Flatbreads, with focaccia
In many countries flatbreads are what the cuisine regards as ‘bread’ and often the name of the particular flatbread is simply ‘bread’ in that language. In Europe and Scandinavia flatbreads are distinguished from loaf breads, with each providing a completely different service to the consumer. Looking at the world of bread, it is hard to imagine anything further apart than our own sandwich loaf and a flatbread. Our British loaves aspire to volume, with the gluten in the flour being well enough developed to allow the structure to be pumped up with the gas made by the yeast. Big and bold, admittedly with varying degrees of density, our wheat based loaf breads are expected to be upstanding, to say the least. Flatbreads, on the other hand, can turn out very nicely without an abundance of well-developed gluten, and they are a sprawling flat shape as if to make the point.
Flatbreads often belong to cultures and cuisines where wheat is not the local crop or the usual flour. Large areas of the British Isles remained with oats and barley as their main crops until the end of the eighteenth century. In Scotland and northern England, even extending down to Staffordshire, there was the oatcake, known as havercake in Yorkshire and Lancashire. In this oat-growing region wheat was still scarce until the twentieth century. The oatcake of Kendal was called ‘clapbread’, referring to the hand slapping of the dough around the flat board to drive it outwards to the edge until it was reputedly as thin as paper – according to horseback traveller, writer, and adventurer Celia Fiennes. Her work of 1700 Through England on a side-saddle in the time of William & Mary written as she journeyed in northern counties could earn her the accolade of being described as an early travel writer.
Also in the midlands, alongside the dominant oatcakes, leavened buckwheat pancakes were known. In Wales, Cumbria (Cumberland and Westmoreland), and Scotland there were barley bannocks, their name for the griddle-cooked flatbread. These flatbreads were sometimes a batter rather than a dough and cooked on the griddle pan, not an oven. Looking at recipes it must be noted that some portion of wheat flour was often included, bringing enough gluten to make the dough or batter cohesive so that it would flatten or roll out properly and be manageable on its way to being cooked. Depending on the region they were either leavened or unleavened.
Mexico and central American cuisines use maize flour for their tortilla flatbreads and wraps. In Nordic countries they have rye and barley for their flatbreads. In the Middle East, while a huge range of different types of flatbreads exist, they have not grown the strong (high gluten) varieties of wheat and, besides, they have no tradition of the bold loaf in their cuisine. The flatness of the sprawling thin shape is what they regard as bread.
Millenia ago flatbreads would have been the norm and, before ovens were developed, they would have been cooked on hot stones in the hearth for settled cultures, or hot stones around a campfire in nomadic cultures. In recent centuries in the non-wheat areas householders cooked their oat or barley flatbreads on the iron griddle or girdle, or on a bakestone which would be a thin slab of a stone like slate with fire made underneath it. Flatbreads made by the cottager or small householder could be conveyed to the communal oven to be baked, as you would still see today in the Middle East and north Africa. The development of wheat with strong gluten brought the loaf culture, with few people making their own since large ovens were the preserve of the town baker or large and wealthy households such as manor houses or affluent farms. Where there was the expectation that the consumer wants a fresh loaf nearly every day, that scale of baking belonged in cities where there were bakeries.
A positive feature of the flatbread is its keeping ability. Loaf breads disappoint when they stale, and before complete staleness has occurred there is the likelihood of moulds spoiling the loaf. On the other hand, flatbreads can be allowed to completely dry out, to be stored in the open air as crisp items that can be reclaimed months later as either cracker-like bread or to be moistened to bulk out a stew.
In the upstanding loaf culture we take a knife to the bread, to cut slices or chunks. Flatbreads, if not being used as a “wrap”, are torn and pulled apart, with a function at table that often resembles a westerner’s use of cutlery: the flatbread piece can be used like a spoon as it gathers sauces or dips; it can be held cleverly between thumb and fingers and used in a pincer action to capture morsels of either solid or soft food. And the pita types, with their hollow inside, can be torn apart in the normal way, or cut in half to reveal two separate sacks (‘pockets’) to be filled with a whole meal.
FOCACCIA
The word ‘focaccia’ derives from the Latin word for hearth, capturing the image of a flat disc of bread which would have been the shape of unleavened hearth breads baked by the ancients in the ashes at the edge of their outdoor campfires. Later, as cooking moved indoors, focaccia has its traceable origin as the rustic hearth bread cooked on hot flat stones that would have been an integral layer of the cottage hearth – a central cooking fire positioned as the hub of any rural dwelling. This is in direct contrast to the origin of pizza, which evolved after the oven was common, and was made by specialist professional bakers to be sold on the street to town dwellers who had no cooking facilities in their simple homes.
Modern focaccia embraces the various flat yeasted breads of all the northern regions of Italy and they are earthy and simple. Try scattering stripped herbs (like rosemary or thyme) and roughly chopped garlic over the dough which is then drizzled all over with olive oil. Sliced onions, cherry toms can also be strewn on, or a scattering of olives. Another style would be to smear them with Ligurian style pesto. The irresistibly plainest of all is one that is drizzled with olive oil then sprinkled with coarse sea salt.
Pizza dough enriched with oil is suitable for focaccia and so is any plain bread dough simply made with flour, salt, water, and yeast.
Across Italy focaccia has so many forms that it would be impossible to protect it under such a broad category as a D.O.P. (Denominazione Origine Protetta), called in English Protected Designation of Origin. However, in several regions where the inhabitants are particularly proud of their own version, there are calls for protective legislation. Perhaps the protection of wines and cheeses has been achieved more easily because of the tendency for these products to be exported, something that rarely happens in the field of bread.
The Slow Food movement, in welcoming the Genovese focaccia to the ranks of its precious ‘presidia’, has declared the following as its major attributes:
the whole process is to take a minimum of 8 hours (hence flavour is built up by a slow dough),
there is to be a minimum of 6% extra virgin olive oil,
there must be a softness within while it is crunchy on top, featuring a golden hazelnut colour with white dimples where the finger-stabbing occurs.
The simplest way to make a large focaccia would be to take a 300 – 400 gram piece from either that day’s pizza or white bread dough. Before it has been left to rise, work into it a splash of water and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. The easiest way to do this is to place the piece in a tub and roll it up towards you in the manner of a Swiss roll. When you have rolled it to a neat roll turn it over, throw it down in the tub with its rough seam facing upwards, and roll it up towards you again. And again. When it is tight after a few of these roll-ups, it is vulnerable to being torn if you persist in the harsh action of rolling it up. It needs a short rest, covered, for a few minutes. The rest period will relax the gluten so that rolling again becomes easy. It may take 10 minutes of rolling and resting for you to incorporate the extra water and oil. It will have gained a springy feeling of bulkiness and strength from the steady rolling. Now it is ready for its first rise. Put it in an oiled container with lid or a cover.
To make focaccia from scratch, yielding 2 pieces:
[If there is biga on hand, add it as 20-30% of the dough’s weight, remembering at dough making to add some salt, and reduce the water].
500 gm bread flour (not very strong)
10 gm salt
15 gm fresh yeast, one sachet if dried yeast
350 approx warm water [hold a little back at the start]
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
Hold the oil back, and proceed to knead well to make a supple dough. Add the water you had held back if you feel it is needed. When the gluten is well formed, take a rest before kneading the olive oil into the dough by machine. If you are hand kneading, add the oil as described above, with constant rolling of the Swiss roll inside the oily container.
Allow 1 to 1½ hours proof, until it has approximately doubled in size and shows fine gas bubbles on its surface.
After its full rise gently turn it out onto the dusty bench, and gently push it and tug it into the shape suited to your baking sheet. Handling it gently avoids expelling all its gas. If you bake on a tile, then you can stretch it out to a rectangular shape on a well dusted board from which you can slide it onto your peel or tile.
It is at this pushing and tugging stage that you can stab it with your fingertips to make it adopt the shape you want, leaving the useful little hollows for catching olive oil, and to disturb over-large gas pockets that may cause it to swell and puff in the oven like a pitta bread, definitely unwanted. The finger stabbing also inhibits the tendency for gaseous blisters to bubble out of the surface, blisters that are vulnerable to being scorched or unattractively burnt as they are too delicate to withstand the top heat. Don’t overwork it, or treat it firmly with a rolling pin, because you may destroy its fabric of randomly sized gas bubbles which will be its main charm.
After half an hour, when it has risen a little, it will be ready to bake. It should still feature its stabbed indentations, but if they have proved out, more can be lightly added to trap drizzled olive oil into little pools.
It needs a hot oven, (220C domestic, 240C baker’s) and is best if baked on a hot tile. To test that it is properly baked, gently push down or indent with the pads of your fingertips and the dent you have made should spring back up.
As it is brought out of the oven quickly brush the outer edges with olive oil and serve it warm as an accompaniment to starters.