7g.

Lia, I keep a slice for you :)

Pinky, there are pros and cons living abroad. We can plant lots of berbs here and get fresh ingredients but is hard to get fresh Asian ingredients :) You can plant fresh herbs back home but remember to put it at a shady area. Let me know if you need some seeds. I will mail it to you.

Rita Ho said...

Slurrrrrrrrrp! Another goodie for my list of Gert's recipes to try out! Thanks, Gert.

drNO said...

it's very hard to get the herbs here.
yesterday I made a rosemary chicken (jamie oliver's)- but couldn't get fresh thyme, neither in TESCO nor JUSCO, so have to make do with dried thyme.
do u think we can plant it here in malaysia??? it's very hot here, may be in Cameron highlands..
how about indoor...hmmmm

ICook4Fun said...

Rita, your roast chicken looks really good.

drno, back in malaysian I used to plant oregano and thyme and it grown really well. Not too sure about basil because basil don't like too much sun. Maybe you can plant it at a shady area.

Eileen Ang said...

Hi, you used cup as a form of meansurement for this bread, but how much is 1 cup of flour? I check out the conversion, is abt 110 gm per cup. Is this correct?
Or can I use any size of cup for this?

ICook4Fun said...

Eileen, Use cups that are meant for baking.