Dish · italian
Focaccia
A flat, oven-baked bread dimpled by hand and soaked with olive oil before baking, topped with just coarse salt and rosemary. The crust turns crisp where the oil pools in the dimples while the crumb stays open and airy.
Where it comes from
The bread traces to Liguria, where olive oil was cheap and plentiful and bakers used it to keep a simple wheat dough from drying out in wood-fired ovens. Genoa in particular built a local identity around focaccia al rosmarino, sold from bakeries as an everyday food rather than a special occasion one.
What cooks argue about
Bakers argue over hydration: wetter dough gives the crumb prized in Genoa but is harder to shape, stiffer dough dimples easily but bakes denser. They also argue over oiling the pan before or after baking.
Versions
Nobody has published a focaccia here yet. When somebody cooks one from a video and publishes it, their version appears in this list, with a link back to the original.
What goes in it
Each one opens everything else made with it.
active dry yeast
olive oil
rosemary fresh