The cheese focaccia is the famous Focaccia di Recco, a Genoese focaccia, thus Ligurian, not the famous soft focaccia that is also eaten at breakfast dipped in cappuccino but the thin focaccia made with ‘pasta matta’, a delicious olive oil dough that is not soft but crumbly. I emphasize this because a few days ago a lady commented on a recipe with pasta matta in shock because it was not soft, but pasta matta cannot be soft, and its goodness lies precisely in its characteristic of being crumbly and quick to prepare. I’ve heard a lot about this focaccia and took advantage of my niece’s birthday to make it for the aperitif with her friends. Focaccia di Recco is a very delicate focaccia, the cheese used for the filling is ‘crescenza’, perhaps a bit too delicate for us Calabrians, in fact, my friends suggested next time to add a bit of ‘nduja, which I will surely do, but for the first time, I wanted to try the original version, and it turned out perfect. Here’s my recipe if you want to try it too. Try these recipes as well.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 8
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients for Focaccia di Recco
Cheese focaccia – Focaccia di Recco
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups Manitoba flour
- 1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 7 oz warm water
- 2 tsp salt
- 14 oz crescenza cheese
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- to taste salt
Tools to prepare Focaccia di Recco
Required tools to prepare cheese focaccia
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Work surface
- 1 Rolling pin
- 1 Baking pan
Steps
Preparation of Focaccia di Recco with cheese
First, let’s start preparing the dough at least an hour in advance, so as to let the dough rest for at least an hour. Even though it doesn’t have yeast, it is better to let it rest to make it more elastic and easier to stretch, and also more digestible.
In a bowl, we put all the ingredients for the ‘pasta matta’. I made a mixture of all-purpose flour and Manitoba to have a medium-strength flour, necessary for this preparation. We work to obtain a uniform dough. We work better on a surface to get a nice smooth and elastic dough.
Divide the dough into two parts, a smaller one for the cover weighing about 10 oz and the other slightly larger, weighing about 12 oz for the base which will be slightly thicker. Cover and let rest for about an hour.
After an hour, take the dough pieces, start stretching the first larger one on a work surface. You don’t even need to use flour. First, stretch it by hand and then continue with a rolling pin to get a nice rectangle to line a 30×40 pan. The sheet should be very thin, stretched just enough to cover the pan, and the dough should be beyond the edge.
Grease the base of the pan well with olive oil; we can use a kitchen brush to help. Then position the stretched sheet on the pan, beyond the edges, fill it with crescenza, tearing it into pieces and distributing it over the entire surface, and work with your hands to spread it all over the surface, using a knife or spatula would be difficult.
Roll out the second piece of dough, even thinner than the first, and cover our focaccia, letting the sheet overlap. Use a rolling pin to go over the pan and cut the excess parts; since my pan was not very suitable, I then sealed it well by hand and rolled up a bit of the excess along the edge.
Sprinkle the surface with olive oil and then with a little salt, then make holes on the surface, about 4, tearing the dough, then bake in a preheated static oven at 482°F for about 10 minutes.
Remove from oven, cut into pieces, and enjoy.
