One of my favorite dinners as a single guy (B.T. – before Tricia) was simple – just standing at the sink eating prosciutto and big chunks of fresh crusty bread, still warm from the oven. I’d dunk it in olive oil sprinkled with sea salt, chasing bread with wine and slivers of reggiano sliced fine so that they would melt on my tongue. I seldom stand at the sink and eat bread for dinner any longer, but still end up buying 2 or 3 loaves of “artisan” bread each week. My favorite comes with roasted garlic baked in. For sandwiches I prefer flat chewy focaccia bread, but we’re left at the whim of the local bakeries and delis for availability. We do have good bread up here (Great Harvest, L’Aroma,) but I’ve never spent much (any) time trying to make it myself. Last week I read this post and realized I needed to give it a go. I was faced with several initial obstacles:
- I’m terrible at recipes – I like to interpret too much – which doesn’t work with baking,
- I’ve not really baked much of anything,
- There are different kinds of flour? Really?
- I’ve not got a mixer, and
- I’m basically lazy – making bread seems HARD.
With all of this in the back of my mind, I assembled all of the things I’d need and got to work. I won’t list out the specifics of the recipe, as there are as many ways to make focaccia as there are food sites, but I will list some of the issues (i.e. mistakes I made) I found and you can find your own method. I started with the recipe in Saveur and on the blog linked above, but found some immediate issues in comprehension even though I not yet corked a single bottle of wine. First, certain recipes call for the dough to rest overnight in the fridge. If you are following one of these and haven’t read the whole thing through before starting, you end up sorely disappointed that evening. And for those bread virgins out there (like me), know that there is an enormous difference in a stand mixer and a hand mixer. Like me, you may be tempted to think “well, I’ll just be patient and power tough it with the hand mixer – it can’t be too much different,” when it’s actually like trying to herd cats. Doesn’t work and eventually you are left with a smoking, smelly, burned-up hand mixer and really sticky dough on the cabinets. And ceiling. All of the recipes I found seem to agree that olive oil, lots of it, is the key to good focaccia bread, but they differ (even in the respective recipe, it seems) as to when it should be added. I had the dough kneaded and ready to go when one of the ones I was referencing called for more oil, a tough proposition when the dough is already shaped. I allowed the dough rest overnight and then let it rise again for a few hours the next day. Focaccia dough should apparently be handled at little as possible after rising in order to keep all of the gassy yeasty bubbly goodness in it. Once you shape it and form it, you are supposed to let it rest and rise again a bit at least once: mine ended up tasting fine, but the texture and consistency was off a bit. Still, it’s been good and was well worth the relatively small time it took to build. And I’ve got a mixer on order, so no more excuses.
