Papa's Focaccia

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 500 g flour
• 21 g yeast, fresh
• 2 potatoes
• 3 tsp salt
• 3 tsp olive oil
• some oregano
• some pepper
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 400 ml water, lukewarm
• 1 ball of mozzarella (buffalo mozzarella), grated
• Oil for the mold

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 2 hours 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 30 minutes; Total time approx. 4 hours

Blanco version

Boil the potatoes, drain (save the cooking water), peel, and mash. Mix most of the flour with the potatoes and place in a bowl. Dissolve the yeast in 100 ml of the potato water and add it to the flour and potato mixture. Add salt and oil and knead everything together. While kneading, add the remaining flour and water until you get a homogenous dough (it shouldn’t stick to your fingers). Let the finished dough rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, until it has almost doubled in size. Knead again and roll out the dough. Brush a baking pan with oil and line it with half of the dough. Then cover it evenly with the mozzarella, seasoning it with salt and pepper if desired. Now cover with the second half of the dough and press the sides together with your fingers. Let the baking pan rest for another hour. Press the tomatoes evenly into the dough and, for a nice finish, press them unevenly into the dough with your thumb or score it with your fingers. Preheat the oven and bake the focaccia at 220°C for 25 minutes. Drizzle the finished focaccia with oil and serve. This is the blanco version of what I would call focaccia. In other words, the basic version. If you have the ingredients at home, you can top it with rosemary, onions, olives, pancetta, or anchovies (similar to a pizza). If you want to use the other ingredients, take the focaccia out of the oven halfway through baking so that the onions, olives, etc. don’t burn. Only bake it for the last 10 minutes.