I love focaccia because it makes any sort of emergency meal special – freeze it in foil-wrapped chunks ready to bring out and warm up in the oven to eat with supermarket soup; split in half, stuff with some leftover prosciutto or mortadella with cream cheese and put in a panini press for a gorgeous melting sandwich; or, my favourite, eat warm from the oven for one of those pre-supper nibble sessions of olives, cheese and bits and pieces that ends up supplanting and surpassing a proper dinner. You haven’t had enough until your lips are smarting from the sea salt topping and your chin is slick with olive oil…
I can’t give a recipe for this focaccia, made with grated potato and a little rye flour, as the dough was actually meant to end up being a crusty white loaf from The Handmade Loaf. Due to my general fecklessness and trying to do three different things at once, I didn’t have enough levain and borked the quantity of water, ending up with a really slack dough that wouldn’t cooperate, no matter how much I swore at it. So I bunged it in a sheet pan and went out for lunch, came back three hours later and rudely shoved it in a hot oven. It came out a bit burnt with a crackly crust and a chewy, glossy interior. Bliss, and a bit like the mini-sized potato focaccine I used to buy in Milan. My only regret is that I’ve got no idea how to replicate it…
