Focaccia with Rosemary

I got a new herb pot that it is rosemary. The most advantage of planting herb in the kitchen is to have lots of fresh herbs. I have basil and rosemary now… I am wondering what is the next. For rosemary, the first thing comes to my mind is Focaccia that I like the bread with very light herb flavor inside. This kind of easy and simply bread is always my favorite. I am not said I don’t like bread with lots of fillings inside. But, sometimes, you would like to eat these plain breads again again and again.

Oven Temperature Setting: 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7

Baking Time: 20~25 minutes
Recipe: A Focaccia, around 30X45 cm

 

 

Steps of Focaccia
(1) Put finely chopped rosemary into a small dish. Then, add olive oil in the dish. Leave in the fridge at least 8 hours.
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: This method can make olive oil be full of rosemary flavor. So, when kneading olive oil into the dough, the bread has a light rosemary flavor in even though I don’t use lots amount of rosemary.)

 

(2) Add flour and salt into a big bowl. Mix a little bit.

(3) Add 300 ml water with instant yeast into the bowl. Knead it into the chunk
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: My instant yeast’s instruction is to add yeast in the water around 5 minutes. Check the instruction before using it.)
(4) Then, knead olive oil with rosemary into the dough.

 

(5) Move the dough to a table with lightly flour. Gradually, knead the rest of water into the dough.

(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: This kind of dough is very wet. It is a little difficult to knead it, but don’t add more flour in, please.)
(6) Once the dough becomes very softer and more elastic, put it back to the bowl. Leave in the warm place to let it double the size. It takes around 90 ~ 120 minutes.

 

(7) When the dough is ready, get it and place it on a big greased plate. Shape it into a rectangular, around 2 cm thickness. Leave at warm place to double the size again. It takes around 40 minutes.
(8) Pre-heat the oven at 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. And put a metal dish into the oven. And boil 1 liter water at the same time.

 

(9) Before sending it to the oven, poke the surface with lots of holes.

(10) Pour some olive oil into the holes.
(11) Before sending the Focaccia to the oven, pour the boiling water into the dish to generate lots of steam.  
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: Steam can make the surface into very crispy.)

(12) Send the Focaccia to the oven, bake around 20~25 minutes until the surface turns golden.

Again, when your recipe needs to add some herbs in, I really like this kind method to bake any bread. Olive oil will absorb the flavor of herbs so that when you knead oil into the bread. Your bread is full of herb flavor. Go and try this quickly. You will find out it is hard to stop eating.