Culture

I first made this loaf as a hangover cure for a good friend of mine. After he participated in a terrible game of “take one for the team and finish the bottle of awful Teacher’s Whiskey,” carbohydrate was required to soak up the night before. It was accompanied with a day spent on the couch watching movies and good lashings of butter.

I call this “lazy person’s focaccia” because I speed up the rising process in a warmed oven, I use instant yeast rather than dried, and I use plain rather than high grade flour, so the dough is softer and easier to knead.

I top my focaccia with olive oil, rock salt and rosemary, which I usually steal from the neighbour’s bush down the road.

To speed up the rising process, preheat the oven to 100 degrees on bake. Take your kneaded dough, lube it up with a good slosh of olive oil and rub it all over the surface of the dough ball. This will prevent it drying out in the oven. Once the oven is up to temperature, whack the dough in a bowl, pop it in the oven then turn the oven off. Leave for 15 minutes before removing and rolling out again.

Ingredients

Makes one really large loaf that should really be shared by at least 6 people, not two ...

• 4 cups plain flour (plus up to another cup to sprinkle over as you knead it in)


• 2 teaspoons instant yeast


• 2 teaspoons sugar


• 2 teaspoons salt


• 300ml warm water


• 1⁄4 cup of olive oil


• rock salt, rosemary and more olive oil to top it with.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 100 degrees on bake.


2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, yeast and salt. Make a well in the centre.


3. Add the olive oil to the water then pour the liquid into the well of the flour. Using a butter knife, stir the dough until it comes together. Tip out onto a floured bench and knead. Sprinkle over more flour if it is too sticky (which it will be.) You may need to use up to a cup as you knead. You want the final dough to be smooth and soft. This dough won’t be as stiff and stubborn as normal bread dough since we are using flour with a lower gluten content (the protein which makes a dough stretchy).


4. Pour some olive oil onto your hands and rub it all over the dough ball. Place the ball in a bowl then pop it in the warm oven. As soon as the dough goes into the oven, turn the oven off. The residual heat will be enough to raise the dough quickly.


5. The dough won’t rise very much but it will become quite soft. Remove from the oven after 15-20 minutes.


6. Preheat the oven again to 200 degrees on bake.


7. Line a baking tray (or pizza tray, in our case) with baking paper. Roll out the dough until it is 15-20mm thick and flip it onto your baking surface. Use the tips of your fingers to cover the surface with indents. Spread a good few sloshes of olive oil over the bread and spread it over with your fingers (we are too lazy to find, and then dirty up, a pastry brush!). Sprinkle over the rock salt (amount depends on your taste) and the rosemary leaves. Whack it in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the surface becomes golden and when tapped, a hollow sound is produced.


8. Serve straight out of the oven with butter, avocado, chutney – whatever, really (the fridge was rather barren)