Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [291]
2. When the coffee has frozen into cubes, and you are ready to serve, take the bowl out of the freezer, put in the cream and the 2 teaspoons sugar, and whip it with a whisk until it becomes stiff.
3. Unmold the coffee cubes and put them in the food processor bowl. Run the metal blade, turning it on and off 4 or 5 times, until the frozen cubes have been ground to fine crystals, granita. Put the granita into individual glass bowls or stemware, top with the whipped cream, and serve at once.
FOCACCIA, PIZZA,
BREAD, AND OTHER
SPECIAL DOUGHS
Focaccia
BEFORE THERE WAS an oven, there was bread. It was baked in the hearth, where the dough was flattened over a stone slab and covered with hot ashes. From this hearth bread—panis focacius (focus is Latin for hearth)—comes today’s soft, leavened focaccia.
Focaccia always starts out with an olive-oil enriched, salted dough, which may either be baked plain, or topped with onion, rosemary, sage, olives, bacon, and other flavorings. Focaccia is most closely associated with Liguria, the Italian Riviera, and with its principal city, Genoa. In many cities of the north, in fact, it is not called focaccia at all, but pizza genovese, Genoese-style pizza. In Bologna, however, if you are looking for focaccia, the appropriate word to use is crescentina; in Florence, Rome, and a few other parts of central Italy, it is schiacciata. If you ask for focaccia in Bologna or Venice, you will be given a very sweet panettone-like cake, studded with candied fruit and raisins.
Focaccia with Onions, Genoese Style
THE DOUGH in the recipe given here produces a thick, tender focaccia with a crisp surface, which you can top with sautéed onion in the Genoese style, as described below, or vary in one of the alternative ways indicated, or devise a suitable variation of your own.
For 6 servings
FOR THE DOUGH
1 package active dry yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
6½ cups unbleached flour
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
FOR BAKING THE FOCACCIA
A heavy-duty rectangular metal baking pan, preferably black, about 18 by 14 inches or its equivalent
Extra virgin olive oil for smearing the pan
A baking stone
A mixture of ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons water, and 1 teaspoon salt
A pastry brush
FOR THE ONION TOPPING
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cups onion sliced very, very thin
1. Dissolve the yeast by stirring it into ½ cup lukewarm water, and let it stand about 10 minutes or slightly less.
2. Combine the yeast and 1 cup of flour in a bowl, mixing them thoroughly. Then add the 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon salt, ¾ cup water, and half the remaining flour. Mix thoroughly until the dough feels soft, but compact, and no longer sticks to the hands. Put in the remaining flour and ¼ cup water, and mix thoroughly once again. When putting in flour and water for the last time, hold back some of both and add only as much of either as you need to make the dough manageable, soft, but not too sticky. On a very damp, rainy day, for example, you may need less water and more of the flour.
3. Take the dough out of the bowl, and slap it down very hard several times, until it is stretched out lengthwise. Reach for the far end of the dough, fold it a short distance toward you, push it away with the heel of your palm, flexing your wrist, fold it, and push it away again, gradually rolling it up and bringing it close to you. It will have a tapered, roll-like shape. Pick up the dough, holding it by one of the tapered ends, lift it high above the counter, and slap it down hard again several times, stretching it out in a lengthwise direction. Reach for the far end, and repeat the kneading motion with the heel of your palm and your wrist, bringing it close to you once more. Work the dough in this manner for 10 minutes. At the end, pat it into a round shape.
4. Smear the middle of the baking sheet with