As the wild garlic season comes to close, making room for a new season of delights in the garden, now’s the time to get really your fill. Not only is this the time of the year where I fill my freezer with a few freshly picked bunches & make a few batches of butter & pesto to stash away for a rainy day but it’s also the time that I really like to have a little play with the large, deep green leaves that only come with the end of May.
It’s that one last mad dash to experiment with recipes to see if there’s anything I’ll be purposefully picking for to come back to next year. This one is hardly a new & ingenious combination, bread & garlic were a match made in heaven long before I came along, but this simple wild garlic focaccia is a recipe that will never cease to amaze me & I will most certainly be coming back to each year.
A classic, light & fluffy focaccia dough, marbled with pockets of bright, pungent wild garlic & topped with olive oil, sea salt & a few crisped up leaves of garlic. The wild garlic transforms a normal focaccia into one of the most deliciously addictive garlic breads. Perhaps the best part about this is just how easy & little effort is needed to make it, just a little bit of time & patience to wait in between rises, but I can assure you, it is definitely worth the wait.
WILD GARLIC FOCACCIA
Ingredients:
- 500g strong white bread flour
- 10g salt
- 7g fast acting dried yeast
- 400ml water
- 50ml olive oil
- 200g wild garlic pesto
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt flakes
- A few wild garlic leaves to decorate
Method:
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, yeast & salt
- Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients & pour in the water
- Mix until everything is wet & well combined, the dough will be quite loose & wet
- Add all of the oil to a large bowl or rectangular tupperware or tin
- Empty the dough out into the oiled container & use oiled hands to fold each edge of the dough back over itself into the middle
- Turn the dough upside down so that the folds are no underneath
- Cover the dough & leave to rise for about an hour, until it has doubled in size
- Once risen, repeat the same folding process again, being careful not to knock out too much of the air bubbles & rise for another hour
- Next, gently dollop & spread the wild garlic pesto over the risen dough before repeating the same fold & rise process for a third & final time, marbling the pesto throughout the dough
- Once risen, empty the dough out into a 9″x13″ rectangular tin lined with baking parchment
- Use your fingers to gently stretch the dough out to fill the baking tin being careful not to burst all of the air pockets inside
- Cover the dough & leave to prove for 30 minutes
- With oiled hands, press your fingers into the dough to create small holes & dimples
- Next, drop the grapes into the dimples of the dough before drizzling over some of the excess oil left in the container & sprinkle over the sea salt
- Bake the focaccia in the oven at 220C for 20-25 minutes until golden brown