Friday night’s supper of a mussel, tomato and kale stew needed something to mop up all the delicious juices. I decided on a focaccia with some fresh seasonal touches. Focaccia, an Italian bread can be traced back to the ancient Etruscans, who settled in northern Italy. The word focaccia derives it’s name from the word focus, which in Latin means hearth. In a time when ovens were uncommon, flat rounds of dough were cooked directly on the hearth. What makes pizza different from focaccia? Pizza is Neapolitan from southern Italy and has a thinner crust while focaccia is thicker and from the north of Italy, Liguira.
The Bread Baker’s Apprentice was an excellent choice for my recipe. Author Peter Reinhart is a baking instructor at Johnson and Wales. Mr. Reinhart’s abilities as a teacher shine through in his books. His recipe doesn’t rely just on the toppings to make the finished product, but on a flavorful crust with “open translucent holes” as he calls them, like a ciabatta. This requires a fermented dough and I went with the quicker method (not using a starter which would have added an extra day to the process) because of time constraints. I chose a topping of sauteed leeks from the garden, fontina cheese and a sprinkling of garlic chives to make a very tasteful accompaniment to our stew.
Focaccia
Adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
Makes one 17 by 12 focaccia
- 4 cups unbleached high gluten or bread flour
- 1 cup King Arthur white whole wheat flour
- 2 t salt
- 2 t instant yeast
- 6T olive oil
- 2c room temperature water
- 1/4 to 1/2c herbed olive oil (recipe to follow)
- 3-4 leeks, thinly sliced and sauteed until soft, not brown, to make 1 1/2 cups
- 1 cup grated fontina cheese.
- 1/2 c finely snipped garlic chives
- Stir together the flours, salt and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add oil and water mixing on low speed with the paddle attachment for 3-5 minutes, until the dough is smooth and ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Switch over to the dough hook attachment and mix on medium speed until you make a smooth sticky dough, 5-7 minutes. The dough will clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl.
- Sprinkle flour on your countertop in a 6″ square. Using a spatula dipped in water, transfer the sticky dough to the bed of flour. Dust liberally with flour and pat dough into a rectangle. Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and wait five minutes for the dough to relax. This is a good time to clean your very sticky mixer bowl and beaters before they are coated with hard, gluey flour.
- Coat your hands with flour and stretch the dough from end to end until it is twice it’s size. Fold it letter style over itself to return it to it’s rectangular shape. Lightly brush the dough with olive oil, dust with flour, and loosely cover with kitchen towel.
- Let rest for 30 minutes. Repeat the stretching and folding procedure in step three. After another 30 minutes, repeat the step again.
- Ferment the covered dough on the counter for about an hour. It will puff up but not necessarily double in size.
- Line a 17 by 12 baking sheet with parchment paper. Drizzle with olive oil and spread with a brush to cover the surface. With lightly oiled hands, transfer the dough from the counter to the baking sheet, maintaining the shape as much as possible. Spoon herbed oil (see accompanying recipe) to cover over the dough.
- Now for the fun part, with your fingertips, dimple the dough as you spread it out to cover the baking sheet. If it doesn’t reach the edges, don’t worry, the dough will expand as it proofs. Use more herbed oil as needed to coat the dough.
- Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Remove the baking pan from the refrigerator several hours before baking. Drizzle additional herbed oil over the surface, it will be absorbed by the dough.
- At this point the sauteed leeks can be scattered over the surface of the dough. Cover the dough again with plastic wrap and proof at room temperature for several hours, until the dough doubles in size, about 1 inch in thickness.
- While your dough is proofing, preheat oven to 500F with the rack on the middle shelf.
- Place the pan in the oven. Lower oven setting to 450F and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees and continue baking the focaccia for another 5-10 minutes, until it turns a light golden brown. At this time sprinkle the fontina on the focaccia and bake for a few more minutes, watch closely, until the cheese is melted, not burnt! At this point I scattered the garlic chives on, the melted cheese helps them to stick.
- Remove pan from the oven and immediately transfer the focaccia out of the pan and onto a cooling rack, I did this with two flat spatulas. If the parchment is stuck on the bottom, carefully remove it by lifting the corner of the focaccia and gently peel off.
- Resist temptation and allow the focaccia to cool for 20 minutes. Now you are ready to slice and serve.
Herbed Oil
While your dough is fermenting warm 1 cup olive oil to about 100F. Add 1/2 cup chopped garlic chives. Cover and allow to sit for an hour before using. I strained the oil into a clean canning jar before using. This recipe could be done with other herbs such as basil, rosemary, or a combination of herbs. Store remaining oil in the refrigerator and use within two weeks.
