Focaccia Barese

Focaccia Barese is a popular street food made by bakeries all throughout Bari and greater Puglia. Very different from Focaccia Genovese, this tender flat bread is super crispy and topped with tomatoes, olives and oregano. After tasting versions from famous panifici in Bari Vecchia, we preferred the thinner variants and learned to make Focaccia Barese in the home of a Bari native. Here we share her family recipe adjusted only for the type of yeast available in American markets. Sometimes a bit of mashed potato is added to the dough, but we found people skip this ingredient for convenience. Enjoy warm with some burrata or fior di latte if you have it!

Panificio Santa Rita is one of the most famous and popular bakeries in Bari that produces excellent Focaccia Barese. The lines are always long, but the reward is worth the wait. Focaccia Barese in Bari varies in thickeness, but like Panificio Santa Rita this recipe is on the thinner side. The interior is soft, the exterior crispy and crunchy with a good ratio of toppings.

The dough for this recipe only takes about 5 minutes to bring together. In Italy, cake yeast is easy to purchase in small amounts but in our region of the United States this form can only be found in large bricks from specialty shops. We substitute 5 grams of active dry yeast for the 10 grams of cake yeast called for in the original recipe. The results are the same. Be sure to use a higher-protein bread flour. Some recipes call for a blend of finely milled semolina and/or mashed potato, but we tested multiple variations and found straight bread flour to produce the best result. While the original recipe called for a couple tablespoons of mashed potato, even our teacher in Bari skipped this ingredient and waved it off. The dough hydration is 76.7%, so just work the dough with a fork until the gluten develops if you can. Don't add any additional flour at any stage.

We find that fresh tomatoes are irreplaceable for this recipe. Outside of peak summer fruit, use smaller sweet tomatoes like sugar bomb varieties from your local grocer. Ideally the tomatoes will have a lot of pulp and juice. You will squeeze the tomatoes over the focaccia as the pulp and juices moisten the top of the focaccia allowing it to withstand higher temperatures for longer. These juices reduce and caramelize in spots adding jammy pockets of complexity. Slicing them helps to control the direction of the juice. To be authentic you can crush and tear them apart whole - but wear an apron.

Our teacher told us the secret to good focaccia barese is lots of olive oil. The dough basically fries in the pan. Speaking of pans, this recipe uses a 12" pizza pan that is coated with a non-Teflon, non-PTFE surface safe to 700°F. It is important that the pan is very thin so that heat transfers into the bottom of the focaccia as fast as possible. In Bari they use thin carbon-steel pans that have been seasoned with layers of carbonized oil. We could not find a single pan of this construction in local stores or through online retailers. Most baking pans have coatings that are not oven-safe over 450°F. 12" by 1.5" Deep Dish Nesting Pans from Lloyds Pans are a perfect solution - dare we say better than even the carbon-steel used in Bari!

After the first 15 minute rise, oil your hands and scraper then transfer the dough to the oiled pan. Don't roll or stretch the dough with your palms, use your fingertips to slowly work the dough across the surface of the pan. Flip the dough once or twice to ensure both sides are well coated with the olive oil.

If you don't have peak of summer tomatoes dripping with sweet pulp and juice, supplement the less-than-optimal supermarket cherry tomatoes with some strained tomatoes. Even the best panifici in Bari use some preserved tomatoes when the local produce isn't prime. Some use all canned tomatoes to reduce cost, but splurge with some fresh produce for the texture - even when out of season. The tomato ingredients will meld in the oven. This is a trick outside the original recipe.

Tomatoes, olives and oregano are the classic toppings. You can arrange randomly or treat your inner OCD by making it orderly. A good option shared by our teacher beyond the classic composition is thinly sliced potato with rosemary. With no tomato moisture, sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of salted water across the top.

Our teacher had a gas oven in her home, and placed the pan directly on the bottom of the oven. Her pan was very thin, and 15 minutes was sufficient to fry the bottom of the crust and give a solid oven-rise to the focaccia. In our electric oven, we baked the focaccia on a rack in the lowest position and required 20 minutes for optimum results.

Good Focaccia Barese is crispy-crunchy on both the bottom and spots on the top without tomato. This is accomplished in domestic ovens by using the grill or broil feature. Gas-fired ovens may take up to 5 minutes, while dry electric ovens may accomplish this in as little as 2 minutes. When cooked in a wood-fired oven you will get some spots of char which we try to replicate under the broiler.

Focaccia Barese is iconic around the world now and is one of many amazing foods from Bari. Take it on the go as an easy meal, or dress it up with sides of burrata, shaved meats (like mortadella) and a green salad. We enjoyed learning how to make this magic in Bari and hope that you will both try and share the recipe as well!