Fougasse.A flat bread we can all fall flat for. Super smashingly sexy on your dinner table. Rustic enough to want to tear with bare hands and dip into gravy or soup. Brushed with garlic butter that makes you want to suck it all off your fingers...
I generally make two types of bread at a go...one preheat is done for , so what the heck!!! Knead some more. These lil babies are Bialys with poppy seeds and caramelized onions. Awesomeness.
In ancient Rome, panis focacius was a flatbread baked in the ashes of the hearth (focus in Latin).[1] This became a diverse range of breads that include focaccia in Italian cuisine, hogaza inSpain, fogassa in Catalonia, fugàssa in Ligurian, pogača in the Balkans, pogácsa in Hungary,fougasse in Provence (originally spelled fogatza), fouace or fouée in other French regions and on the Channel Islands[2] The Provence version is more likely to have additions in the form of olives,cheese, or anchovies, which may be regarded as a primitive form of pizza without the tomato. -wikipedia
For the
Fougasse French Flat Bread with Olives
You need
165 gms maida or all purpose flour
165 mils water
2 gms yeast almost 1\2 tsp instant yeast
Mix these together to get a wet dough with a spoon and set aside for 2 hours. Mix this up in the bowl you will be kneading in. Saves the trouble of too much washing up.
Cover. After about two hours it will be risen and looking spongy and beginning to sink in the centre. You know this is the time to knead the dough right about now. So you've made your own yeast for the bread.
That's your Poolish. Yup , no spelling errors here. It's a wet spongy starter to bread that helps to increase a bread doughs extensibility. Stretch it more. Cool? You learn something new everyday.
180 mils water
310 gms all purpose flour
25 gms rye flour(I used whole wheat as I don't have rye)
10 gms salt I used sea salt
100 gms olives (bottled ones that are in brine -already salty-drained)
25 mils extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Herbs de Provence I mixed rosemary, marjoram, thyme and oregano
1.5 gms yeast
2 tbsp beaten egg or milk to brush the dough.
2 tbsp or more soft butter seasoned with salt and pepper and garlic for the final brushing.
I mixed the olives, olive oil and herbs and kept that aside when I did the Poolish.
Also try the Bialys.
This bread can also be made with sun dried tomatoes and tomato paste. But I now need to source it...
Its definitely worth the effort of making it again.
The bread soaks up your soup and coffee well. There's something decadent and wrong in dunking salted, buttery , garlicky , olive filled, herby bread into your coffee...
I feel something so right ,doing the wrong thing....
I feel something so wrong,doing the right thing....
One Republic.
Make this fougasse...even if is just for doing the wrong thing. I've made it again... and dunked it into my cappuccino...
So what are you baking today???