"Focaccia of Doom"

This recipe is one of our oldest - it harkens back to the Burlington days in the mid-90s. We found a wonderful little trattoria there on Cherry Street - they had an olive oil dipping sauce that was salted and heavily garlicked. So good that we went home (burping all the while) and started looking for a focaccia to match it.

We found a version of this recipe in Nava Atlas' "Vegetariana", a very nice veg cookbook. We omitted some of the ingredients (the original called for slices of sun-dried tomatoes in the loaf, but we found that the tomato clashed with the garlic oil dip).

This is a great recipe because it takes about 1hr 20min from start the yeast to put it on the table. Pair this with some sauce-simmering and the meatballs, and it all works out to be ready at the same time (and without all the sweating).

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 tsp of dried yeast
• 1 Tbsp of brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1/4 cup of minced sun-dried tomatoes (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• Dried rosemary
• Kosher salt
• Olive oil

Steps

1. In a 2 cup bowl, add 1 cup of blood-warm water. Sprinkle in the brown sugar, oil, and yeast. Stir very lightly, just get some of the yeast below the surface of the water. Let stand for 10 minutes until the yeast starts to foam.
2. Add the sun-dried tomatoes if you like (we usually skip this if we are going to dunk the bread in olive oil/garlic because it is too sweet).
3. In a large bowl, add the flours and salt. Mix well.
4. Slowly pour in the yeast slurry and mix.
5. Knead for 5 minutes, incorporating all of the flour, the dough will be "goldilocks" - so, not too sticky (add a bit more flour to the kneading area) and not too dry (it should hold together with some cracking). Alternatively, mix for 5 minutes on medium with a dough hook on your trusty stand mixer.
6. Form the dough into a ball, put it back into the bowl and cover for a 10 minutes rise time (I like being near the woodstove, but not on the ground - dog noses push in the towel).
7. Take the ball and roll it out into a round, about 12 inches across should make it about 1 inch high. Place this on a cookie sheet, cover with a towel and
8. Let rise 40 minutes in a warm place.
9. Preheat the oven to 400 during the 40 minute rise.
10. Uncover and bake for 2o-25 minutes, it should have a hollow "thunk" when it is ready.
11. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve with olive oil - we have two favorites:

• EVOO with balsamic vinegar (about 2 EVOO: 1 balsamic).
• EVOO with garlic (1 tbsp EVOO: 1 clove of good minced garlic)(never garlic in a jar)