Sunday, August 15, 2010

Recipe: Fried Foccacia Caprese


My first recipe post: Lately, I have been trying to emulate the flavors of my trip to Campania (southern region of Italy which you may have read about in my last post). I have come up with a way to incorporate my latest pizza dough creation with a Caprese twist. Here are the results: “Fried Foccacia Caprese”

Oregano Pizza Dough (by hand):

ingredients
1 pkt or dry active yeast
1 ¼ cup warm water
1 ½ tsp of salt
3 tbs of sugar
1 tbs olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 ¼ tsp of oregano
4-5 cups flour

Step 1: Yeast & Water
To create the dough (by hand) dissolve the packet of yeast in the 1 ¼ cup warm water inside a large glass bowl. Make sure the water is not too hot, nor too cold - this could kill the yeast. To know if the yeast is active, it should bubble when you stir the mixture. Let the yeast dissolve completely before adding any other ingredients.

Step 2: Dry Ingredients
Once the yeast is dissolved, add 3 tbs of sugar, 1 ½ tsp of salt, 2 ¼ tsp of oregano and 1 tbs olive oil.
Mince 2 cloves garlic while these flavors adhere. Add the two minced cloves of garlic to the bowl.

Step 3: Flour
Before adding the flour, make sure the salt and sugar are completely dissolved. Add in the cups of flour in one cup increments, while mixing the dough together in the interim.

Step 4: Kneading (w/ TLC)
Knead the dough thoroughly but not too hard. Form your dough into a ball in the center of your bowl and cover it with either a very lightly dampened cloth or plastic wrap (I prefer the cloth).

Step 5: Rising
Let your dough rise for at least an hour and a half to two hours.

Step 6: Frying! (for purposes of this dish)
Roll out the dough into a small circular flat shape (roll it very thin). Coat the bottom of a large frying pan with olive oil. Heat olive oil (not too hot) and place the thin dough into your frying pan, flipping it back and forth a few times until it bubbles up and is lightly golden. Remove dough and place on a paper towel to absorb the excess grease. (Notes: You will have plenty of dough to make multiple batches. If you refrigerate the dough make sure you bring it back up to room temperature before handling again.)

Insalata Caprese:

ingredients
1 Fresh tomato diced
Fresh basil 7 leaves (amount of your desire)
Fresh mozzarella drained (1/2 of fresh medium sized ball)
1 clove garlic (minced)
Modena Balsamic Vinegar

Step 1: Mozzarella
Drain the fresh mozzarella of excess liquid. Then pull apart or chop up the mozzarella into bit sized pieces.

Step 2:  Tomato & Basil
Rinse and dice up tomato and basil

Step 3: Garlic
Crush and mince up a fresh clove of garlic

Step 4: Assemble
Sprinkle the minced garlic on the hot fried dough. Add the diced tomato, mozzarella and basil.

Step 5: Serve
Lightly drizzle the balsamic vinegar over the foccacia and serve.

4 comments:

  1. Looks awesome! Like the fried Foccacia idea, too!

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  2. Nice Marni!! you need to get me the campania recipe for Pasta Fagioli if you can:)

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  3. Sounds delicious! Do you have a short cut for those that don't want to make the dough? haha

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  4. Jen - You can ask the bakery at Publix for fresh pizza dough...add some garlic and oregano to it, roll it then fry it :)

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