Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Foccacia turned pizza

Last night I decided to try a variation of Chad Robertson's foccacia.  I had most everything I needed, but the only dough I had ready was a very young no-knead dough I'd made that morning, and which was sitting in the fridge.


I like to leave the no-knead bread dough in the fridge for several days before I make it, because, unlike the natural leavened breads in Chad's Tartine Bread book, the no-knead bread is made with commercial yeast, and it lacks the complexity and development of natural leavened bread.  However, with several days in the fridge, it can develop a pleasant flavor and texture.

My foccacia would be more of a pizza, but that turned out to be a valuable mistake.  The no-knead bread dough actually made an acceptable crust with no fuss.  It was a little heavier than I like my pizza crust to be, but for a quick, go-to dough, something sitting in the fridge, ready and waiting, is very nice.

For foccacia, I should have stretched the dough into a thicker, more free-form shape, and given it a longer rest before I topped it, and baked it.  I didn't.  For pizza, a rest would have helped, as well, but I didn't do that, either.  I rolled a very thin crust, immediately topped it, and into the preheated oven it went.

It was pretty darn good, and I smiled, thinking I could easily make foccacia or pizza, any time, as long as I had some dough retarding in the fridge.

I topped my wannabe foccacia (yes, I really *did* want foccacia, not pizza, though I'm not complaining!) with thin potato slices I'd tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and coarse chopped sage.  I then added a few dollops of fromage fort.


When I pulled it from the oven, I added more sage, and some shaved parmesan.  I served it with some steamed asparagus on the side, and it was delicious.

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