The Original Messina Focaccia Recipe.
A synonym for celebration, gathering, family, when ‘I don’t know what to do so I make focaccia.’ A friend arrives, and so you buy it, you’re alone and want to console yourself, it’s what you buy or make. After the coffee granita with cream, focaccia is the favorite food for us Messina locals, and with love we want to share it with the rest of the world.
Distribute the dough in 2 pans.
Traditional and Bimby recipe.
Chosen for you;
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very Low Cost
- Rest time: 2 Hours
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Electric Oven
- Cuisine: Regional Italian
- Region: Sicily
- Energy 985.49 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 137.03 (g) of which sugars 11.08 (g)
- Proteins 42.19 (g)
- Fat 33.43 (g) of which saturated 17.35 (g)of which unsaturated 0.67 (g)
- Fibers 8.98 (g)
- Sodium 2,968.18 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 400 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
Let’s go shopping
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1.25 cups water
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 0.7 oz fresh yeast (crumbled)
- 10.6 oz tuma cheese (Sicilian tuma or mild provolone)
- 10.6 oz escarole (curly)
- 14.1 oz cherry tomatoes
- 1 oz anchovies in oil (drained)
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper
- 1.4 tbsp salt
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- to taste dried oregano
Tools
What we need to make
- Stand Mixer
- 2 Baking Pans rectangular oven pan 15.7×15.7
- Brush
- Knife
- 2 Colander colander
- Bowl 3
Preparation of The Original Messina Focaccia
Let’s prepare the dough in the stand mixer
Buy some fresh tuma,
First, I recommend kneading the ingredients half at a time, depending on whether you have a small or large stand mixer. Heat the oven to 99°F for the rising, it’s winter, otherwise it’s not necessary.
Put the room temperature water, sugar, crumbled yeast in the mixer, and stir until everything is dissolved.
Next, add the flour, oil, knead a bit then add the salt and continue kneading,
Continue until you have obtained a mixture that can detach from the bowl of the mixer,
At this point. Brush a rather large bowl with oil.
Place the dough in the bowl, and cover it. Let it rise in the preheated oven for at least 1 hour, until it has doubled. Meanwhile…
Wash the curly escarole, and after cutting the base, cut it into 0.4-inch pieces, let it dry on a cloth until use.
Wash and cut the cherry tomatoes into small pieces, let them drain in a colander.
Cut the tuma into small pieces, or thin slices.
Brush the pan with oil
Remove the dough from the oven, and increase the temperature to 446°F, if your oven has a pizza mode it’s okay, or alternatively set it to static.
When the rising time is over, divide the dough between the pans.
Spread it using your fingertips, from the center to the sides. You’ll notice the dough is elastic.
Depending on your tastes, place some pieces of anchovy in oil; for instance, I put them on half of the pan, so if someone doesn’t like them, they can take the part without them.
After the anchovies, sprinkle the tuma,
On top of the tuma and anchovies, sprinkle the escarole and tomatoes you prepared earlier, a pinch of pepper, a drizzle of oil, and let it complete rising for another 60 minutes, then, put the pan in the static oven.
For about 20 minutes.
The pans on the middle rack should cook one at a time. After 20 minutes, remove the focaccia from the pan and cook the last 5 minutes on the oven rack.
When the focaccia is ready, brush some extra virgin olive oil on the edges, a grind of pepper, and another pinch of salt, and serve it.
Here is the Original Messina Focaccia, original recipe
Heat the oven to 99°F for rising
Put in the bowl the room temperature water, sugar, crumbled yeast, and mix for 3 min at 99°F speed 3.
Next, add the flour, oil, Knead for 3 minutes. Then add the salt, Knead for 4 minutes,
Continue until you have obtained a mixture that can detach from the bowl
At this point. Brush a rather large bowl with oil
Place the mixture in the bowl, and cover it. Let it rise in the preheated oven for at least 1 hour, until it has doubled. Meanwhile…
Now continue the recipe as above for the stand mixer preparation.
Hand-kneaded Dough.
If you don’t have a stand mixer, and want to do it by hand, do this:
Make a well with the flour, with a hole in the middle, place all the dry ingredients in the center, the salt, and sugar, and mix. Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast in the water separately, and together with the lard, add it gradually to the flour until a ball forms. Then follow the recipe as above.
The Original Messina Focaccia Recipe
Can I stuff it differently?
Yes, certainly as you can get inspiration from here, click focaccias
