Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Polenta Focaccia

Browsing through a copy of Woman's Weekly at the hospital, I stumbled on this easy polenta focaccia recipe. I whipped it up to serve for some friends for dinner as an appetizer to potato gnocchi and pesto. This recipe really was a winner. The bread topped with pesto and parmesan was an especially lovely treat.
Prepare:
-Sift together 2 2/3 cups self-raising flour, 3/4 cup polenta, 1 tsp sea salt, 2 tsp rosemary-Mix 1 1/2 cup warm water with 1 tsp instant dried yeast (7g) and mix well (whisk)
-Mix the flour with yeast-water and add 1/2 cup olive oil
-Knead together thoroughly -Set aside for an hour or so and let rise
-Re-knead for 5 minutes
-Divide into 2 balls
-Roll pretty flat (about 1 cm) on a floured surface
-Put on a pan that lightly has polenta flour spread on it-Place flattened dough on pan, sprinkle polenta on top and poke holes with a fork
-Let rise for at least 15 minutes
Cook:
-Preheat oven to 230C / 445F
-Once oven is hot place bread in and bake for 5-10 min, until golden brown
Tips:
-Mix in 1-2 tsp of freshly cracked pepper into the dough - I did it with only half and it was so good, I'd definitely do it for the whole batch next time. I also think I'd maybe mix in some minced garlic as well
-If you don't have self-raising flour, the equivalent to 1 cup is 7/8 cups plain flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1 tsp salt

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