Can we talk about rosemary bread for a minute or so? If you’re like us, you love bread in all its glorious forms! Drenching a rosemary focaccia in butter or adding it to a black forest ham and pesto sandwich is the stuff of dreams. You can get fancy and add it to a spaghetti bolognese dinner with your favorite glass of wine if you like. The tastiness and utility of rosemary bread knows no bounds.
At Mi’Italia, we can appreciate warm, au natural rosemary focaccia with a Gorgonzola cheese wedge and a glass of Merlot on the side. There is no need to complicate things and overpower the herbs and flavors of this popular appetizer. In Italy, it is eaten warm as a snack. Like churros, rosemary bread is a snack that is carried around and enjoyed while doing day-to-day tasks. Since it can go stale very quickly, you should eat it while it’s warm for the best results!
Try This Rosemary Focaccia Recipe at Home
Your rosemary focaccia should be warm and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside with traces of olive oil and salt. It is meant to be eaten as an appetizer or snack fresh out of the oven. The dough for this Italian focaccia recipe is silky and easy to work with. The next time you host a dinner party, add this to your list of light appetizers with a good bottle of champagne and sliced dry sausage. Your guests will love you for it!
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- ½ cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 2 finely minced garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped thyme or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- ¼ teaspoon of black pepper
- 1 cup of warm water
- 2 ½ of active dry yeast
- ¼ teaspoon of honey
- 2 ½ cups of all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon of salt
Preparation
- Phase 1: Using a chilled medium sized skillet, mix together the olive oil, thyme, rosemary, black pepper, and minced garlic. With the pan on low heat, stir intermittently for about 5-10 minutes before the garlic turns brown. When done, set aside.
- Phase 2: Now using a big bowl, mix the water, honey, and yeast together and set aside for around 5 minutes.
- Phase 3: Next, mix together a cup of flour with a ¼ cup of infused garlic olive oil to the large bowl of honey and yeast. After stirring until moist a few times, set aside for an additional 5 minutes.
- Phase 4: Once 5 minutes have passed, stir in the remaining flour with the salt. Once the dough is combined, transfer it to a floured work surface and knead between 10 to 15 times until completely incorporated and smooth.
- Phase 5: When smooth, transfer the dough to an oiled bowl. Take a moist towel to cover it and place in a warm area of your kitchen let rise for an hour.
- Phase 6: After the hour has passed, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Using 2 tablespoons of the olive oil mixture, spread it across a 9x13in rimmed baking sheet.
- Phase 7: Now move the dough to the baking sheet and spread into the pan. By using your hands you should create dimples through the dough and spread the remaining mixture over it. Once you’ve added the olive oil mixture, allow the dough to rise for twenty minutes until slightly puffy.
- Phase 8: Finally, bake for fifteen to twenty minutes until golden brown. When done, place focaccia bread on a cooling rack and serve!
About the Rosemary Focaccia Recipe Ingredients
This is an appreciation sidebar! Although this recipe is incredibly simple and easy, it’s all about the freshness of the ingredients. They are what makes this bread stand out above the rest. When making focaccia, be generous with the olive oil and patient with allowing the dough to rest. It’s recommended to let it rest for up to 48 hours to allow the dough to properly ferment. If you don’t have access to fresh ingredients, the dry substitutes will suffice at different measurements:
- Herbs – For those of us that grow fresh herbs at home, they become the star of the show in this recipe, especially rosemary. This is when your home garden comes in handy and pays off. If you haven’t started a home garden yet, this may encourage you to start today. The freshness of the herbs elevates focaccia to a completely different level in every way. For those of you who don’t have one, you can almost always find fresh herbs in your nearest grocery store.
- Honey, warm water, and yeast – While we don’t recommend starting a beekeeping hobby for fresh honey, it couldn’t hurt. There are many great honey brands available on the shelves so you should easily find one you prefer. If you don’t have honey, sugar is an acceptable substitute. These ingredients combine to wake up the yeast and create structure for the bread.
- Salt and pepper – Similar to adding seasonings to our favorite sauces and soups, a little salt and pepper in focaccia bread goes a long way. Seasoning bread dough may not come to mind immediately, but works wonders for this recipe.
- Flour – We emphasize all purpose flour because it is perfect for focaccia. Using bread flour will result in chewy bread and we can’t have that!
Fun Facts: Italian Focaccia Recipe Origins
Flat bread has been extremely popular for centuries but has evolved over time. Love for a great bread basket dates back long before we settled here. It’s safe to say it is part of our DNA!
- A beloved and famous Italian bread, traditional focaccia originated in Liguria.
- The Ancient Romans made panis focacius, which comes from the Latin word focus meaning “hearth”.
- There are several different variations of focaccia bread, including recipes with raisins, eggs, sage, and butter.
- Classic Italian pizza crusts are typically less than half an inch thick compared to focaccia at ¾ of an inch.
- Liguria is also the home of focaccia di Recco, a recipe that adds cheese between two layers of the bread. As you move closer to the French border, you’ll run into the town of Sanremo with focaccia topped with anchovies or sardines. We aren’t sure about the sardines, but we’ll definitely take the cheese!
The Best Rosemary Focaccia in South Miami
Have you visited our restaurant yet? When you don’t want to bake, we have the best rosemary focaccia in South Miami. Our modern take on Italian has our fellow bread lovers coming back for more with extras. You’ll want to pair our rosemary focaccia with our most popular items like Not Your Nonna’s Bolognese or Mama’s Meatballs.
When you’re looking to wind down from staring at your computer screen at home, you’ll want to take advantage of our half priced wine bottles on Mondays or weekly happy hour. This is one of the best times to enjoy a light focaccia snack with a great glass of wine or champagne! Our Wednesday pasta night specials provide another opportunity to enjoy focaccia in our outdoor patio while watching the sun set.
Take a break with us and make your reservations today!
