Sometimes there are so many bad renditions of a foreign dish, it takes a trip out of the country to realize how good the original is. That's how it was with focaccia for chef Nancy Silverton. One taste of the real thing in southern Italy sent her on a quest for the secrets of making great focaccia, which she shared in the LA Times last week.
The secrets of focaccia-making are not actually secrets, Silverton points out. All she did was carefully observe the traditional methods used in Italian kitchens, which taught her some key lessons about making focaccia that is "moist and chewy, with an irregular hole structure, and an oily, crunchy underside," not the usual dry, dense squares served in the U.S.
The three most important lessons she took home were:
1. Use a round cake pan, not a sheet pan. The smaller pan makes it easier to work with the dough, and less handling means a lighter, more airy bread.
2. Let the dough do its second rise in the pan it will be baked in. Doing this eliminates the need to move the dough after its second rise, keeping as much air in the dough as possible.
3. Pour a ⅛-¼ inch layer of olive oil in the bottom of the pan. This absorbs into the bottom of the focaccia, adding flavor and crunch.
Check out the article for all of Nancy Silverton's tips, as well as four recipes for focaccia. It's a great read that has us itching to try making authentic focaccia.
• Read the article & get the recipes: Nancy Silverton explains how to make focaccia
Do you have any tips for making focaccia?
Related: Early Spring Recipe: Lemon and Sea Salt Focaccia
(Image: Dana Velden)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
How to Make Buckwheat Soba Noodles from Scratch
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Martha Concrete Lam...
Dirty Little Secrets of Tidy Families
Hillary & Michael's Refined Roost
Ugh. Everytime I make focaccia I end up smoking out the house and one time actually started a fire. I think I use too much olive oil and then don't let the dough absorb it enough. It ends up tasting good and I have a beautiful airy dough, but the smoke and flames might be too much.
1) Round pans instead of sheet pan? I never had any trouble with my sheet pan, but round might be nice when I'm making a pizza-esqe topping instead of a plain one.
2) No kidding. This should be standard instruction. Easier, too.
3) I...don't...know...about...that... Is this like the restaurant trick of adding a stick of butter to everything. Yes, you add a stick of butter, or an extra 1/3 cup of olive oil, you will get a richer result. And fat. You will get fat.
And @mkivgli, wow! I have never had a foccacia fire. But if I were you I would disregard Suggestion #3 here. Definitely sounds like you'd lose the house.
I made Nancy's recipe on Saturday and it turned out fantastic. I had never attempted focaccia before but she made it sound so easy and that it was. It was not greasy in the slightest and had the airy, holey texture that is the hallmark of good focaccia with a crisp exterior. I'll be making this again.
Chris Bianco has a focaccia recipe on marthastewart.com. I followed the recipe a few times with okay results. I finally watched the video that accompanied the recipe. It features Chris showing Martha how to make the bread. What you see (that is NOT included in the recipe) is Chris adding quite a bit of oil to both the bowl the dough rises in, as well as the sheet pan the dough is baked on. After doing this myself, my bread is MUCH better. Fattier, yes, but I certainly don't eat oily bread everyday. White bread hardly qualifies as health food to begin with.
YUM 5,000, must try
I love the Cook's Illustrated focaccia with grated baked potato in the dough. It's really light and fluffy with a good chew.
I use the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day recipe and it has never failed me. I love playing around with different toppings!