Bread Atlas · Bread
Focaccia Genovese
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with a briny, maritime salinity, char used as punctuation, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 500 g strong white flour
- 400 g water at 20C (68F)
- 5 g instant dried yeast
- 10 g fine salt
- 40 g extra virgin olive oil, for the dough
- 30 g extra virgin olive oil, for the tray
- 40 g water, 20 g extra virgin olive oil and 4 g fine salt, whisked, for the brine
- 5 g flaky salt
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Tempering a custardBrining & curingProofing: the rise before the oven
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Mix flour, water and yeast to a shaggy mass and rest 20 minutes, then work in the salt and the 40 g oil until the dough pulls clean off the side of the bowl. At 80% it will be loose and sticky, not a ball. 20 min
- Bulk 2 hours at 22C (72F) with two folds in the tub, until doubled and wobbling like set custard when you shake it. 120 min
- Oil a 30x40 cm tray, tip the dough in, and leave 45-60 minutes until it has crept to the corners on its own. Pull it there early and it will tear and shrink back. 60 min
- Dimple with flat fingers right down to the tray floor, whisk the brine again and pour it over so it pools in the holes, then scatter the flaky salt and prove 30 minutes until the surface is puffed and quivering. 30 min
- Bake on the lower shelf at 240C (465F) for 18-20 minutes, until the top is amber and a spatula slides under a crisp, blistered base. 20 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes
- Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
- The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
- The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
- Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
- It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.
Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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