This is for one of those days when you’re feeling a tad adventurous in the kitchen and want to play a gorgeous 1950’s housewife. What other way to role play than with a delicious home cooked meal, right? So go on, hit play on Edith Piaf’s la vie en rose and get cooking.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
500 g all purpose white flour
7 g instant yeast
1 tablespoon salt
300 ml warm water
5 tablespoons olive oil
3 large garlic heads
Flat-leaf parsley
Salt, pepper and Italian herbs to taste
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a bowl.
- Pour 300 ml of warm water into a separate bowl and stir in the olive oil.
- Next, mix the wet ingredients with the dry ones to make a soft dough.
- Flip the dough out onto a floured surface and knead by hand until smooth, supple and elastic.
- Mold the dough into a little ball.
- Oil a large enough bowl and turn out the dough into it.
- Roll it around until it’s coated with a thin layer of oil all round.
- Cover the bowl and leave to grow for an hour.
FOR THE TOPPING:
- Peel and saute the garlic on a low heat until soft and golden. Be careful not to overcook them or they will make the bread taste bitter.
- Once the garlic is done, add this together with some parsley and extra virgin olive oil into a food processor. Blitz to make a fine paste.
- After an hour or when the dough has risen to double its size, punch it down and leave to rest for another 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, divide the dough in two batches.
- On a parchment lined baking tray, roll out each ball of dough to form a curved rectangular shape. Press the dough out a little more using your hands.
- Transfer the rolled out bread onto the baking tray and cover with a tea towel.
- Leave to stand for about 25 minutes.
- Press your fingers randomly over the top of the bread to form the characteristic dimples usually found on focaccia bread.
- Pulse the parsley, garlic and oil mixture once more in the blender and lather this over the flat bread.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Place the baking tray into the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the flat bread is cooked.
- The flat bread should be golden in parts with the garlic flecks being slightly darker in color.
- Remove from the oven, drizzle over more olive oil and a sprinkling of salt if needed.
- Pair this with a good old glass of white wine and I promise, you’ll love me forever.