A Wild Foccacia Appeared!

This is the first entry on my new blog.

I’m Bored.

I went to college… twice. I got a degree in professional cooking - couldn’t make more than $7 an hour. Went back to college thinking “I’ll get a real degree and a decent paying job” - got a degree in Political Science and Electronic Media. Turns out not all that many people are interested in hiring someone who spent their college career watching obscure Czech films and arguing the pros and cons of Marxist philosophy. I’ve applied to over 100 vacancies - only occasionally receiving a cursory rejection letter and “wish for better luck in the future” from time to time. Ah well, “In this economy,” as they say.  I suppose I’ve become resigned to the fact that I’m going to spend the foreseeable future playing house boy for my partner. Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with it, right?

So that’s what I’ve been doing! Taking the chance to explore NYC for the best and most affordable ingredients - and finding the best recipes by scouring the web, chatting with friends, reading classic cook books, and building upon my own experiences. I still wish they’d bother to put something on the television at the Laundromat that appealed to more than middle-aged housewives, but I might as well try to make the best of a bad situation, right?

I was always pretty mediocre in my baking classes way back when, so step one of this whole process is to learn how to make bread that doesn’t, you know, taste like old yeast and failure. Step 1: Foccacia.

It’s the simplest bread recipe, and one of the ones I’m most familiar with.


The Ingredients:
Measure out your ingredients beforehand... to make sure you have enough

6.5 fl oz water
2 Cups Flour, Sifted
¼ Teaspoon Salt
1 Package Active Dry Yeast

1/3 cup flour
Use this flour to dust work surfaces


The Method:

Making bread is a complicated, messy, and frustrating affair. Or not. Mostly not. The trick to most bread making is the straight dough method. Basically -

1) Mix the yeast with the water, dump your dry ingredients in, and mix until the dough stretches and snaps (not tears) apart when you pull it.
You can do this in an electric mixer with a dough hook, or by hand. By hand usually gives you a better idea of when the dough is ready, but by electric mixer is a bit quicker and cleaner.

2) Rising - then it’s a simple matter of cover the dough with a damp cloth, letting it rise to twice its original size (approximately 30 minutes),

3) Kneading - Gently press the dough to adjust the gas level - expelling any extra and redistributing (*gasp* Socialism!) the rest to assure the dough rises properly.

4) Portion the dough however you want to,

5) Cover it with the cloth for an other ten minutes,

6) Shape (here’s the point where - if you want to - you can make fancy little knots or what have you)

7) Proof (cover again with the damp cloth, allow to rise for 10-15 more minutes)

8) Finish (brush with olive oil or egg wash, top with salt and or herbs.)

8) Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. 


Notes:
Foccacia is a simple flat bread that can be used for a whole host of applications - garnished with olive oil and sea salt it can make a simple bread to go with an appetizer, it can be rolled out and used for pizza, made into rolls for burgers, or be a part of a larger presentation. Try brushing it with rendered bacon fat, or a flavored oil (chili, olive, truffle, what have you) once you’ve done that top it with some freshly chopped herbs from the local farmers market before baking it. Cheese is pretty good with it to. Try that. The most important thing is that you try it - over and over again if you have to - until you get it to where you want it.