Focaccia Ricca: picnic food!

I can’t remember when I last had a spell of making this Sicilian bread. I know it was in the Seventies and I remember I got the recipe from a Sicilian American, because it was impressed upon me that this was not Italian, but Sicilian. I had been studying Italian at the university and had been to Italy one time doing a month of self-directed study and you could at the time talk me into almost anything if it was to do with Italy. There’s still a little of that in me.

I also don’t know how I fell out of the habit of making it now and then, because everybody always liked it. It’s cheap to make. It keeps very well for a few days wrapped well as long as it doesn’t have meat in it, or in the freezer for who knows how long even with meat. It’s extremely flexible and you can stud it with pretty much whatever strikes your fancy.  It is easy to make it vegetarian and even vegan.

Is it a bread? Yes, it definitely starts with bread. Is it a meal? That too, in the way that pizza is a meal. Is it a pizza? No, it is not a pizza, precisely, but more a cousin of pizza. Cooked pizza is not especially attractive once it’s cooled down from the oven. Pizza is highly flavored with herbs and salty things. Pizza is wetter, more calorific and is not allowed to rise a second time. This is definitely Sicilian stuffed focaccia and not pizza.

It all starts with a good bread dough. My recipe currently makes a bit more than a pound of dough, which is enough for two good-sized focaccie. It’s a lot easier to make with a scale, but then many things are. I use the dough hooks on my hand mixer nowadays, but years back I used a standing mixer and then a food processor when I got it. You can knead the dough with the machine with good result all three ways. You can also make this from a pile of flour on the work counter, mixing and then kneading entirely by hand. If you do it that way, give it plenty of time to develop long gluten strings. With the dough hooks I work it at least five minutes, so by hand you will want to triple that time at least, timing it from making the flour mountain to the last turn and slap of the dough. That method is better than tranquilizers, believe me. Who are you mad at?

In the three trials I’ve done while resurrecting this focaccia, I used plain 00 flour from soft wheat, hard wheat/ Manitoba/semolina flour and this last time I used a mixture of half and half. They all work. The difference here in Italy is that the hard wheat flour costs four times as much as the ordinary 00 flour. I find only a marginal difference in the elasticity of the finished focaccia to the bite. It’s nice, but not that notable to someone who isn’t looking for it.

The dough

500 g or just under 4 cups of ordinary flour or hard wheat flour if you prefer
1 packet of dry yeast granules
1 tablespoon sugar (no, you may not use Splenda)
1 to 1 ½ teaspoons salt
356 ml or 1 ½ cup warm water (this is approximate, add the last of the water slowly as the dough starts to take form)
1 tablespoon or so of good olive oil

See that note on the water amount? One day last week when it was humid I used a full ounce less of water, the next time I made this it took more than the total mentioned. It depends on how humid the air is, because flour soaks up water from the air and is sometimes already wet before you start.

However you are making the dough, mix it up and get it together. As you mix it, it will go from a collection of damp crumbs to an ever increasingly moist dough, so keep back an ounce of the water until you see if it will do that without it. Add it if you need to, and feel free to add another spoonful if you need it. It’s experience with seeing what that looks like that separates bakers from the rest of us. I am still learning this. Really work this dough, whether with a machine or by hand, then cover it and leave it in a warm place for and hour or so. I still do the rising in one steel bowl covered with another slightly smaller, which makes for a draft free and cosy atmosphere. At the moment, in late August, I am having no trouble at all looking for a warm place.

The focaccia

About 45 minutes before you want these focaccie, form them.

Divide the dough into two pieces. If at all possible, use baking paper or parchment on which to form the dough. This will allow you to cook it without a pan in the oven, and it makes a great deal of difference to the bottom of the focaccia.

Using well-oiled fingers, spread the dough out in a rectangle about 8” X 12”. Accuracy is not necessary and will not affect your grade. Make sure you’ve created a lot of dimpled finger prints in the dough. When both a formed, the first may be ready to stud with goodies. The dough needs to have risen a bit before you start. Take diced pieces of what you want—and do not overdo this—and poke bits into the dough here and there. Here I am showing one done with bits of onion, garlic, hot salami and red pepper. Drizzle with oil and grind black pepper over it.

And here is one made with dry-cured black olives and onion. Add the oil and black pepper. I did not here, because this focaccia is being baked just to the point where the dough isn’t wet and will be finished when I want to serve it. Then I’ll add the oil and pepper just before giving it that last, browning, hot bake. The things I will not put in focaccia are really wet things, like tomato. Otherwise, almost any cheese, bits of vegetable, bits of anchovy, really, anything tasty that will cook in the few minutes it takes to cook focaccia and not make it swampy and gooey.

Allow the focaccie to continue to rise while you preheat the oven. Leave only the bottom rack in the oven and have it as low as it will go. Turn the oven on to MAX temperature and let it preheat for at least 30 minutes. It should blast out at you most unpleasantly when you open the door.

Slide a flat, no-sides cookie sheet under the paper upon which you formed one focaccia. Carry it to the oven and slide the paper onto the lowest rack. Close the oven and don’t look for at least ten minutes, and then you should see some spring from the oven heat and evidence that the things you put in it are cooking. When the top bubbly parts are starting to brown, it should be done. Slide the cookie sheet under the paper and carry the whole thing to preferably a wooden cutting board, then slide the focaccia off the paper onto the board. You can then cook the second one.

You can eat this blazing hot from the oven, warm or cold. This too would make great picnic food. I ate some of this one with slices of fresh, ripe tomato on top, and as usual, I saved some for you.

I usually start the dough at breakfast or at lunch, depending on when I want to serve it, then leave it entirely alone while I go off and do whatever I do (and I am not sure I even know what that is) coming back to it just that hour before I want it. Other times I just make it up to have something in the house that is ready to serve, either from the freezer or from the cupboard. I made it last Sunday for our day spent in the river. We ate it with a salade Nicoise Larry and Shelly brought. I think I am lonely for that salad….

According to my math, the first one cost euro 1.62 to make, and the second one with olives a mere 85 centesimi, plus electricity for the oven, but I haven’t a clue what that costs. My point is that we’ve made a delicious, flexible food for practically nothing. Why don’t you make it, too?

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