Focaccia alla genovese (A fugassa de Zena)

Good morning! Today I’m gonna show you the Queen of the recipes from Genoa: the Focaccia (We call it Fugassa). I don’t know how to define it, because we eat ita t every time of the day. We eat it for breakfast, for lunch or for a quick snack and we even dip it in the Cappuccino (it may sound strange but try it! It’s incredible). The most important thing is that you can only find it in Genoa. In many other parts of italy they don’t even know it. Let’s see how to prepare it:

Difficulty: Medium

Time needed: 15 minutes to bake it and at least 3 hours to prepare it.

Serves 6

Price: Low

Ingredients:

Water (warm): 400ml

Manitoba flour: 600gr.

Brewer’s yeast: 25gr.

Extra virgin olive oil: 140ml.

Salt: 15gr

Sugar: 2 teaspoons (or 1teaspoon of malt)

Directions:

Dissolve the salt into the warm water and pour the mixture into a bowl, together with the sugar (or malt), 40ml of the olive oil and half the flour. Mix the ingredients until you have a very liquid batter, without lumps.

Add the brewer’s yeast and mix for 2/3 minutes, then add the remaining flour and mix again until have an homogeneous sticky dough.

Put 50ml of the olive oil on a rectangular baking pan, then put the dough on the baking pan.

Let it leaven for one/ one and a half hour (until it doubles) at a temperature of 30 degrees (you can just put it in the oven and turn on the oven’s light).

Now stretch the dough out until it covers all the surface of the pan. Check that under the dough there’s still abundant oil, if not add it before streching out.

Brush the surface of the dough with oil and put abundant coarse salt on it.

Let it leave for another 30 minutes at 30 degrees, then squeeze it with your fingers and make the typical holes that you can see in the picture.

Pour the remaining 50ml of oil on the surface of the Focaccia and let it leave once again for 30 minutes at 30 degrees.

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees, squirt cold water on the surface and put the pan in the oven for 15 minutes.

When ready (the surface should be golden brown), take it outside the oven. Leti t cool down and when it’s warm cut it and serve it.

You can eat it warm or cold, as you prefer.

You’ll see, it’s fantastic!!!

Tips & suggestions:

- The perfect Focaccia should be 2 centimetres high, so be careful when you choose the baking pan

- Try dipping it in the Cappuccino!!! Again, sounds terrible but it’s awesome!!!

- Drink with it a good glass of white wine!