Jump to content

  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Delicious Focaccia

joesan

By joesan,
in Italy: Cooking & Baking

 Share Followers 0

Recommended Posts

joesan

joesan

Posted
Posted

I can make, by my own admission :biggrin: , perfect sourdough, fantastic baguettes, delicious pizza (even approved by native neapolitans) but I cannot, even after multiple tries, make an acceptable focaccia.

Mine always ends up overly dry or too oily. I've tried, as advised by some to use a pizza dough but this ends up too thin and crispy. Others end up as simply like a thin slab of bread.

What I am looking for is a soft, delicate but slightly chewy bite with lots of open holes. The focaccia should be lightly but perceptibly oily, nicely salty and with a hints of rosemary or oregano in the topping. The focaccia should also have nice rise and be thick not thin like an unadorned pizza base.

So come on egulleteers help me out and let's see those attempts for the perfect focaccia recipe!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Basilgirl

Basilgirl

Posted
Posted

My favorite recipe comes from "No Need to Knead" by Suzanne Dunaway. You just stir it all up, let it rise and plop it in the pan. It's a very loose, sticky dough. I always make it thin but I suppose if you used a smaller pan it would come out thicker.

Potato in the dough makes a nice think foccacia.

I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Basilgirl

Basilgirl

Posted
Posted
Thanks Basilgirl! I am off to Books for Cooks tomorrow to purchase that one and give it a try.

Does it give a nice soft focaccia?

Any more out there?

Well, it's a nice chewy foccacia...but I imagine that it would be softer if it were thicker - I spread it out on my biggest pan and put BIG holes in it, almost like a fougasse...

I like that book very much, but please peruse it before you purchase it on my recommendation! Because it sounds from your first post that you are a much much better baker than I!

I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Link to post
Share on other sites
torakris

torakris

Posted
Posted

I love focaccia and have searched for a while for a good recipe. I have fallen in love with Jack Bishop's high rise focaccia from his "The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook". This is a thick and soft focaccia and includes the addition of one potato and is very simple to make.

The book also has a lot of other great recipes as well. :biggrin:

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
joesan

joesan

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Torakris - thanks for the recommendation, another one for me to check out at the bookstore tomorrow.

The way you describe it sounds very close to what I want to achieve.

The name of the book struck a bell so I went to my cookbook library. However turned out to be another book called Italian Vegetarian Cooking by Emanuela Stucchi. There must be many books with that title.

Funnily enough one time I had a particularly nice focaccia at the Caffe Idee in Tokyo of all places. It was served with a nice Parma Ham scattered with freshly picked oregano. Yummy...

Link to post
Share on other sites
PassionateChefsDie

PassionateChefsDie

Posted
Posted

As you seem to be extremely experienced have you tried just using a ciabatta recipe drizzled with a good oil and prodded and baked in a flat pan. I've seen acceptable results using this and the dough seems to be the same.

Perfection cant be reached, but it can be strived for!
Link to post
Share on other sites
CaliPoutine

CaliPoutine

Posted
Posted

I've had good luck with the foccacia recipe in baking with julia. I think the key to a good foccacia is an overnight rest in the fridge. The one mentioned upthread by torakris has an overnight rest. I read that same recipe in an older issue of fine cooking magazine.

Randi

2girlsinthekitchen.blogspot.com

The Senior Dining Thread

eG Food Blogs

#1#2

#3

#4

Link to post
Share on other sites
zilla369

zilla369

Posted
Posted

At home (not at work, I have a massive recipe for that), I use this Tyler Florence recipe.

I love the texture and crumb of this bread - but I skip the onions and olives, and just use the cheese and rosemary.

Marsha Lynch aka "zilla369"

Has anyone ever actually seen a bandit making out?

Uh-huh: just as I thought. Stereotyping.

Link to post
Share on other sites
weinoo

weinoo

Posted
Posted

I've always liked the recipes in the Il Fornaio Baking Book by Franco Galli - excellent focaccias from an excellent baker.

Peter Reinhart also has a great focaccia recipe in Crust & Crumb, and I seem to recall an article all about focaccia by Reinhart in a recent issue of Fine Cooking (can't remember the date though).

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Matsu

Matsu

Posted
Posted
I've had good luck with the foccacia recipe in baking with julia.  I think the key to a good foccacia is an overnight rest in the fridge. 

I like this recipe too. The overnight rest does make a big difference. The grilled veggie focaccia sandwich at the end of the recipe is excellent. Try the leaf shaped fougasse using the same focaccia dough (from Baking with Julia as well).

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 13 years later...
blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted (edited)

In the "Fat" episode of Samin Nosrat's Netflix series Salt, Fat, Acid Heat, a Ligurian baker is shown making a delicious looking focaccia that involved pouring a salt/water brine over the shaped dough and letting it proof for 45 min with the brine before baking. A recipe is posted on the show's website here, and credited to Josey Baker.  Although the method is somewhat different from what was done on the show, it does use the brine step.  I tried it anyway and the crust was indeed very crispy and delicious as promised on the show.

Edited to add that the online recipe calls for 2T salt.  I used 1T by mistake as it's what my usual recipe calls for but it turned out to be plenty.  With the brine and a sprinkle of salt before baking, I think 2T would be too much.

The recipe certainly does use an abundance of olive oil: 10 - 12T for this 1/2 sheet pan 

IMG_9333.thumb.jpg.572740683a01fa94ce62cc3c9300fc53.jpg

 

The crumb:

IMG_9336.thumb.jpg.6954d8a1741e378087510d644f751baa.jpg

Edited by blue_dolphin
to add note about salt (log)
  • Like 2
  • Delicious 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Lisa Shock said:

@blue_dolphin Is it a bit like soft pretzels?

 

When it was warm, the crust was more crispy than the chewy crust that I associate with soft pretzels, though I may never have tried the best soft pretzel examples. 

It reminded me a little of the crust on the nan-e-barbari that is painted with a flour/sugar/oil/water glaze before baking

Edited by blue_dolphin
correcting autocorrect (log)
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
 Share
Followers 0
Go to topic listing

  • Similar Content

    • Darienne
      Commercial Gluten-free breads available in Ontario?
      By Darienne
      So I am gluten-free for a month anyway...along with sugar-free, dairy-free, coffee-free...and so far so good...except for the bread part. 
       
      Ed bought two kinds of gluten-free bread for me to try last week at a regular grocery store in Ontario.  The whole grain bread was from Little Northern Bakehouse and it was awful, both untoasted and toasted.  The sandwich bread was from Glutino...now there's an appealing name...and it was even worse.
       
      Is there such a thing as a passable...not good...just passable...gluten-free bread to buy in a grocery store in Ontario?  No American brands need apply...I won't be able to buy them in East Central Ontario in a small size city.
       
      Thanks. 
    • DianaM
      The Bread Topic (2016–)
      By DianaM
      Host's note: this is part of a large topic that has been split into smaller segments to reduce the load on our servers.  The previous segment may be found here: The Bread Topic (2015-2016).
       
       
      I've been trying to settle on a formula for a nice, basic, no frills sourdough which my friends (with zero interest in whole grains) can enjoy, and I think I've found my winner in a country white (10% w/g spelt) with 80% hydration. Mild, mild sourness despite the 12 hour cold proof. I want to try holding back some of the water to see if I can achieve better loft, but otherwise, I am happy with the formula. 
       
       

    • Mutleyracers
      Bread books for beginners recommendations.
      By Mutleyracers
      Hi all. I hope you are well. I am just into baking bread due to lockdown and need help. Ideally I would like modernist bread but the wife is not quite agreeing to that yet. So I would like some where to start for now until she comes around to the idea. After she has tasted all my amazing breads I make. 
       
      I would like this to be in metric rather than imperial.
       
      Thank you 
    • AlaMoi
      Osso bucco
      By AlaMoi
      okay, it's spelled many ways.  that's not the point here....
      I'm working on the perfect sauce/cooking liquid/+other things combo for a delectable dish.  
      I don't have problems with the meat - I can get good shanks, browned nicely, they come out tender and tasty.
      it's the in-pot accompaniments that disappoint.  I done multiple versions of 'trinity,' tried tomato based/adds, tried various seasonings.  I've served it with rice, pasta, barley, faro as the 'side reinforcement.'
      there was a little resto in North Henderson / Patrick Lane(?) that did "my ideal" knock-em-dead version, I've never been able to duplicate the taste.
      anyone have a super-version?  am I missing some magic spicing classic to the real Italian deal?
    • Mutleyracers
      Hi All
      By Mutleyracers
      Hello everyone. I hope you are all keeping well in these strange times. 
       
      I am Lee. I live in the UK and have been on lockdown since the 16th of March. Like many people I have started getting into bread from listening to the modernist bread podcast. Now i don't have the book (wife won't let me yet, but i am working on it. So I have been trying bread recipes online. I have a Combi Steam oven which I use but all my loaves end up a little sticky in the middle. I have tried a basic white bread loaf with Diax and Jim Lahey's no knead in a pyrex dish. 3 x each so far and they are all a little sticky in the middle. When I squeeze the bread innthe middle it springs back a little but could be turned into a dough ball i think. 
       
      Any way, I have come on here in search of advice.
       
      Kind regards Lee 

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...