Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Focaccia!


Yesterday Jon and I made the rest of our pizza dough into tasty, tasty focaccia. I served it with a Caprese salad (tomato, mozzarella, basil, black pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar) and used the bread to sop up the tasty juice leftover from the salad. When that was gone, I switched to pouring olive oil and balsamic vinegar onto the bread. Probably not the healthiest meal I could make, but it was delicious. I have a real weakness for bread dripping with good olive oil. Jon and I just switched to a better EVOO (he hates it when I use Rachael Ray-isms), and it made a real difference. For the record, it's Iliada brand. In case you were wondering about the weird tomato distribution, Jon wanted to try it, but I wanted to take a more minimalist approach.

Focaccia:
1/2 recipe pizza dough
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 thin slices yellow or white onion, separated into rings and chilled or soaked in cold water*
1 tsp coarse salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
tomato slices, if desired

Preheat oven to 400 F. Sprinkle pizza stone with cornmeal. Roll or toss or otherwise stretch pizza dough into a round that's a little thicker than you would make for pizza. Brush with olive oil, distribute onion rings on dough, and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for 15 minutes. Add garlic, rosemary, and tomato and cook for 3-5 minutes more, until crust is turning golden. Tear off pieces and drown them in olive oil.

*Chilling the onion rings or soaking them in cold water will keep them from burning too quickly in the oven. You could also put them on later. I used part of an onion that had already been cut and was being stored in the fridge, so I didn't do anything special.

2 comments:

mollyjade said...

Hi Evelyn. Erica just sent me a link to your blog. Love it. I have a huge fear of yeast that I'm trying to get over this year. Your foccacia looks lovely.

Evelyn said...

Thanks, mollyjade. I highly recommend borrowing a breadmaker or buying one cheap at a garage sale to see if you like it. It takes a lot of the operator error out of working with yeast.