The queen of Italian breads is focaccia. Bake it according to the original recipe!

With focaccia from breakfast to dinner

At first glance, there is nothing special about focaccia – it is a classic bread made from white flour and yeast. However, if you use top-quality ingredients, you will create a ready-made delicacy that you can enjoy all by itself. It could be compared to pizza, but the dough for focaccia is much fluffier and has the perfect aroma of olive oil. Unlike pizza, focaccia is also usually rectangular in shape. Italians absolutely love focaccia and if it came to it, they would easily survive the whole day on it. They even dip it into their breakfast cappuccino in the morning, have it as a sandwich for a snack, it can be used as a side dish for lunch or dinner, and when you feel like something sweet, focaccia can do that too, just sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon. If you want something extra, decorate your focaccia with chopped tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs and let your imagination run wild. If you create various flowers from vegetables and stems from herbs, decorate everything beautifully and present such a focaccia to your guests, everyone will praise you to the skies.

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With oil, with salt or even with potatoes?

According to the website Italiantourism.com, a similar flatbread was baked in ancient Roman times. It was called panis focacius, which referred to the fact that it was baked on fire. According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the word focus means "fireplace, place for baking". However, it is also stated that the original recipe comes from the Etruscans, who lived in what is now Tuscany, and is sometimes also associated with neighboring Liguria. In any case, focaccia has many regional variations. In the northwest of Italy, for example, they like to enjoy sweet focaccia, so-called focaccia dolce, which is sprinkled with sugar, or raisins and honey are added to the dough. The most basic is Genoese focaccia (focaccia alla genovese), which is simply drizzled with olive oil or sprinkled with salt. In other regions, they add olives, rosemary, sage, anchovies, tomatoes, but even potatoes to focaccia. In South Tyrol, according to the website Familien-feiern-feste.net, colored eggs are placed in the middle of the dough, and this focaccia is a traditional Easter gift from godparents to their godchildren. Focaccia can also ward off hunger during the day. Just cut it in half and make a sandwich. You can top it with dried ham, tomatoes, mozzarella, arugula and other goodies.

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Focaccia the Italian way

If you want to bake focaccia according to a true Italian recipe, get started with the Italian in the kitchen, Emanuele Ridi. For a true Italian basic focaccia, you need 500 g of plain flour, 1 tablespoon of sea salt, half a cube of yeast, 400 ml of lukewarm water and olive oil, approximately 50 ml. First, mix lukewarm water and yeast in a bowl and wait for the yeast to dissolve. Gradually add flour until a smooth dough is formed. Cover the bowl with a towel so that the dough does not dry out and leave it to rise in a warm place, ideally at a temperature of 30 °C. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 220-250 °C. When the dough has risen, sprinkle it with a little flour so that it does not stick and shape it into two loaves, from which you then form two flatbreads about 2 cm thick with your hands. Pour olive oil over the resulting flatbreads and sprinkle with sea salt. Spread the oil well with your hands and make indentations in the dough with your fingers, thanks to which the oil and salt can penetrate the dough well. Transfer both flatbreads to a baking sheet lined with baking paper and immediately place in the preheated oven. Bake for about 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Let the finished focaccia cool on a wire rack before cutting it into pieces. Focaccia is delicious both hot and cold.