Foccacia Bread Sandwiches

If any of you have ever been a guest of the Hardie’s kitchen (Rogers best friends parents) then you probably have had foccacia bread sandwiches. They are seriously the best! The taste people! Now when I moved abroad and realised foccacia bread could not be found in many corners of the world I hit up my favourite cookbook and made the bread my self. One word: Amazing! It is really worth making the investment of time; your taste buds will be rewarded.

This meal may seem a little time consuming. There are a few ways to shave down the time you are in the kitchen. You could buy a foccacia loaf at the store. Or if you are a bread maker, set aside a loaf size piece of dough. Generously oil the pan with olive oil. Take that dough and spread it out on the oiled cookie sheet. Top the dough with the garlic oil (recipe bellow). Let it rise slightly, until you can see it puffing up, bake until the sides of bread are turning brown.

Because I have done my bread making for the week I made the dough from the foccacia bread recipe in the Rebar Cookbook. I made a slight change and substituted half the white flour for whole-wheat flour. I whipped this up before I started school, let it rise, punched it down half way through school, by the time school was over it was ready for the oil topping and to be baked. It then had the afternoon to cool. And was perfect to slice for sandwiches by evening.

O.K so here we go

Foccacia Bread

1 ¾ cup warm water
1 tbsp. traditional baking yeast
½ tsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
¼ cup olive oil
4 cups flour (I used half unbleached white and half whole-wheat)

Topping

4-6 cloves garlic (you know I added more, like way more, lets try 6-12!)
4 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. course salt (I am all out regular salt works fine)
2 tbsp. fresh or dried rosemary
Cracked black pepper

1) In a large mixing bowl, combine the warm water yeast and sugar. Let the mixture sit until it foams. Stir in salt and olive oil, then start adding the flour, one cup at a time, beating well. It is going to get sticky but you want it to be sticky to touch. Knead the dough (by hand or mixer) until smooth.
2) Foam the dough into ball and place in a large lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a clean, damp cloth. Let rise until double in bulk (1-1 ½ hours.) Punch the dough down and let rise again until double.
3) Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Place the dough on a well-oiled baking sheet. Gently stretch the dough to roughly fir the pan. Drizzle the garlic oil (above recipe) over the top of the dough. With your fingers make indents so the oil can pool into them. Let rise again for 15 minutes or until the dough puffs up.
4) Bake for 20 minutes The garlic should be golden and the sides of dough browning.

I let the bread cool and then slice through the middle. I pile the bread with thinly sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow peppers, grated carrots, avocado, red onion, white cheese, and some sliced chicken (that I had pre-pared and froze.) I serve this meal with a salad of diced tomatoes, cucumber, yellow pepper, red onion, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper. You can also mix some olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a jar and dip your foccacia bread in the mix.

Bon appetite

Rosaleen