Breads
In and out Focaccia – Focaccia with green olives, oregano, cherry tomatoes, and ricotta salata
Mar 23rd
Focaccia fuori e dentro – Focaccia alle olive con origano, pomodorini e ricotta
Fougasse stuffed with olives is quite a common little bread in France, nothing too original in here, but then I added oregano to the olives inside the dough and topped it with cherry tomatoes and ricotta salata to make it a little more “full”.
In Italy focaccia is a little different, it tends to remain simpler with rosemary and onions or just tomatoes, but I have never really seen focaccia with cheese. Oh well, that’s not really a problem. I had leftover dough from another focaccia I made when I had guests, and I really love leftover dough so you can play with it, it’s like a little toy.
The great things with such a “loaded” focaccia is that you can just eat it as is, and don’t need extras to accompany it.
Whoever has been to France probably knows the boulangerie Paul, it’s somehow a huge chain that sells bread all over France…yes the word chain is not very sexy nor has a great connotation in terms of quality….BUT Paul makes good quality breads, very consistant (and not cheap, referring to the baguettes with the grid marks on the bottom, yuck, I really hate those) so you can be in Orleans, Nantes or Paris, the bread is always the same…which is unlikely to happen if you enter an unknown boulangerie. Some breads can be ecstatic and others below average…and getting an average baguette IS a spoiled day for a French. Of course boulangerie Paul cannot compete with the best local boulangeries in town but they do have cute and delicious little breads and their petits pains aux olives, aux noix (walnuts) or aux lardons (bacon) are quite good. So basically my point was that I made this fougasse thinking about my friend Paul…
So when in France and you’re not sure where to find good pastries or bread, check out Paul, even though it’s not top of the line, little artisan baker, their breads and pastries are fresh and good.
When making bread dough like this one, it is important the dough remains very fluffy and elastic, if your ratio of flour vs water is too high, the dough will be hard and will have a tough time rising. You need a soft and almost sticky dough.
Ingredients for one focaccia
For the dough
- 1/2 lb flour
- about 6 g compressed yeast
- about 120 ml water
- salt
- 2 tbs green olives, chopped
- 1 tbs fresh oregano, chopped
For the topping
- about 15-20 cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
- 2 tbs ricotta salata, crumbled
- rock salt
- olive oil for drizzling
Preparation
In a mixing bowl or working surface mix flour with salt olive oil and yeast that had been previously dissolved in lukewarm water.
Knead the dough, if too sticky add flour but the dough needs to be elastic and borderline sticky when kneading it. At the end of the kneading period, the dough will be elastic and very soft.
Cover with a towel and let it rise for one hour, then knead again and let it rise for two hours.
Spread the dough using your hands, you don’t necessary need a rolling pin, you can flatten it up using your fingers.
Top with cherry tomatoes, placed evenly on top, then ricotta. Sprinkle with rock salt and olive oil.
Cook in a pre-heated oven at 390F for about 20 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown and top as well.
You can serve it hot, lukewarm or even cold, it’s delicious either way!
A Simple brioche – One French brioche among others
Feb 28th
Une brioche toute simple, mais si moelleuse – Une brioche parmi tant d’autres
This brioche is simple, quite unpretentious and low-key, light, fluffy but nonetheless very tasty, just like we enjoy to have on some mornings with butter, jam and strong coffee. There are many versions and kinds of brioches, you just have to play around with quantities of eggs, flour, sugar butter and yeast, but the technique is always the same: a “pâte levée“, a “rised dough” . Pâte levée technique consists of preparing the dough the night before with a yeast, then refrigerate it overnight. The cold will enable the dough to ferment slowly in a cold environment, therfore acidity developed by the cells of the yeast will give more flavor to the ingredients and a better aspect to the dough due to the reinforcement of the tenacity of gluten.
Anyone who has been to France knows what brioche is, it’s probably as famous as Eiffel Tower, baguette and croissant. After brioche tressée that tastes more like Pain au lait (milk bread?) that I have been making for a while and the extra rich Farro brioche with goose egg, I went back to a more simple and traditional version of brioche. Retour à la simplicité.
Basically its origin goes back to Middle Ages in Normandy where similar “rised dough” have been retraced. Brioche is not considered a bread in France but a viennoiserie, which is slightly different. Techniques of making viennoiseries are similar to those of making bread but since they have more fat and sugar content, they’re considered more like pastries.
On Friday evenings when I realize I have nothing left for the Saturday morning breakfast, I start making one of those brioches, yes it needs to be prepared the night before and needs to rise in the refrigerator overnight for a light and fluffy dough. I am afraid you cannot cut any corners if you don’t have a bread-machine and will have to wait for the day after to enjoy it.
Breakfast is sacred in my little world and getting up in the morning with nothing to eat is not an option! Even though I have been living in the US for many years, I am not used to the brunch concept, I guess it’s hard to change habits. Brunch is a little confusing, it makes sense if you get up at 11 am but not if you’re up at 7 am like me and have breakfast as early as 7:30 am, call me boring but I like to stick to my traditional coffee, bread, jam and butter in the mornings. Et non, on ne se débarasse pas de ses habitudes comme ca! (no, you don’t get rid of your habits so easily!).
I have been playing around with ingredients quantities, putting less sugar than required because I love jam on my brioche slice so it’s sweet enough for me but you can certainly add more sugar in the dough if your tooth is sweeter.
Ingredients for 6 people
- 10.58 oz (300 g) flour
- 1.5 cup lukewarm milk
- 1.41 oz (40 g) sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3.17 oz (90 g) butter
- 1 dose dry yeast or fresh yeast
- 2 pinches salt
Preparation
Place flour in a mixing bowl, add dry yeast (if using fresh yeast, needs to be dissolved in milk), sugar. Mix well all ingredients.
Add one egg, milk and salt and gradually mix all ingredients. When the dough has thickened, add the extra egg. Knead the dough to incorporate the egg. It might be sticky at the beginning, but keep kneading.
Add butter at the end and mix until the dough becomes elastic but not too sticky. Let it rise for 3 hours. Then, knead a little to remove the “air”.
Place in the refrigerator overnight with a plastic warp, and preventing air from getting into the container.
In the morning, remove dough from the refrigerator, knead slightly and cut in 4 equal parts and form little balls. Place each ball in a greased rectangular baking pan loaf.
Let it rise for an additional hour and cook in a pre-heated oven at 365-370F for about 40 minutes.
Let it cool and enjoy plain or with your favorite jam. I don’t usually add extra butter, since the dough has already some, but you can!
Grandma's secret recipe – Potato crescia with greens and many other things
Feb 17th
La ricetta segreta di Nonna ‘Nita – Crescia di patate con verdura, e tante altre cose
My grandma used to make this crescia when we were kids (my cousins and I) since we were all living together as in a traditional Italian family, and we were just going crazy for it, it was called la crescia colle patate (in dialect it’s more like la crescia col patet). I remember her bending and in sweat, flipping the crescia back and forth on top of the grill on burning coals, she was already old but working so hard to make us happy. We had a fireplace in the attic we would use to grill meat, roast chestnuts, and grill crescia, when my grandma was in the mood for it. The wooden flavor would make anything taste wonderful.
Crescia is a word used in my parents region to call some types of focaccia or piadine, it’s basically a local word. Piadine are from Romagna region and are famous all over Italy, and of course in most of all in the neighboring regions of Romagna. They’re flat types of bread very thin and that are stuffed with various cheeses, greens such as spinach or kale, prosciutto, lonza or any other local product.
I don’t want to confuse you between a crescia and a piadina, but they’re two cousins, and if you ever end up in Romagna you might run into piadina and a meet a crescia if you arrive in Urbino, la città di Raffaello. In Romagna, piadina is a street food, and you can find many restaurants where they’re served with so many side dishes that you can stuff your own piadina with whatever you want.
Crescie on the other hand are usually grilled and originated in Marche and Umbria regions. There are different recipes for crescia, most of them do not have potatoes in the dough, but mainly flour, eggs, lard, water, salt and pepper. My grandma version has potatoes and no lard.
My grandma made this crescia with a potato base and made it a little thicker than regular piadina, and it was our treat. It is hard to translate something so typical and precise into another language, most of the time there is no translation for it because it does not exist anywhere else. I was trying to find some equivalent in English and could not find it.
When the crescia gets cold, it gets a little rubbery, so you need to eat it hot. The base is somehow a gnocchi dough base with a little more flour. Since I don’t have a fireplace, I cooked this in a skillet and it worked quite well.
I used dandelions in this recipe, my grandma used white cabbage, you can also use spinach or any green you like and any Italian cheese such as pecorino, or any sharp cheese. If you have a wood fire place where you can grill food, please try to make a crescia, it’s heavenly.
Ingredients for 6 crescie
- 4 large potatoes, boiled
- 2 cups flour
- 2 eggs
- 2 mozzarelle di bufala (or pecorino, etc…), sliced
- Prosciutto or any other cold cuts (optional)
- salt
- olive oil
For the greens
- 1 bunch dandelions or any other greens
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 rosemary sprig, roughly cut
- 1 tbs olive oil
- salt and pepper
Preparation
For the greens
If using dandelions, previously cook in salted water for about 5-7 minutes, than drain, let it cool and squeeze excess water. Heat olive oil in a pan, add garlic and rosemary, stir to get the flavors out without burning the garlic. Add the greens and saute for a while. Adjust with salt and pepper.
For the crescia
Boil potatoes in water until cooked allt he way through. Let them cool and peel.
In a bowl, mash potatoes into a thin purée, add egg and flour and mix to form a smooth and solid dough.
In a wooden working surface, divide the dough in 6 equal portions and roll each of them into a round flat circles about 3 mm thick.
Heat a large non stick pan or a grill, then cook crescia until both sides are golden brown, maybe a few minutes, depending on how think your dough is.
Remove from grill, drizzle with olive oil, coarse salt and stuff with greens, cheese and prosciutto.
Never give up! – Traditional French baguette
Feb 13th
Ne laissez jamais tomber! – Baguette traditionnelle
After many unsuccessful attempts to make my beloved baguette, that led to frustrations, I finally managed to make some that made me quite happy. My mom makes bread in a blink of an eye and her bread always turns out delicious, without really any need for it, since they are surrounded by amazing boulangeries (bakeries). I figured being in a “non-baguette” land, I needed to be able to make them, and there was no question about it. I was determined to try as many time as necessary, you cannot just stop at a few failures, can you?
I was determined to never give up trying even if it would take me months or years. I baked baguettes a few times with a starter (levain), and quite unhappy with the results, the bread came out crunchy, then the crust would soften and become a little chewy (I hate chewy bread), and the inside was not airy enough, quite dense and that’s not a sign that the bread is right. I really don’t like heavy crumb, after a few bites, it feels you ate some iron. The taste was ok but not quite what I wanted and did not want to post something I thought was not right nor eat it.
After constant searching, and reading boulangers sites like this one www.boulangerie.org and with their amazing recipes that I will try soon, I found another wonderful blog dedicated to baking called Le Pétrin, so for those of you who read French, I strongly suggest it, if you are in a baking mood and interested in bread-making. The explanations are very clear and precise and her breads, patisseries, croissants, brioches are just amazing. I realized that good bread-making takes time and the process is long, so I am afraid you just cannot cut corners. It has to do with all the chemical reactions involved with the flour, water, and yeast…and there is no way you can just make bread in two hours, or at least baguette. What I like about this baguette is that the bottom part is very crunchy, very well cooked, almost burnt and hard with a very nutty taste, that you get in well cooked in some breads.
This mini baguette (20 cm) is made with a fermented dough made the night before, and mixed with a regular dough made the day you are actually baking the baguettes. It makes the crumb (the inside part of the bread) very light and fluffy. This quantity is for 4 mini baguettes (about 20 cm long).
There are so many recipes for baguettes, just because there are many kinds of baguettes, made with different techniques, flours, and so on, so this is one recipe among many others.
You’ll have some fermented dough left, you can keep it up to three days in the refrigerator or in the freezer for 3 months.
Ingredients for about 4 mini baguettes
For the fermented dough
- 5.20 oz (or 150) white flour
- 1/4 tsp dry yeast
- (0.008 0z) 2.5 g salt
- 6.1 fl oz (or 180-200 ml) water
For the dough
- 17.63 oz (or 500 g) flour
- 10. 65 fl oz (315 ml) water
- 0.14 oz (or 4 g) fresh beer yeast
- 4.4 oz (or 125 g) fermented dough
- 0.35 oz (or 10 g) salt
- 0.84 fl oz (or 25 ml) water
Preparation
For the fermented dough
In a mixing bowl, mix flour with yeast, then add water and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon, then start kneading the dough for about 5-10 minutes until it becomes smooth and rubbery. The dough needs to be a little sticky when touching it.
Start forming a bow, and place it in a container lightly oiled and allow the dough to be very slightly coated with the oil. Cover with a plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 hour.
Quickly knead the dough to let the gas come out, then place back in the bowl and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight.
For the dough
Remove fermented dough and leave it at room temperature for one hour.
Take the quantity you need and place the rest in the refrigerator well wrapped.
Place flour in a mixing bowl with water and mix with a wooden spoon. Knead well until the dough becomes smooth but without too sticky. Cover the container and let it rest for one hour.
Mix fermented dough with the regular dough and add crumbled yeast, knead the dough. Add salt and water gradually and knead for 5 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Cover the container with a plastic warp, let it rest for 1h30 and after 30 min bring both ends toward the center.
Remove dough from container and lay on a floured working surface. Cut the dough into 4 pieces. Cover with a towel and let rest for 20 min.
Take each piece and form baguette and place on parchment, thin extremities. Leave about 4 inches in between each baguettes. Cover with a towel for one hour.
Pre-heat oven at 400F and place a small container like a cup (something that will handle that heat) in the oven while it’s heating up. When ready to place baguettes in the oven. Add water to the container so that steam will form and close the door immediately.
Make 2 cuts with a wet razor blade on top of the baguettes, then place them in the oven. 30 seconds later spray water on the sides of the oven to humidify bread. Close oven door quickly and let it cook for about 20 minutes or until baguettes have a golden color. Leave the bread for 5 min after the oven is turned off.
For the love of bread – Whole wheat country bread with figs
Jan 4th
Pour l’amour du pain – Pain complet aux figues
This is one of my mom’s favorites, she made it to eat it with fish terrine for that crazy Jan 1st meal. Seems like she recently got into bread making and so excited to make it for me. I love breads in France, all of them, baguette à l’ancienne, baguette tradition, pain de campagne, etc…they’re all so good that I love to eat them just plain, like some people would eat cookies and bread is the first thing I request when I arrive.
Not all bakeries make great bread but we all know where the best bread in town is, and get it fresh every morning and people have absolutely no problem driving a few miles to get the bread they want even though there is a boulangerie (bakery) at every corner here. Every one has its favorite boulangerie and we can have serious discussions about where the best bread is and why. Too bad I am no baker, otherwise I would open one in my San Francisco neighborhood since finding good bread there is like a mission impossible. Or eventually make it for my own consumption…I repaired my own shoes once, so why not make bread? I think making great bread is not an easy task though, you need the right ingredients, and a perfect humidity. I think the constant high humidity level in San Francisco makes it difficult to keep the bread crunchy for too long.
She made this bread very quickly and I was impressed with easiness of the process, it’s fairly simple. So you don’t need to be a baker to make it. I always thought it’s impossible if you’re not a baker to make good bread, and I have to say that some home made breads can be delicious.
Ingredients for one bread
- 12.34 oz (or 350 g) whole wheat flour
- 7-8 figs cut in pieces
- 10.14 fl oz (or 300 ml) water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 pack yeast
Preparation
In a container, place flour, add salt and mix. Dissolve yeast in water, and add gradutally to the flour. You need to have a little sticky consistency. Mix but to not over knead dough. Make a thick baguette shape bread. Let it rise for 2 hours. When dough has doubled its size, insert fig pieces and sprinkle with flour. Cook in a pre-heated oven for about 30 min. or until the bread is golden brown.
A "déjà vu" cake – Traditional French gruyère, green olives and ham cake
Dec 24th
Un cake déjà vu – Cake traditionnel au gruyère, olives et jambon
Savory cakes are very popular in France, everyone has its own version and makes them for appetizers with drinks when you have a guests over. You cut them in small bites and pass them along with drinks. Usually, I don’t like to post too many traditional French or Italian dishes, I somehow love to explore new ideas, flavors and shapes but once in a while, it makes me feel closer to home like with this cake salé. You can flavor it with what you like, such as feta, mint and zucchini, or sundried tomatoes and thyme, or just use your creativity. You only need the basic proportions of flour, olive oil or butter, and eggs, then the rest is up to you.
Nothing too fancy or original in this post, just maybe the most traditional cake salé that every French person who cooks and entertains, knows how to make, it’s a great one, always appreciated and quite delicious combining three main ingredients. Usually savory cakes contain butter, but I like to use olive oil, it gives it a really fruity and fragrant flavor.
Savory cakes are another one of those things I don’t make very often, I tried a few with shrimps, and other ingredients but as far as entertaining menu is concerned, I tend to make other types of snacks or canapés. This is a great item when you have guests pour l’apéro, a lot quicker to make than a savory tart or quiche. Tonight I have a little time to cook, so cake is on the menu among other little bites. It’s healthier than serving chips and other pre-packed junk food. Even though I love thick and salty potato chips! One of those items I cannot have in the house, or I will just not stop thinking about them until I ate them all.
Ingredients for about 6 people
- 6.34 oz (or 180 g) unbleached flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 eggs
- 3 fl oz (or 90 ml) olive oil
- 3.38 oz (or 100 ml) milk
- 7 oz (or 200 g) ham, cut in cubes
- 5.64 oz (or 160 g) gruyère cheese or cantal grated
- 3.5 oz (or 100 g) green olives, roughly chopped
- a pinch of salt and pepper
Preparation
In a mixing container, mix flour and baking powder. In another container, mix eggs, milk, olive oil. Mix well and add to the four/baking powder mixture. Add salt and pepper. Add ham, gruyère and olives. Mix carefully.
Bake in a non-stick loaf pan in a 370F pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes.
Now it's the goose's turn – Farro brioche with goose egg and orange blossom water
Nov 21st
C’est au tour de l’oie de pondre – Brioche d’épeautre à l’oeuf d’oie et eau de fleur d’oranger
I went to whole Foods again this morning, and I decided to buy a goose egg after the last week experiment with duck eggs. Instead of another omelette, I wanted to try and bake with them since I heard so many wonderful things about how delicious pastry you can get with the use of goose eggs. They’re larger and even richer than duck’s eggs, and more expensive, since one costs $5. I know my mom used to make pasta with those, my uncle in Italy has geese and always gives her some of his eggs, and I don’t think there’s anything that can please her more that that.
So going back to my Whole Foods story, I arrived at the cash register and the cashier had no idea how much they were, so I told him $5 each and he did not believe me, so he proudly decided to give it to me for free. He said there is no price, so it’s free. I like that principle. Oh well, I rarely get free stuff, so I for once I left happily holding carefully my egg in my hand since it was so big, it didn’t fit anywhere and I certainly did not want to break it.
I had made brioches a while ago that turned out really well, so I took that recipe, making some changes to quantities and ingredients but still using the same technique of letting it rest overnight in the refrigerator, and adding some flavors to the dough. Et voilà ma belle brioche!
I think I will have to get used to baking more since this neighborhood I moved into, there are absolutely NO bakeries, and that is a big bummer. There is one a couple of blocks down but I looked at the bread and pastries and they don’t look very appetizing at all, so I will have to either drive miles to get bread or do it myself. I am no baker, and it takes time to make good bread so not sure how that will work. Call me crazy but the other thing I do when I go into a bakery, is look at the cleanliness of the windows. If the windows are dirty, it’s not a good sign of cleanliness of the overall bakery and I walk away.
Goose eggs can very a lot in size, and they’re about the equivalent of 3 regular eggs. Mine was very big and the yolk amazingly huge, so my brioche quite rich. I added half farro flour that I am in love with. I also used Écorce d’orange en poudre, (orange peel powder) I bought in France. I’m sure you can find something similar in the US, probably in some health food stores. The brioche is deliciously perfumed with orange blossom water and rich while being light at the same time. So yes, goose eggs make great pastries and brioches.
Ingredients for 2 brioches
- 1/2 lb (or 250 g) white flour
- 1/2 lb (or 250 g) farro flour
- 1 large goose egg
- 1 cup (or 250 ml) milk
- 1 regular egg yolk for topping
- 2.82 oz (or 80 g) butter, soft and diced
- 2.82 oz (or 80 g) sugar
- 1 tbs orange blossom water
- 1 tsp orange peel powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp beer yeast dissolved in 4 tbs lukewarm water (or dry yeast)
Preparation
In a large mixing container, mix both flours, add sugar and salt. Make a whole in the center and add egg, orange blossom water and orange peel powder. Mix well and gradually add milk, vanilla extract and yeast. At this point, you will obtain an elastic dough. If the dough is too liquid and sticky, add flour. Knead well. Add butter incorporating it carefully to the dough but do not over knead or “heat” the dough. Let it rise for about 2 hours.
Knead again and place in in the refrigerator overnight. Knead the dough again, then cut dough in two equal pieces, then cut again each piece in three . You should have six little dough balls. Grease two loave pans and place three pieces of dough in each pan, and let it rise for another additional 2 hours.
Baste top of each loaf with egg yolk, and cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F for about 30 minutes. Check once in a while to see the top didn’t burn. Remove from the oven and eat lukewarm with jam or as is.
Focaccia or Schiacciata? – Stuffed schiacciata with onions, zucchini, mushrooms and fontina
Oct 28th
Focaccia o schiacciata? – Schiacciata ripiena con cipolle, zucchine, funghi e fontina
Even though this week is a crazy week, I think I am even crazier to be cooking, when I should be either packing or painting or working on some menus and certainly not working on my blog. I am just a little obsessive when food is concerned and I just wanted to make this schiacciata for such a long time, that I decided to stop postponing and make it in a little rush!
Another Italian little stuffed bread, it can be called focaccia ripiena (ripiena = stuffed, filled), torta ripiena or schiacciata…the dough is somehow the same, then it’s stuffed with vegetables and melting cheese.
Schiacciare means to crush, so schiacciata means crushed. Basically the dough is crushed flat so you get a great filling in between the two sheets. You have different types of schiacciata, in Florence, they also have schiacciata con l’uva which is a sweet version of this one but made with black grapes. In the South, in the Catania region (Sicily), they have schiacciata catanese which is a savory schiacciata stuffed with sausages, cheese and cauliflower. I have seen schiacciata mainly stuffed with vegetables and never tried any other version.
This is perfect for a little aperitivo, you can cut it in small squares and serve it with some olives and cold cuts when you have guests over with a little cup of Champagne. The melting fontina on top of vegetables in the middle of a deliciously crunchy, salty and “herby” crust is delightful. The rosemary is my favorite herb on focaccia, its scent infuses in the crust and your house smells like a bakery from heaven. You can use caciocavallo cheese if you can find it, but the cheese needs to be a melting one.
You don’t need to work the dough as much as I did, I let it rest overnight. When I have time, I let it rest a long time, then knead it again, the whole process taking 12 hours, I get a wonderful dough, light and airy and crunchy on the outside. If you don’t have time, you can just let it rest for one hour, knead it again and let it rest for another hour, and it should be fine.
Ingredients
For the dough
- 500 g white flour
- Beer yeast dissolved in a glass of water (or more)
- 4 tbs olive oil (+ 1)
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- rock salt for topping
- 1 rosemary sprig for topping, roughly chopped
- 1 thyme branch for topping, roughly chopped
For the stuffing
- 2 zucchini, thinly sliced
- 1 large yellow onion, sliced
- 2 cups mushrooms, sliced
- Italian fontina cheese
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 1 + 1 tbs olive oil
- salt and pepper
Preparation
In a mixing container, place flour. In a glass dissolve about 1 tsp beer yeast in a lukewarm glass of water. Mix with flour and add olive oil and salt. Gradually mix all ingredients together and knead the dough with your hand. You want a soft consistency almost sticky but very elastic dough, so if the dough tends to be hard, add water. Knead for about 10 minutes. Place in a container, cover with a cloth and let it rise for about one hour. It should double its volume. Knead the dough again and let rise for another 2 hours. Repeat the process twice.
While the dough is rising, start melting onions. Heat olive oil in a pan, then add sliced onions. Let them brown at medium temperature, then decrease heat, cover with a lid and let it cook slowly until they turn soft and caramelized. Remove from the pan. In the same pan, heat 1 tbs olive oil, then add mushrooms and zucchini, salt and pepper, and cook until the vegetables are soft and water has evaporated.
Cut the dough in two pieces. One should be a little bigger than the other one. Using a rolling pin or your hands, roll the dough in two sheets, one slightly larger than the other one. The dough should not be too thick, about 7 mm thick.
Using an oven tray, or a large rectangular dish, place larger dough in the greased dish, add one layer of onions, then add mushroom/zucchini mixture. Add slices of fontina on top and cover with the other dough sheet, using the extra dough from the bottom sheet to seal the sciacciata.
Place rock salt all over the top, spread olive oil all over the surface and add rosemary and thyme. Using a fork, make a few holes on top to prevent the dough from inflating. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 375F – 380F. When the top is lightly golden brown, remove from the oven. Serve hot.
Pretty Madeleine and Stanislas – Savory madeleines with oregano, gruyère and olives
Sep 21st
La jolie Madeleine et Stanislas – Madeleines aux olives, origan et gruyère
After a sunny and perfect weekend, not too much breeze, not too hot, just perfect day of hanging out with a friend, I realized that when people drop by, I never have snacks to offer them. I rarely snack or buy snacks, so when you have nothing to offer people other than wine, or apéritif, they tend to get buzzed a little too fast. So having little bites would be something to think about.
As every Sunday, I speak with my mom who keeps me updated on what is going on over there. So she had guests and made mini savory olive madeleines in her fancy silicon molds. I don’t know why I never of think of making those. They are perfect for an apéritif, snack or whatever, you can even even freeze them…so I figured I would make some too, and if no guests show up, I will give them to my neighbor. Which is what happened.
They’re fun to make and they don’t have to be the regular boring ones. In France, savory madeleines are common, it’s somehow trendy, and they’re great to nibble on. Not that I particularly love to follow a trend, because sometimes they don’t make any sense, but if you taste those, a lot of sense is in there. I can assure you.
Here is for the little story….Madeleines de Commercy are born in Lorraine that’s why I am bringing this up (yes again, it’s a rainy region, but lots of stuff happened there! and Commercy is a small town – when it’s rainy, people stay inside, and lots of stuff happen in rainy regions). In 1755, King Stanislas (he was a Polish King who was a also Duke of Lorraine and ruled it for years; we have a gorgeous square called Place Stanislas with all Golden painted doors with the statue of the King in the middle) had an argument with his pastry chef, who quit “il a rendu son tablier“, he gave his apron back! Soon after, the King with his sweet tooth, got introduced to a pretty young lady whose name was Madeleine Paulmier, a servant at some marquise estate. She made those beautiful little bites for the King who became addicted to them and probably to her too, since he was known to like the ladies. She then became his personal supplier. Those little oval golden nuggets with the shape of a shell were then named after our pretty baker. Since then, Commercy has been famous for its madeleine fabrication.
Now the madeleine has evolved into a savory one and can be fun to make and to eat too. I think I will post more madeleines recipes…don’t even know why I didn’t think about it sooner. So much clutter in my mind lately, too many recipes and too little time.
For those savory madeleines, I used olive oil, the sweet ones need butter. Whenever I can substitute butter with olive oil, I do it. You can use butter too if you prefer in this recipe. My recipes are lenient, when you use the base quantities, you can flavor the rest with your ingredients.
Ingredients for 16 madeleines
- 5.30 oz (or 150 g) flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 1. 35 fl oz (or 4 cl) olive oil
- 1 fl oz (or 3 cl) milk
- 1 tbs fresh oregano, chopped
- 2. 16 oz (or 60 g) gruyère cheese, grated
- 2 tbs kalamata olives, chopped
- salt and pepper
Preparation
In a container, mix flour and baking powder. In another container, mix eggs and milk, then add to the flour. Gradually add olive oil and mix well to obtain a smooth but sticky dough. Add gruyère, oregano, olives, and mix well to combine all ingredients together. Add salt and pepper. I add more salt than I would to a savory dough, I like them to be on the salty side, but you might not. I always taste the dough before adjusting with salt.
Place in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
Butter madeleine molds, and fill each with with dough but not up to the top, only 3/4 filled. Place in a pre-heated oven at 375F for about 10-15 min, or until the madeleines have risen and became golden.
Mamma Lucia's focaccia – Spelt Focaccia with rosemary, onions and rock salt
Aug 13th
La focaccia di mamma Lucia – Focaccia di farro con rosmarino e cipolla
This is my mom’s focaccia or signature appetizer, it’s what they call in the region she is from in Italy “crescia”. Different regions have different ways of calling the same thing and crescia is more like the local name of a focaccia, since local dialects are very much still spoken in Italy, and that is the first language I learnt how to speak. No wonder why when I started going to kindergarden in France, no one would understand me.
She serves this as apéritif with prosciutto, other cold cuts and cheeses. You can stuff it with mozzarella and tomatoes, prosciutto and pecorino, or anything you like. I added some spelt flour to the dough as a little twist.
Focaccia in Italian or Fougasse in French, (mainly consumed in the South of France) are very similar, it’s a base of bread dough with olive oil in it and topped with olives, and other local products.
This is a version of the traditional focaccia, that has been quite popular when I have guest over for brunch or apéritif with olives, salami and cheeses.
Ingredients for 6
- 7 oz (or 200 g) white flour
- 3.5 oz (or 100 g) spelt flour
- 1/4 cup lukewarm water to dissolve yeast
- 1/2 cup lukewarm water
- 5 tbs olive oil + 1 tbs to sprinkle on top of focaccia
- Kosher salt
- 1/4 onion, in small pieces
- 2 rosemary sprigs
- 1/2 tsp rock salt
Preparation
Mix both flours in a container. Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. Slowly add yeast to the flours, add the rest of water, mixing progressively, add olive oil, and Kosher salt. Mix well to form a compact dough. You might need to check if the dough is too hard, add water, but don’t make it too liquid either, it needs to be elastic but not sticky. You need to knead the dough for minimum 10 minutes, until the dough turns elastic and smooth.
Place dough in a container and cover with a towel, let rise for about 2 hours, then knead the dough again and let rise for another hour minimum. Knead the dough once more, then place in a tray, and spread with your fingers to get a 1/2 inch thick dough, then with your fingers, make wholes in it, all over the surface. Add pieces of onions and rosemary in the holes. Sprinkle with olive oil and rock salt. Let stand at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F for about 20-30 minutes. Let cool and cut in small cubes, or larger pieces to stuff them with the ingredients of your choice.
