Focaccia……an obsession……..
Where do I begin……
I grew up in South Philadelphia, it is the land of hoagies, meatballs and chicken parms, enough pasta to feed you until you couldn’t walk. And we also had plenty of Italian bakeries baking bread, Sundays we would always have tomato pie, which is basically just a square pizza with tomato sauce. It is probably one of the most nostalgic foods for me, square pizza in general… I absolutely love it because it is more dough. Now pizza in general is one of the most subjective foods there is in my opinion, between the vast differences between styles, to techniques, and also just how one personal preference can dictate whether or not they like it. Coming up as a cook, I have always had a side passion project of breads so I got my hands on as many bread books as I could, I was very book smart about bread, but like all crafts, you only get better with practice and repetition. One line I would always try to tell my cooks is that: “Having the knowledge on how to do something, and being able to actually execute it are two entirely different things.”
In 2011 I moved to New York City to take a leap and jump right into the deep end of my industry, I got a job at Locanda Verde as a Jr Sous Chef, Karen DeMasco was the pastry chef her team made fresh focaccia daily for bread service…….and let me tell you, it was the bees knees. I was used to much denser breads kind of like those sicilian style pizzas I grew up eating these were airy but had such a crisp crust, it was like was shown a whole new world! When I tell you I lived off of this bread, I ate it just about EVERY day! I took home the leftover ones at night, I couldn’t get enough of it. I needed to know how to do it, but I was never one to just take someone else’s recipe and just make that, so I began to tinker…….
This day and age there has been a great uprising is local flour milling and boy can I tell you what difference this makes! Anywhere you see a farmers market nowadays you can spot a stand that has flours, and meals that are milled within a very short time frame of you purchasing it. So needless to say creating a flour blend is just another added layer to the tinkering process. When it comes to bread baking there is a basic rule of thumb you follow, it is called the Bread Bakers Percentage: Which refers to your recipe measurements by using percentages of the flour by weight vs the other ingredients. (Flour will always be at 100% and in most cases water will be anywhere from 60-90) And as far as ingredients go all you need for good bread is flour, water, yeast, and salt. Now I’ve been using a base recipe at around 75-85% water or hydration and that has been my sweet spot. When it comes to bread there are many factors/variables you need to consider: time; temperature; the type/power of oven you use, etc…..
Focaccia is a great bread to cook at home because it is a great intro into bread, but for me, I never really moved on from it, because I never am 1000% happy with the result. Chefs are in a constant loop of trying to make things better, taste more flavorful, or be more efficient….
We are in a paradox of a search for perfection, but what can actually be perfect, I don’t think it is a pedestal we at to reach the top of, instead we strive to push ourselves to climb a never ending mountain of progression……And that is how I feel about my Focaccia above any other foods I make………
“You are always looking at all of the nuances that make your perfect loaf.”
“Continually tweaking……and that’s obsession!”
-Nancy Silverton
