Focaccia with tomatoes, Puglia-style
( Focaccia pugliese )

Tomato-and-oregano focaccia recipe

Let's start with classic dough

Preparation

• - To optimize the leavening make a double rising.
  Put 100g (3 1/2 ounces) wheat flour in a bowl.
  Dissolve fresh yeast in about 100ml warm water helping yourself with your fingers.
  Add water with dissolved yeast to wheat flour and mix all ingredients until a soft dough.
• - Cover with a napkin and let it rise for about an hour in a warm place.
• - Meanwhile steam potato.
• - Let cool and pass it through the mill.
• - Pour in remaining flour on a work surface making a large well in its center.
• - Put steamed potato, salt, 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil and risen dough in the well.
• - Pour in about 150 ml of warm water, little at a time, and dissolve your leavened dough to form a homogeneous mixture.
• - Begin mixing flour with your mixture and work until a soft dough.
• - Make a ball and sprinkle with wheat flour.
  Put aside.
• - Meanwhile prepare focaccia topping.
• - Clean and wash cherry tomatoes.
  Pat drythem with absorbent kitchen paper and halve.
• - Grease a deep baking dish, 35 centimeters in diameter, with 2 teaspoons olive oil.
• - Take again your dough and lay it in the baking dish.
• - Spoon remaining olive on focaccia surface.
• - Arrange cherry tomatoes on the surface pressing their top with delicacy.
• - Season to taste with salt and sprinkle oregano.
• - Put this dish in a warm place to make your dough rise again.
  You'll need about 2 hours or more, it depends on the temperature.
  If your home temperature isn't enough to make a good rising, an oven with just the pilot light or oven light turned can work well as does a high shelf or a food dehydrator with low temperature setting. 

Cooking

• - Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F)
• - Bake, about 25 minutes.
• - Then turn over your focaccia to complete its cooking on the bottom too.
  It will take 5 more minutes.

Just before serving

• - Serve your Apulian focaccia, warm or cold, sliced.

Note

Tips

• - Let me clarify right away that this is just one of many versions of Apulian focaccia. Everyone has his own recipe and I have showed you the recipe of my husband's family from Molfetta. But I know some families prepare this focaccia with a mixture of all-purpose flour and semolina. Someone makes it even only with semolina.
  Not to mention the consistency of the dough. Some people do it very liquid and this would be the version from Bari. I enjoyed it one day under the direction of a neighbor, who is married to a man from Bari. She taught me the technique.
  Focaccia from Bari or Barese focaccia. Perhaps you may know it as tomato-olive-and-oregano focaccia.
  We started with half a potato, mashed and boiled, 1kg (2.2 pounds) all-purpose flour, a spoonful of salt, a cube of fresh yeast (25g) dissolved in a little warm water. All these ingredients put into a large bowl.
  Then we began to add warm water, so much, to have a semi-liquid mixture which, at this point, seated on a chair, with the bowl in the lap, I started to beat with the right hand vigorously, from bottom to top.
  I warn you: the process is long and weary. It ends only when you begin to see bubbles forming in the dough.
  At this point we took some baking sheets. We spread abundant olive oil on the bottom and poured the mixture to have a layer of about 1cm (1/2in). The secret is to press the dough with your fingers and try to collect olive oil emerging on the edge and then spread it on all focaccia surface.
  The last step. We distributed tomatoes and some olives on focaccia surface pressing lightly tomatoes in the dough. For this amount of flour I used about 750 grams of ripe tomatoes. You can use cherry tomatoes too.
  After sprinkling oregano on focaccia surface, we let them leaven for about two hours.
  And then in the oven with the technique already described.
  Do not ask me the amount of fat and calories in this version of tomato-olives-and-oregano focaccia! Unable to make a calculation since the very variable olive oil we used, but do you know this Latin sentence? "Semel in anno licet insanire" that is once in a while you can eat it.
  
• - About water. Its amount is quite variable as it depends on many factors: flour, weather, humidity in your home ... I always smile reading the many recipes that give strict doses especially when you work flour. You never know in advance how much water you really need. So my tip is to add it a little at a time. Only experience will teach you to understand well the correct consistency of the dough under your hands.
• - Double rising is essential in bread or pizza or focaccia making. You'll use less yeast, with taste-and-health enhancing. You'll need more time but with best results. You can not have everything in a hurry especially tasty food.
• - The photo you can see is the image of tomato-olive-and-oregano focaccia, Barese style.

Menu planning

• - But how to serve this tasty tomato-and-oregano focaccia, Puglia-style? According to Carlo and me it is a nice accompaniment to mozzarella cheese, tuna in oil, raw ham, caponata. Tasty snack TV or your Sunday brunch. What about it?
  The Apulian inhabitants make and serve it as bread too.
  However ... don't make it too often .. it's a dish high in calories ;))))

Useful links for this recipe

• - Here's the link to my own version for tomato-and-oregano focaccia, Apulia-style.

Loretta

What's the right wine for " Focaccia with tomatoes, Puglia-style "?

Our suggestion is to match a good beer or a glass of red, young wine.