I tried making foccacia long ago, right as we were starting weirdcombinations. I used a recipe from Saveur magazine, which looked gorgeous on their cover and at my home. Unfortunately, the taste wasn’t quite right. The dough was too heavy and doughy, if you know what I mean. At the time I had intended to try other versions until I fond one that worked for me. But like so many things, it was put on hold. That is until now.

basic foccacia topped with parmesan, black olives and oven-roasted onions with balsamic vinegar

I planned to use a recipe from allrecipes, which looked simple because they only let the dough rise twenty minutes without a second rising. But once I started exploring other options, it didn’t sound long enough. So my trusty 1997 Joy of Cooking came to the rescue again. I ended up mixing the two recipes and sets of instructions to arrive at the perfect foccacia. Finally!

basic foccacia

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 package of active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dried oregano
black pepper
1 tbsp canola oil
1 cup warm water
olive oil

for toppings:

1 tbsp parmesan cheese
oven-roasted onions with balsamic vinegar*
12 black olives in halves

Mix flour, salt, yeast, sugar, dried oregano and black pepper together. Add canola oil and water. Mix until firms up a bit. Kneed dough for ten minutes. Form into a ball. Pour some olive oil into a large bowl and coat dough ball with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 90 minutes in a warm place.

Grease a large baking tray with more olive oil (I covered one with aluminum foil to make clean-up easier.) Press dough flat into tray. Cover and let rise another 60 to 90 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 450F.

Gently press some depressions across surface of dough and brush with more olive oil.

Sprinkle with parmesan. Top with olives and roasted onions. Bake about 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, cut and serve warm.

*To make roasted onions, peel and slice two onions into rings. Toss with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and black pepper. Broil until cooked and somewhat caramelized.