Focaccia

Ay! So good to see you. Today we gonna be Italiano. Do not eat that up there ↑, those olives, they no good, pick offa those olives, the bread, she is good, the olives, they no good. Maybe you likea them, I no likea those olives. I picka offa those olives, I spit them out those olives.  Ptooooh!  I no likea those olives. The bread, she is good. Very good. The olive oil on topa da bread, she is a good too, very very good. Everything isa good but I no lika those olives. 

* snap *

Why did I put chile de arbol flakes on my focaccia? Because the bag is sitting there on the counter plaintively calling out to me at every turn, that's why.

Don't you hate those dumb butt celebrity chefs on the Food Network who say, "Looka'thaaaaat," every 30 freak'n seconds? I give 'em two 'looka'thaaaats and they go straight to mute.  They are such catch phrase leaches. I want so badly to tell them all

STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! 

Now, having complained about that obnoxious overused catchphrase, and my strong impulse to knock all their heads together, look at that ↓.

That ↑ is what 1/4 teaspoon frozen commercial yeast does to a sponge-like bread dough given twelve hours or so. Possibly more. I do not know how long exactly, I didn't keep track, in fact, I didn't even notice what time it was last night when I started off the dough, nor what time it was when I saw it again this morning. All I know is how stunned I was to see the gigantic air bubbles through the glass bowl. The dough ball was left in the bowl on the counter overnight to do what it would. I could tell by the edge the dough had peaked and was beginning to settle. The yeast cells were retiring and in need of redistribution. See, now that is intuition! Intuition born of becoming one with the yeast. 

Psyche! I read this stuff in books written by scientifical type people. 

This dough was started with 1/4 teaspoon frozen commercial yeast dropped unceremoniously into  1 + 1/2 cup hot water along with 1/2 teaspoon sugar to get it started.  

Added 5 rounded tablespoons of semolina flour.

Added  3/4 measured teaspoon finely ground gray sea salt.

Added  A/P flour by the tablespoonful  until the dough was no longer sticky and could be turned out onto a work surface and very lightly kneaded and stretched. I played with it for a short while, as is my wont, I am a child that way.  I do not know how much A/P flour that turned out to be. Probably seven super-duper piled up tablespoonful. 

The flour was not sifted. No other ingredients went into the dough. The dough was formed into a small loose dough ball and placed inside a heavily oiled bowl that was way larger than it needed to be, and then covered with plastic wrap. 

Yeast no likey salt. Salt retards yeast but does not stop it. Therefore, you can use salt early to stretch out the proofing period, which is what I wanted. That is, I did not want the yeast to go full bore on the counter overnight. Even so, I did have doubts that 1/4 teaspoon yeast would be sufficient when retarded with salt. But I know my yeast, and I know my salt, and I concluded that would be fine and I was right. Had I been wrong, then I could correct that with an infusion of fresh yeast the next day, which is what all the books say to do anyway. See how I depart with the collective wisdom of the books? 

I was also mightily impressed, as I dumped out the dough and stretched it, folded it, stretched it again, folded it again, then stretched it again to fit the pan, whereupon it tightened and would not cooperate until finally  it was coaxed to relax.  

RELAX !

Surprised at how rapidly the yeast resumed activity. I could barely get the topping on fast enough before the dents I had poked into the surface closed up. 

Focaccia is like a Chicago pizza. It is a thick slab of bread topped with anything at all. I topped mine with what I had on hand. I am out of onions. If I had onions, I would have sweated or caramelized them first then coated the surface with them. I considered anchovy because I do have that. I considered cheese but rejected it. I considered tomato but rejected that too. I wanted to steer away of anything approximating a pizza too closely. I chose Rosemary, but pulverized it to powder to avoid that pine needle discomfort. I also chose crushed garlic, but I wish I had merely flavored the oil with it instead of topping the focaccia with raw garlic. That is not as good as I thought it would be. 

Dents are jabbed into the surface of the dough and then spread liberally with olive oil. The oil settles into the dents and incorporates into the bread during its final rise. The other ingredients top that but should not be poked into the surface. 

In case you are wondering, focaccia is derived from the Latin word for "focus."  Originally, this flat bread was cooked over the ashes of a hearth, a fireplace. That sounds kind of gross, actually, but who am I to judge? At any rate, the fireplace naturally was the focus of the household. Do whatever you wish and call the focaccia you come up with  your own. There are as many variations of focaccia as their are cooks. So do not let anyone pin you down to any given specific recipe, and certainly do not allow them to pull that, "Well, that's not how my mother made it," bullshit. If you ever hear that, yell at them,

Bake in a very hot oven. Don't hold back. This took twenty minutes. I was well chuffed with the oven rise. The bread tended to smash when I cut it, and that was a problem because I wanted good side views for the top photograph way up there ↑. So that forced me to cut like sawing a board. Otherwise I would just chop it.  Hang on, I'm  having another piece. 

FREE!  Extra dough philosophy! 

Time is your friend. When it comes to bread dough, time is one of the more important ingredients, and sadly, the one ingredient most overlooked or omitted entirely. What does time do exactly? I do not know. What do I look like, a chronologist over here? I think what time does, and this is just my imagination taking off again, the little pictures in my head, I think what time does to yeast dough is incorporate yeast cell death into the blend. There exists the byproducts of cell activity that accumulate over time. By living, yeast cells change their environment. The more time allowed, the more change induced to the environment by yeast cells. Yeast cells acidify their own environment by living their little yeast cell lives. They munch along, farting up the place, having a wee and a poo here and there, stinking it up, ruining their own home, even making it undesirable to live in themselves.  It does not take long for yeast of any species to make such an undisciplined mess of things they shut down entirely into incredibly tight little divided genetic packages provided with a sturdy protective exterior and await more fortuitous circumstance, another place to foul.  Like I said, I am imagining all that. That is what the baker uses to their advantage -- yeast cell's own propensity to stink up the place. Mmmm, yeast stink. By living, yeast cells also alter the protein molecules within wheat making kneading unnecessary for the baker or at least much less arduous. The yeast cells will do all the wheat-protein unraveling on their own given time. At the macro level, for the baker, a few stretches of the dough in opposite directions, folding it back upon itself in a stack, and another stretch and fold to thoroughly redistribute the yeast cells, is pretty much all that is necessary to coax the elongated wheat protein molecules to coalesce into a matrix suitable to hold air. The air farted out by impressively excited rejuvenated yeast cells. I think. I knead the dough anyway, before all of this,  because for me it is fun. I like to feel the way the dough changes under my fingertips and by the pressure applied by my hands. I like to stretch it and feel it submit. But I do not make a big deal out of it. I do not time the process. I just feel a change occurring in the texture and when that happens I am satisfied and I go, "There. Take that!" I am actually quite stupid about the whole thing. But even that degree of kneading is unnecessary with long proofing periods. Just give the yeast a good start and it is off to the races, for the yeast, that is, from the point of view of the baker, it is off to the waiting.