Blog Archives
Pain-Free Cast-iron Skillet Foccacia
I am forever in search of the perfect recipe for an amazing foccacia, one that doesn’t take two days to make, and which makes just enough for the family. I think I’ve found it, and it happens quickly with ingredients that I always have on hand. And it happens in my favorite pan, my 10-inch cast-iron skillet. It doesn’t take a lot of work, and it comes out perfect every time.
The only caveat I give you is that you must use fresh and high-quality ingredients to get a high-quality product. Trust me on this. If I have one mantra in Jeff’s Kitchen, it is to use only the finest–and freshest–ingredients. It’s why I grow my own tomatoes and herbs. I’ve waxed poetic in the past about both of these–you can find my rants on tomatoes here, and on my herb garden here. You should trust me on these.
The best ingredients make the best-finished recipes. It only makes sense. Right?
So assemble your ingredients with care, and you’ll have a dish of which you can be proud. That’s a promise.
So here, forthwith, is the easiest, best-tasting foccacia you can make, and you surely CAN make it.
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour — I use King Arthur AP.
- 1/2 teaspoon salt — Diamond Crystal kosher salt is what you ought to have
- 1 teaspoon dry instant yeast — For this recipe instant is best
- 3/4 cup lukewarm water — not too hot, please. You’ll kill the yeast. 100 – 110 is best
- 3 tablespoons plus 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided — Don’t skimp here!
- 2 teaspoons coarsely chopped fresh rosemary leaves — Fresh only! Grow it on a windowsill
- 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt — Should be a pantry staple in your kitchen.
PREPARATION:
- Place the flour, salt, and yeast in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment and pulse to combine. Add the water and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Pulse until a rough ball of dough forms, about 15 (2-second) pulses.
- Drizzle 2 teaspoons of the olive oil in a large bowl. Flour your hands, scoop the dough out of the food processor, and form into a smooth ball. Place the ball of dough in the oiled bowl and turn it so it’s coated on all sides. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let it sit at warm room temperature until doubled in size, 2 to 3 hours.
- Drizzle 1 teaspoon of the olive oil in a 10-inch cast iron or other ovenproof skillet and rub it over the bottom and sides. Punch down the dough and place the dough in the skillet. Using your fingertips, coax and stretch the dough to cover the bottom of the skillet and reach all the way to the edges. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rest at warm room temperature until puffed and slightly risen, 30 to 40 minutes. Meanwhile, arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 450°F.
- Use you fingertips to gently dimple the surface of the dough. Drizzle the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the dough so that it pools in some of the indentations. Sprinkle with the rosemary and flaky salt.
- Place in the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 400°F. Bake until lightly golden-brown, 20 to 25 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing and serving. Focaccia is best eaten when warm, but is also good at room temperature. If the crust gets too soft, reheat in a 350°F oven to crisp it up.
NOTES:
Make ahead: The dough can also be left in the covered bowl to rise overnight in the refrigerator — the slower rise actually provides extra flavor. In the morning, transfer the cold dough to the skillet and allow it to warm up a little, about 20 minutes, before stretching it and proceeding with the recipe.
Storage: The focaccia is best the day it is made but can be stored, well-wrapped, at room temperature for up to 1 day. The crust will soften, but it can be warmed and crisped in a 350°F oven for a few minutes. Leftover focaccia also freezes exceptionally well. Let it defrost at room temperature and then reheat in a 350°F oven for a few minutes.
Topping options: There is tons of experimentation to be had when it comes to focaccia toppings. Aside from rosemary, other herbs like thyme and oregano, thinly sliced lemons, pitted chopped olives, thick slices of fresh garlic or shallots, a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, and even everything bagel seasoning are great topping options.
Recipe Credit: Sheela Prakash, on The Kitchn: https://www.thekitchn.com/skillet-focaccia-bread-recipe-261454
Sourdough!
Today I’ve turned the reins of Jeff’s Quarantine Kitchen over to the boss (I surely have come to understand which side of the bread is buttered), because she is the baker extraordinaire in this confederacy of equals. When it comes to baking I am truly only the woke little sous-y (see what I did there?).
For several years we’ve entertained the notion of doing a sourdough, but because none of us REALLY need all the bread we’d have to bake to keep a sourdough starter alive and productive, and the thought of discarding food is inherently foreign to my training and my sensibility, we’ve never really considered it seriously.
Until now.
In my constant quest for the next new and different cooking challenge—the latest, greatest take on mac and cheese holds absolutely no interest for me—I stumbled across a take on a small-batch sourdough starter that seems to be both workable from a task standpoint (we surely didn’t wish to become slaves to the idea of keeping yet another creature alive) and manageable in terms of quantity (and really, could this sentence be any more complex and befuddling? I’d like to see Miss Appleby try to diagram this baby).
But I digress (I hate when I do that). Sourdough!
The guy calls himself “The Pressured Prepper,” and he has a whole YouTube channel chock full of ideas for when the SHTF (google it). I haven’t located a web site for the guy, but his videos are, to say the least, entertaining. He posits that a credible sourdough starter can be made and maintained with just a tiny bit of flour and water and no added yeast. I showed the video to E., and she was intrigued. So we’ve tried it. I did find that (and he did reference) a similar idea on the King Arthur Flour (heretofore referred to as KAF) web site, so it really must be a thing.
So here’s the scoop: The Pressured Prepper says to combine three tablespoons of flour—he suggests a mix of bread and whole wheat flours, and a bit of rye flour if you have it on hand— with two tablespoons of dechlorinated water, and mix well in a pint-size canning jar, cover and set it on the counter at room temperature (dechlorinated water is just really tap water that has sat overnight in an open container, so that the chlorine gas evaporates). The mix of flour—it doesn’t want any all-purpose flour—provides the starter additional capabilities for capturing wild yeasts that are in the air. The Prepper goes on to say that you can speed up the process by using pineapple juice instead of water, and adding just a pinch of active dry yeast.
This morning E opted for the quick-start method, and made her original starter (pictured above) using three tablespoons of a 50-50 blend of bread and whole-wheat flours, two tablespoons of pineapple juice, and that pinch of yeast (she said that it felt a bit like cheating, but wanted to give it every chance of succeeding). Now we’ll let it sit on the counter in the jar. The directions say to feed the starter three tablespoons of flour and two tablespoons of water once a day.
So that’s what we’ll do.
My plan is to try to blog something every day here in the JQK, so the likelihood is that you will get daily updates on the progress of this small-batch sourdough starter.
Here’s hoping, and we’ll see you soon. Stay well, be careful, and WASH YOUR HANDS!!!
Cheffzilla’s Kitchen 