Easy Focaccia Di Recco

Everyone loves the smell of baking focaccia. I enjoy making it when my family comes over, or I have other guests. I often put out a large antipasto spread as an appetizer, and my freshly baked focaccia adds an extra-special homemade touch. I usually bake it plain, but sometimes I top it with tomatoes, or olives, or onions . . . or all three! Focaccia is popular all over Italy. It can have different toppings, seasonings, and textures depending on the region, but one of my favorites, different and super-delicious, is the Focaccia di Recco. Recco is a city on the Ligurian coast, near Genova, known for its focaccia, pansotti (a special kind of pasta dressed with walnut sauce), and the famous trofiette pasta with pesto. If you are in the area in September, you can watch a spectacular fireworks display and enjoy the specialties and delicious street food along the beautiful Riviera. This focaccia is a bit different: it is not topped, but, instead, filled with stracchino, a cow’s milk cheese from the north of Italy, which is not aged, eaten young, and usually has no rind. It is a soft cheese with a mild, delicate flavor. #LidiasRecipes #LidiasItaly #LidiasKitchen #LidiaBastianich #ItalianFood #LidiasTheArtofPasta #LidiasOliveOil

Focaccia di Recco

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[Music] Bonjouro. Welcome to my kitchen. And today I’m going to show you an easy favorite of my family. Certainly faukatcha dco. But let’s begin with the cheese. Faukatcha, you know, bread, but this faukatcha has a stuffing. And the cheese that’s usually put in the stuffing is this soft, fresh cheese called strachino. It’s imported, but you can use also cresens instead of it. And then we put it to drain a little bit because you don’t want to wet the dough. You want the cheese to be as dry as possible. So let’s make the dough. Here you see flour, oil, water, and salt. Where’s the yeast? There’s no east in this faukatcha deco. Reco is a little city in Liurya, west of Genova. And Liurya is known for its faukatcha. It claims to have first made the faukatcha. East faukatcha or flatbreads have been made for centuries before that. But this is a special faukatcha from Reco because of the cheese. So here we have the flour and you want bread flour, high gluten flour because we’re going to roll it very thin. So you want it to be elastic. Let’s put some salt. Let’s put in the processor and let’s combine the water and oil. Okay, first give it a whirl and then let’s add the liquid. [Music] Okay. Yes, it’s nice and it’s a little bit on the sticky side, but that’s the way we want it. And it’s very pliable. Beautiful. And a little bit of bench flour. I love the feeling of dough. As a kid, grandma would put a little stool for me and I would get up to the table and knead the dough with her. And as you can see, it’s rolling beautifully. And we are going to put this in plastic wrap to rest. So, here we are. So, plastic wrap, wrap it up tightly, and let it rest at room temperature for about an hour. And then we’ll roll it out and make the faukatcha deco. I’m here in the kitchen. I have some time and I thought I’d check in with everyone. Let’s see who wrote in. All right. Deb sends an email. I saw your kneading board and asked my husband to make one for me. It’s a little different than yours, but it does the job. Mine has a lip right in front of me, so the flower stays on the board. Thank you for your inspiration. Oh, that’s nice, Deb. I’m glad. I’m glad. Let me click on the photo. Wow. Oh, you have a talented husband. That’s a big long board. I see the lip in the front. Mine has a lip in the back and on the side all around. So maybe you might want to have your husband add a lip on the back, too, so it doesn’t flow out the other way. But that’s great. Good kneading. The dough has rested. The cheese has drained. We’re ready to go. And this hasha deco pan is copper look. And it’s a great one. It’s the traditional one. You can do it in a pizza dish, but just make sure it has a little bit of a lip. Let’s oil this. Well, in the meantime, I have the oven heating at 500°. You want this to be hot. That’s that. Now, let’s get to the dough. It has rested. So, we’re going to need one for the bottom and one for the top. So, let’s cut it in half. Almost like an apple pie. You need a base and you need a top. So, let’s roll it. And you can already see how the dough stretches easily. Okay. And to do it around, you actually roll around and then you can flip it over. And as you can see, it really stretches. And the fact that it is bread flour high in gluten really helps the stretching. It looks nice and thin. Let’s just plop it right into the vessel here. And if it breaks a little bit here and there, don’t you worry. You see? Just push it a little bit with your hand and you can stretch it right in here. That’s the base. And you’re going to put the straino and kind of little dabs all over. One in the center. There we go. Help yourself with another spoon so you can get it off. If you don’t have straino, you can even use cream cheese. How’s that? It’ll be different. It’ll taste different, but you could use it certainly. It will melt and it will kind of spread. That looks good. Let’s do the top the cover sort of. And always help it with your hand a little bit. Stretch it. My dear friend Nancy Silverton, she’s a great baker and she does foca deco at Kispaka in LA and it is delicious. And let’s pull it over the side. Let’s cut it all around. And you sort of help it along. Just squeeze it a little bit so it’s nice and sealed. And then you go in between the cheese and just give it little rips. Just like that. This gives an opportunity for the moisture, the steam to come out so that the dough remains nice and crispy. And let’s brush it with oil gently. Looks ready to go. Let’s put a little bit of salt. And it’s ready to be put in the oven. So the oven is at 500° about 15 to 18 minutes. It’ll be nice and brown on top and also on the bottom. And it is a delicious toka deco. I have some more time. So let me see what your guys are writing in. Robbie writes, “How do I freeze pizza dough?” That’s a good question. You have to let the pizza dough raise once. You have to let the yeast begin to activate. Once it has risen, you punch it down. You mix it. You need it. Shape it back into a bowl. Brush it with olive oil. Cover it so it doesn’t form a film. And ready to freeze. Now, when you’re ready to bake, you got to pull it out, let it come to room temperature, let it rise slowly, punch it again, and then you proceed to make your pizza. Okay, let me go check what’s baking in the oven and keep on writing. I appreciate it. The foca d has rested and look how beautiful it looks. You can cut it with a knife, but I like the pizza cutter. And you can see the bubbles. You can see how nice and crispy it is. So, let’s get myself a little slice. Okay, this is my slice. You see it flaky. The cheese is running there. I’m going to see how flaky. So, I’m ready to taste for you. Just like that. The whole slice. Because in Reco the Fauca Deco is sold by the slice. And just walking out like that. Let me taste it. And of course, a little procco to complement this wonderful crunchy and light faukatcha. You can make one, you can make two, you can keep on making them and they’ll disappear in no time. Okay, I’m going on for more.