Focaccia
A salty, olive oil rich bread, delicious as a mop up for pasta sauces. I serve it with soups and cheese and pickle too.
Ingredients
500g strong white bread flour
1 level tsp salt
1 x7g sachet fast action yeast
280ml warm water, a little more if needed to make a soft dough
3 tbsp olive oil
More oil to drizzle over the top 20g coarse sea salt
Method
Sift the flour and salt together in a bowl and stir in the yeast.
Make a well and pour in the water and oil.
Mix well and knead for 10 minutes. Leave to rise in the bowl for 30 minutes.
Knead into a flat round or square loaf.
Place on an oiled baking sheet.
Press your fingers in the surface of the loaf to make deep dimples.
Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top and sprinkle with the salt.
Leave to rise for a further 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7 for 25-30 minutes or until light golden in colour.
Drizzle with more oil whilst still hot.
By Jennifer from SW Washington State, USA (Focaccia) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Next month we will be looking at celebration breads, especially for Christmas and some of the stories behind them. Bread and the New Year have special links. When I was a child in Ancoats, Manchester, there was always a race to the church. The person carrying a lump of coal, a piece of bread and a pinch of salt won a prize. Actually everyone won a prize, but it was fun to see the dad's of the district all running at midnight.