Tineggiori Focaccia

Fresh Garlic is making it's way into the shops and markets and I grabbed some up yesterday just because I love it so much.

I hadn't planned our meal last night which is very unusual, I like the organisation of knowing in advance what to shop, harvest and cook for, I've planned my weekly menus for the last 25 years and I'm afraid I'm stuck with the habit.

I had a long day in front of the computer yesterday sorting out our facebook page and youtube channel, I try to make bread dough in the evening and leave it to prove overnight so it's ready to bake for breakfast, I doubled the ingredients and made a focaccia for tea, we ate it with some pasta, sausage and tomato sauce.

Recipe:

500g flour (strong bread flour in UK)
7g dried yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
approx 300ml warm water
1 glug olive oil

Topping:

1 onion, finely sliced
garlic to taste
coarse salt
few sprigs rosemary
sprinkling of parmesan

Method:

Add the dried yeast and sugar to the warm water, let stand for 10-15 minutes, stir.

Add the salt and flour to a big mixing bowl (I use my mixer with the dough hook for the tough bit), add the water slowly and mix to form a soft, slightly sticky dough.  All flours absorb liquid differently so you may have water left over but this is fine.

Knead the dough for 15 minutes.

Place in a bowl covered with a damp cloth or damp parchment paper and leave to rise for about 1 hour, longer if you're busy with something more exciting! 

Turn the dough out onto a board, knead again for 1 minute, now, roll, pull and stretch the dough to fit onto a large baking sheet, don't worry too much about this bit, size really doesn't matter, *sniggers childishly* you will end up with either a smaller, thicker base or a larger, thinner one.

Now poke your fingers and knuckles into the dough to make lovely little crevices that will create little pools of olive oil and herbs.  Add your toppings with as much gay abandon as you can cope with, as much or as little as you like, perhaps go a bit easy on the salt though.  I used a whole garlic bulb and added the cloves whole, fresh is a lot milder and turns very sweet when roasted with salt and olive oil, it also means that the couple of garlic wusses among us can pick it off without offending their taste buds!

Some will say you should leave the dough to prove again at this stage, I do myself sometimes, but last night I was in a hurry and baked it straight away at about 180°C for half an hour or until its golden brown.

Then all there is left to do is convince your family and friends that, yes, you really did make it yourself!

Much love from Tineggiori

xxx