Tomato Focaccia

by A.J. Coltrane

I’ve read about a Roman bread that has tomato “painted” into the surface. (Thanks for the perfect word to describe it, Kurt.) I spent a little time looking for a picture of what I’m visualizing… I don’t know that I’ve found a “right” picture. Most of the recipes seem to include a tomato puree and/or paste within the dough. Some rub a finished bread with a cut tomato after it comes out of the oven, which I’m thinking is what I had in mind when starting this bread:

The bloody end result was based around what’s become my default focaccia recipe:  300g AP Flour, 300g Bread Flour, 420g water, 36g olive oil, 14g kosher salt.  (That’s 70% hydration, 6% oil, and 2.33% salt by weight.) This time I omitted the honey, reduced the instant yeast to 3/8 teaspoon, and allowed for a 18 hour rise.

Note that it’s the same rise time, and ratio of yeast as goes into the No Knead Bread — the No Knead Bread uses 400g flour and 1/4 teaspoon of yeast.

The Tigerella tomato sauce was simmered with three smashed cloves of garlic and two thai bird chilis until fairly thick but still “drizzleable”. (We’d recently been to a cooking class where the chef used a little bit of heat to “focus” things. I think that it worked — there was just a faint hint of heat at the finish.)

The Rest Of The Recipe:

1.  Combine dough ingredients, mix on low speed for 10 minutes, and let rise 18 hours.

2.  Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled baking sheet let rise one hour. (I went with a one hour rise instead of two or three because I was looking for a denser finished product, and so that the dough would support the weight of the sauce.)

3.  Preheat oven to 425F.

4.  Drizzle on the cooled sauce. Note that a focaccia typically has olive oil on the surface. I didn’t use any oil this time.

5.  Bake for 15 minutes, turn the tray, and bake for another 12-15 minutes.

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I think the Reinhart book American Pie has the application I’m looking for. Maybe I’ll dig through it for the recipe. Maybe.