Focaccia genovese

focaccia genovese

I LOVE focaccia, me! For the people who don’t know what it is: it’s a flat bread made with LOADS of olive oil which originates from the Liguria region in Italy. When I was a child I used to go there for my holidays and basically overdosed on this bread. Oh my word! It was utterly delicious! I have never tasted one as nice ever since. There are different types out there, as it is often the case. You can make it plain, add olives, onions, tomatoes, rosemary…your choice. I have tried and tried to make one, using different recipes, flours, sour dough, you name it. HOWEVER I have never been 100% satisfied with the results. Until yesterday, that is,  when I finally made one I was happy with: nice and soft on the inside, lovely and crunchy on the outside. I know now where I have gone wrong all this time. I was basically trying to use a bread recipe and adapt it. WRONG! The focaccia dough is much wetter then bread’s. Also you are better off using 00 type of flour (I ordered mine on Amazon, in the end). I mainly used the recipe from the website Giallo zafferano, albeit I adapted it slightly.

INGREDIENTS

• 600 gr. flour (type 00)
• 360 ml. water (in the original recipe it said 400 but it was far too wet)
• 25 gr. fresh yeast (or 10 gr. dry yeast)
• 1 teaspoonful malt (or 2 teaspoons sugar)
• 12 gr. salt
• 140 ml. good quality olive oil (even better extra virgin)
• coarse salt to sprinkle on the top (I also sprinkled some rosemary leaves)

METHOD

Combine flour, salt, malt then add the water in which you have dissolved the fresh yeast (if you are using dry add it to the flour before adding water) and 40 ml. of olive oil. Mix well and knead for about 5 minutes. Put 50 ml of olive oil on a large oven tray then plonk the focaccia dough on it. Brush the top of the dough with plenty of olive oil and leave in a warm place to prove. When it has doubled in size (after approx. an hour to one hour and a half) stretch the dough with your fingers so that it covers the whole tin, reaching all the edges. Make sure it is brushed with oil and sprinkle some coarse salt on the top. Leave it for another half an hour. Then make deep dimples in the focaccia using your finger pushing them all the way to the bottom. Drizzle the remaining olive oil on the top and leave for another half an hour. Spray some water on the top and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for approx. 25 minutes until golden at the top.

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