Focaccia al rosmarino - v2 - from Liguria

My first version of focaccia tasted good but I learned was missing some key focaccia features. What I recently learnt is that good focaccia is very simple, not drowning with a million herbs and spices. It needs to be crunchy on the outside and fluffy soft on the inside. The key feature are the little finger-pressed holes on top. For a non-Italian new-ish baker, I am definitely willing to keep on learning. I went on another search for a better foccacia recipe and Netflix delivered! This, my friends, is straight out of Italy. 

the biggest inspiration this time is from a Netflix show (yes I know I watch too much Netflix so might as well benefit from it, yes?) "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. At one point the show took us to Liguria - to talk about their olive oils, but the focaccia making process is simply mesmerizing so I totally went for it.

What you need:

- 2 3/4 cup of flour

- 1 cup to 1 1/4 cup warm water 

- 1 tbsp of dry yeast

- 3 twigs of fresh rosemary, leaves only washed and roughly chopped

- 1 tbsp of salt

- enough olive oil ( you are looking at 1/4 -1/3 cup total but have your bottle of oil aside and ready)

Recipe:

- Mix flour, yeast and warm water(not hot, not cold) into a ball of soft dough. Some recipes said 1 cup of water but I find it's not really enough and my dough gets very dry and hard to work with. What I do is to start with 1 cup of water, mix in the dough a bit, and drizzle a tbsp full of water at a time to make the dough softer.

- Sprinkle 1 tsp of salt, 1-2 tbsp of olive oil, and all the rosemary. Continue to kneed the dough until it's mixed in. 

- Cover with a damp dish towel and rest it in a warm place to rise for 30 min.

- In the mean time, mix a little bit of brine - half water half salt, about 1-2 tsp each. Pre-heat your oven to 420F. I am using parchment paper so I don't want anything burning. Brush or pour some olive on the parchment paper to prevent sticking, which lines a stainless bake ware. I suggest use 9x13 size so your focaccia is thinner than 2 cm after it's baked.

- Take the dough, roll it in a bit of olive oil on the lined baking ware, stretch it with your hand to the size of the bakeware. You are trying to fill the entire surface of the baking ware. The dough should be so soft and stretchy, no rolling pin needed. Have a bit of olive oil on hand so the dough doesn't stick to your hands.

- Press 3 longest fingers (index, middle and ring fingers), spaced about 1cm apart, press along the edge of the bread. You are going to having to press hard, all the way so you are touching the pan. Repeat until you cover the entire flat surface of the bread.

- Pour your salt water brine atop of the stretched and finger-pressed dough. Ensure the liquids sit in the little finger holes as little wells and distributed evenly. Let it sit for about 30 min again. This step is so key, so the little holes stay when baking. They will become salty little holes (you can totally see the water wells in the holes in the photo above). mmmm!

- Bake, for about 18-20 min. Check to make sure the bread is golden on the outside.

- Drizzle, or pour more olive oil on top. Serve, with anything, or on its own. (ok wait maybe cut yourself a piece as reward first when its just fresh out of the oven!) I served mine with olive oil/balsamic/Parmesan cheese, another time with mussels, and then just toasted for breakfast. Oh man this stuff is so good. 

This is by far the best focaccia bread recipe I have. I love the simplicity of it, flour, water, salt and olive oil, how beautiful is that? The technique was absolutely glorious and I can't stop eating these things omgs.