Lemon Tarragon Focaccia with Citrus Fennel Sea Salt
This recipe makes 1 sheet pan (or two jelly roll pans) of focaccia. If you like to make bread by hand and don't mind a serious work out, or if you have a 7 quart mixer that can handle this amount of dough, go for it. I am also giving the measurements for 1/2 sheet pan's worth of dough in italics. If your mixer holds 4-5 or even 6 quarts, I wouldn't recommend making the full batch. Make half twice, though, because this bread is honestly that good!
You can use the starter as the base for all sorts of bread, so if you want to double it, go for it. Using the amounts given, you will have enough to make a full recipe of the focaccia with about 6 oz of starter leftover. I used mine to make a truly excellent pizza dough. You might want to do the same.
3.3ozextra virgin olive oil(plus extra for the pans and the top of the bread) (1.65 oz)
3poundsbread flour(1.5 pounds)
For the Topping
1TablespoonCitrus Fennel Sea Salt(or a combination of fennel pollen and flaky sea salt) (1 1/2 teaspoons)
Instructions
For the Starter
Stir the flour, water and yeast together very well in a very large bowl.
Cover and let sit at room temperature until bubbly and light and about doubled in volume.
Stir down the starter. At this point, you can proceed with the recipe or refrigerate the starter overnight. You'll get better flavor development if you can refrigerate it, but the bread will still be delicious if you skip that step.
For the Bread
Put the specified amount of starter and all the rest of the ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer.
Fit the mixer with the dough hook and mix on low speed (I used Speed 2 on my Viking) for 12 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, very extensible and clears the sides of the bowl. It will still stick in the bottom of the bowl, and that's just fine. This dough is supposed to be pretty slack, so resist the temptation to add more flour.
If you are making the dough by hand, use a bench knife to help you with the kneading.
Place the dough into a large oiled bowl and oil the top of the dough. Cover and let rise until doubled. This could take several hours, so give it time.
Glug about 1/4 cup olive oil into your jelly roll pan/pans or 1 full sheet pan (if you are lucky enough to be using a commercial-sized oven).
With oiled hands, divide the dough in two (or not), and plop it onto the oiled pan/pans.
Stretch and pull the dough so it fits into the pan/s more or less completely. If the dough springs back, cover it for 5 or 10 minutes and then come back and stretch it some more.
Dimple the dough all over with your fingertips.
Drizzle on a liberal amount of olive oil, brushing it across the dough and letting it pool in the little dimples you made with your fingers.
Evenly sprinkle on the fennel pollen sea salt.
Cover and let rise until nearly doubled again, about 1-1 1/2 hours.
Bake at 375F for about 30-35 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the bread has reached 200F.
Remove bread from the oven and let cool in the pan/s for 5 minutes before turning out onto racks to cool completely.