Focaccia is a no-knead Italian quick bread which should be a part of everyone's repertoire. You'll need a few toys to make this one sing -- ideally, a four-cup and a one-cup measure, a good mixer or a strong arm, a rubber spatula for scraping down the sides of the mixer, a paint brush, an open-ended cookie sheet (or pizza peel), a pizza stone, and parchment paper. Of these, the last three are indispensable.
Sorry, no pictures this time. I hope the usefulness and quality of this recipe makes up for it!
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup room temperature water
1/2 to 1 packet of rapid rise yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
More olive oil to brush the focaccia
A variety of goodies to sprinkle on your focaccia (details below)
1. Stir or mix together the flour, yeast, and salt. Add the water and olive oil all at once, and stir to combine. Keep stirring until the gluten develops -- the dough will take on a slightly stringy quality. This usually only takes a minute or two, and under no circumstances should you stir for over five minutes.
2. You'll have a wet dough, one which will stick to your hands. That's what that rubber spatula is for. Brush the sides of a four-cup measure with olive oil, then scoop the dough into the cup. Cover the top with plastic wrap and set it aside in a not-too-cold place. (If you brush the plastic wrap with oil or spray it with Pam, the dough won't stick if it rises to the top.)
3. It will take 1 to 2 hours for the dough to rise. It depends on how warm your kitchen is, how much yeast you have used, and how active your yeast is. For dinner at 6 to 7 PM, I usually start this recipe around 4 PM. Towards the end of the rise, preheat the oven to 450F.
4. Using the spatula, turn the dough out onto a rectangle of parchment paper. Again using the spatula, work from the center outward to spread the dough into the desired shape -- a 14-inch disk as if you were making pizza, for example, or a 13 by 13 rectangle. You'll figure it out.
5. The most common topping I use is chopped fresh rosemary, finely diced onions or shallots, freshly ground black pepper, and coarse sea salt (the stuff they use for those big pretzels). Make sure you stir the onions or shallots with some olive oil first -- otherwise, they'll burn.
If you have allowed your focaccia to rise, you can now use your fingertips to make indentations all over the surface. These indentations will catch the olive oil. Paint the surface with oil and/or drizzle the top with oil. Be liberal about it. You are a Kossack, after all.
Grind pepper over the top, evenly distribute the rosemary and onions, then sprinkle with sea salt.
6. This is where the pizza peel or open-ended cookie sheet comes in handy, since otherwise it's a bitch getting this thing into and out of the oven. Slip it into the hot oven and bake until golden brown -- roughly 15 to 20 minutes, depending upon your oven.
Variations, suggestions . . .
A. You can substitute up to a third of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour.
B. Other healthy additions are acceptable, of course. I sometimes add a good heaping tablespoonful of dried nonfat milk.
C. As a topping, chopped fresh garlic tends to burn, in my experience. However, there's no reason you couldn't saute the garlic in olive oil and then use THAT olive oil for the recipe (minus the garlic chunks). Garlic powder would work too, of course.
D. For great bread sticks, you could easily grate fresh parmesan or mozzarella over the focaccia, then slice it up into skinny sticks.
E. Does this make a killer pizza dough? You betcha. At step 4, get some oil on your fingertips and spread the dough from the center outward. Ordinarily, you would want nearly a uniform thickness for your focaccia, but for pizza, you'll want a thinner center with furled edges. It takes a little effort, but it ain't rocket science. It may not be necessary, but I usually pre-bake for about 10 minutes before adding toppings.
Enjoy!