Focaccia with onion and roasted olives

Focaccia is one of my many passions: I grew up with focaccia and mortadella as a daily snack (and you can tell from my silhouette). Today's entry is one of the hundreds of possible variations in focaccia. As I mentioned before in Italy everybody will complain and have their say if you give them a recipe, if you just give them the results they will still complain that it's not like their mother's but they will devour it and secretly enjoy it.

This version has a topping just to give you an idea of a possible combination but you can also pass on the olives, basil and onions and enjoy a simple basic focaccia (you have to use at least rock salt and rosemary) or pick some other ingredients instead. Feel free to experiment and try different things but remember that it has to be delicious. Here we go! 

Put the yeast with water and honey in a cup and set aside. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees and oil a flat oven pan. In the kneader's bowl mix together the flours and start the machine at low intensity and slowly add the water (by now the yeast should have dissolved in it). When you're done with water add salt and oil. When the dough becomes homogeneous put in a bowl and cover with a wet cloth napkin. After 30 minutes move the dough to the oven pan and flatten it gently with your fingertips, cover again and wait other 20 minutes. Meanwhile finely chop the onions and take off the kernels from the olives. Press with all your fingertips the surface of your focaccia in order to create tiny craters (not too deep). Pour a dash of oil on the dough and spread all over then add the onions, the torn basil leaves and the olives. Bake for 25/30 minutes then put on some kind of grate in order to let the bottom part of your focaccia dry up evenly as well as the top.

Cut in slices or rhombuses and serve.

As you can see I used black roasted olives instead of the green ones because I prefer the latter in my martini and not on my focaccia. Also I took off the kernels myself because when you buy cleaned olives they always taste too much of brine.

Buon appetito!