Italian focaccia from Genoa
( La focaccia Genovese )

Recipe for focaccia from Genoa

Preparation

• - Prepare focaccia dough.
  Mix flour with warm water, olive oil and salt following my step-by-step instructions for pizza dough (link below) or your favorite recipe.
• - First leavening.
  Place your floured dough on a floured surface, cover with a thick cotton towel and let it rise in a warm place, far from drafts, 60 to 90 minutes
• - Second leavening. Take your leavened dough and roll it out into the baking tray (the plate of the oven), greased with 2 teaspoons olive oil (included in topping ingredients) and sprinkled with flour.
  Let your dough rise, about 30 minutes.
  At this point create the classic pits with your fingers being careful not to pierce your dough.
  Prepare focaccia dressing. Mix olive oil with salt and warm water. Beat this mixture with a whisk to emulsify olive oil. Sprinkle focaccia surface with this emulsion. Do not worry if you see that your focaccia will be immersed in this solution. The authentic Genovese focaccia must complete its leavening and bake in this solution.
• - Third leavening. Let rise your focaccia so that it can reach the limit of the pan. The more you let focaccia rise, the more your focaccia will be tender and tasty. Some people say you should not have a thickness greater than 2cm

Cooking

• - Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
• - Bake until focaccia surface is golden, about 20 minutes.

Just before serving

• - Serve your focaccia warm or cold.

Note

Tips

• - Making homemade focaccia takes time for the various steps of rising. You do not have to be in a hurry. My tip is you prepare it during holidays or in weekly day of rest when you have more time. Do not be groped by the use of a larger amount of yeast. Certainly, this thing speeds up the time but your focaccia will not be very good!
  Beyond that, it should be noted that, just as it happens for Neapolitan pizza and coffee, what makes the difference is of course olive oil and water of the place. Olive oil can be purchased. But water ... So you can not expect to get a homemade focaccia as tasty as focaccia made in Genoa.
• - If you want to get a better product, you could make another leavening before starting with the recipe. Dissolve yeast in 100ml (3 1/3 fluid ounces) warm water and then add this solution to 50g (1 3/4 ounces) flour. Let your dough rise, about an hour. Then continue making focaccia dough adding the remaining ingredients. Focaccia leavening will be perfect!
• - Obviously the amount of water you have to use can be very variable. It depends on the type of flour, humidity of the day ...
• - Some people season Genovese focaccia with coarse salt instead of fine salt as you've just read in my version and use a mixture of water and white wine to make the third leavening.
• - There are many variations of the original recipe as you can imagine. A particularly tasty variation is focaccia genovese with onions (you have to add about 500g red or white onions)

Menu planning

• - Serve this focaccia as appetizer with aperitivo before lunch or dinner.
  Cut focaccia crossways and fill with a good-quality salami for a snack with friends.
  Serve it to accompany a plate of assorted salami (special Italian starter).
  Accompany meat or fish courses with Genoese focaccia.
  I generally accompany Italian soups with this focaccia such as wedding soup.

Useful links for this recipe

• - This is the link to my recipe for pizza dough with fresh yeast, for beginners in cooking ;))

Healthy eating

• - There is little to say about Genoese focaccia. Definitely it is not low calorie because it is well-oiled. Furthermore, the portion of the flour is higher than the norm.
  If you add the fact that it can be served to accompany cold meats, cheeses and other food, it does not add up for real. But as they say ... semel in the year ... we can sometimes prepare and eat Genoese focaccia as long as it does not become a habit.

Loretta

What's the right wine for " Italian focaccia from Genoa "?

My husband and I pair Pigato (white wine from Liguria - Italy) to Genoese focaccia.