Home Made Focaccia Bread

Focaccia is my favorite bread to make for many reasons. It has wonderful flavor, it’s east to make and people love it. In my days of fine dining I would make it to order for customers shortly after they sat in my dining room and serve it with nothing more than some wonderful Greek olive oil.

In essence it nothing more than pizza dough coated with infused oil and served as a flat bread.  There are many applications for it such as making sandwiches, panini, dipping it in tsatziki, hummus, oil etc. making bruscetta and one of my favorites… Panzanella salad.

It will take about 20 minutes to start the dough, 2 hours to proof and 15 minutes to cook.

Start by measuring 4 cups unbleached high protein flour ( King Arthur is perfect for this)

Put 1 packet of dry active yeast in 1/2 cup warm water (it should feel like bathwater 110 to be specific and you want to tempo it) with a tablespoon of sugar

Start a bowl of Ice-water, you will need one cup with out the cubes

Add 1tbs. Kosher salt to the flour

1 tbs. olive oil

When the yeast has become foamy mix all the ingredients in the bowl

Transfer to the counter top and knead by hand for about 8 minutes or until smooth supple and elastic ( you can use one of those fancy dough mixers if you have one just be sure not to over knead the dough)

Transfer back to the bowl and rise for two hours at room temperature.

Punch down the dough and rise it until  it doubles in size (about another hour)

Stretch out the dough in a baking sheet covering the top with herb infused oil and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt

bake at 425 for about 15 minutes

Grilled Lemon Chicken and Potatoes

I first had this dish in a Greek Village just north of Ioannina which was way up in the mountains. What amazed me about it was first how incredibly flavorful and simplistic the dish was. This was at a time very early in my career as a Professional Chef  and I have to admit my three week stay in Greece had a big impact on the rest of my career. I later had my children s Yia yia teach me how to make this as well as many other Greek dishes so you can be assured I will also be sharing them with you as well.

 I have seen this dish made in the oven and produced great results. The important thing to remember is to cook everything to “just done” and finish at a high temperature to add flavor and texture. Today it was nearly 90 and at the end of an intense heatwave so cooking on the grill was a far better option to further heating up the house with the oven.

In this recipe I used 8 good sized chicken thighs however you can use a cut up chicken or what ever you desire.

I cut 6 Russet Potatoes on the bias

Chopped 1 bulb of garlic

Squeezed 4 Lemons and added the rinds to the marinade

Added 1/4 Olive Oil

1 TBS. Kosher Salt

Lots of fresh ground pepper

1 tsp. ea.Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme, Basil

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and marinade for 6 hours; this is usually something I do in the morning after breakfast.

When cooking this dish on the grill place all ingredients in an air tight foil wrapper or tightly sealed foil pan.

Cook for 30 minutes and finish by turning the grill to high and getting some beautiful grill marks on the chicken and potatoes

Be sure to reserve the juices in the pan or foil to pore over the platter, top each meal with some of the juice and enjoy this Greek comfort food.