Bread · Italian cuisine
Focaccia
Italian flat yeast bread baked in a tray; the Genoese fügassa has dimples, olive oil and coarse salt.
At a glance
- Origin
- Liguria; fügassa from Genoa, Focaccia di Recco col formaggio PGI from Recco, Avegno, Sori and Camogli.
- Dough
- Fügassa: wheat flour, water, yeast, salt, malt, olive oil for the tray and top; Recco: unleavened, filled with soft cheese.
- Production
- Spread in a tray, dimpled with three fingers, oil and brine, baked in a hot oven.
- Use
- On its own as a snack or for breakfast, also with onion, olives or rosemary.
Focaccia is a flat yeast bread baked in a tray. The best known is the focaccia of Genoa, in dialect fügassa: a sheet of wheat dough with yeast, salt and a little malt, generously dressed with olive oil and scattered with coarse salt. The dough is spread into an oiled tray, the typical dimples are pressed in with three fingers, and before baking it is drenched with oil and a brine of water and salt. Baked, it is golden to amber with crisp edges and a soft inside, and should be no more than about 2 cm thick. Genoese eat it even for breakfast, dipped in milk or cappuccino.
A different product is Focaccia di Recco col formaggio PGI: a dough of flour, extra virgin olive oil, water and salt is not leavened at all, stretched into two sheets thinner than a millimetre, with fresh soft cheese from pasteurised cow’s milk between them.