Onion Focaccia

Onions and yeast, ah the smell of it makes me drooly

Onions and wheat never go out of season (really just have a long shelf life) nor do they go out of style. In the dead of winter a hot loaf of bread is a breath of fresh air. Focaccia is a non-baker's friend. Its just pizza dough with extra oil. You don't have to knead if you have a food processor, and I suggest having a food processor. The other nice thing about this recipe is that the dough gets better the longer you let it sit in the fridge. Which means you can make mulitple batches of the dough in advance and bake it up in a snap without much effort. Its alittle richer than your average pizza dough recipe, but don't let that stop you from making pizzas with it.

Onion Focaccia

5 cups flour
.25 oz (or 2.5 tsp) active dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup oil
1 3/4 cup warm water

4 onions
1 tsp olive oil, more for drizzeling
red pepper flakes to taste
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tblsp medium ground corn meal
salt for sprinkling

Pulse 5 cups of flour, yeast, and salt to combine in the bowl of a food processor. Mix water, oil, honey, and vinegar together. Start the food processor and add the liquids in a steady stream. Dough will clump together and bang against the bowl once all the liquids are added. Keep processing for about 45 seconds. Sometimes my food processor starts to burn out (I can smell the motor) and I give it a minute break. The dough will be sticky. Scrape it directly into a sealable container. Let sit overnight in the fridge and up to 5 days. After 5 days you can freeze the dough for up to 6 months until you are ready to use it.

Sticky dough

Chop onion into 1/8 inch thick half moons. Now is when you really get to exert your power over food. Chop and cook those onions into tasty savory caramelized oblivion. Its best to use a thick bottomed pan so you can slowly brown them rather than burning them. Onions have a lot of sugar, and do burn if you don't watch out.

From this

To that

Add the onions, with 1 tsp of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and red pepper flakes to a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat. Stir to coat the onions. Cook over medium until transparent. Add the vinegar scraping bottom to pick up an browned bits. reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 30-40 more minutes until deep caramel color forms. The longer the better. The volume will greatly reduce but the flavor will get bigger. Stir often. Onions can be made 2 days in advance and kept chilled.

Dough after 3 days in the fridge is loose and bubbly

Ready to bake? Get ready to fill the house with awesome scent of onion and yeast. Grease an 11x17 rimmed baking sheet (I'm using my trusty jelly roll pan) and sprinkle with corn meal. Not just any corn meal, you need to get medium/coarse corn meal. Medium corn meal also doubles as polenta in my home, and could even be passed off as grits. I'm no grits expert, but I think it does fine.

Corny meal, look for medium ground

Drop the chilled focaccia dough onto the baking sheet. Stretch it with your hands into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, nearly the size of the pan. Make indentations with your fingers. These will be little wells for the oil to collect in.

Sprinkle with a little oil and rub to cover. Next spread the caramelized onions over the dough. No for the part that separates pizza from focaccia drizzle the dough with olive oil until well coated and pooling in areas. Finish with a sprinkle of sea salt. Let sit in a draft free area for 60 minutes to warm up the dough and allow it to get puffy. Meanwhile preheat oven to 450 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes light browned. You will know by the smell when its almost there. Its the best smell on earth. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Slice and serve. Great a great snack for munching on while drinking beer. I made mine for super bowl. The focaccia didn't make it to the 2nd quarter.