- I really wish you could smell this.
My hands now smell amazing.
The most potent smell.
It feels like my third child.
(triumphant music)
(logo popping)
Hey, everyone, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
Welcome to our kitchen.
Today, we are making homemade focaccia bread.
The first time I have ever, ever made it.
I'm extremely excited.
I love focaccia bread so much.
It's kind of like a slab, isn't it?
It's just like a oomph.
It still rises like bread.
It's got the little punchy little holes on the top of it.
Herb infused, oily.
Boy, it's oily!
I never really realised how oily it was until we make it,
which is the whole point of this video.
We're gonna do a rosemary focaccia bread.
I mean, you could do other herbs in there, like thyme.
I was gonna put thyme in there,
but I find it really hard to get it off,
like the little stalks.
It's just like, end up with more stalk than the actual leaf.
We've got some garlic, we've got some flour.
We've got some dried fast-action yeast.
We've got some olive oil.
This is like a fairly good quality one,
but I understand there are some extremely expensive
extra virgin olive oils out there.
I think there's even like Mafia involvement in Italy.
Stuart was telling me, it's just kind of like crazy.
It's like all this like sort of turf war over olive oil.
I do love it though with a bit of balsamic vinegar.
In fact, we might dunk it.
We might role-reverse it,
we're gonna infuse it with the oil.
We might dunk it in some oil with the balsamic at the end,
if this works!
Only other thing than water that we need
is a little bit of honey.
And this is some foil that I bought when I went to the shop.
So that's completely out.
Don't really need that, sorry.
But this should be easy, it should be super delicious.
And if I can do this,
you're gonna smash it out of the park, let's go.
Well, actually on the subject of salt,
and it's pug-inspired.
Yes.
I'll just get the bowl out, but as I tell you,
we bulk buy our dog food like in big 20 kilo bags.
It arrived the other day and the kids,
literally, I don't know how they did it,
they brought it in, put it into the porch,
just our first door in our house.
And it had a hole in the bag.
We look around.
I say the other day, this was yesterday.
Half an hour later, we're like,
"Where the hell is Boston?"
Where the hell was Boston?
You know, we're passionate about it.
"Where the hell is he?"
And we went out there, and there's no joke.
There's Boston, there's a hole in the dog food bag
and he's been having a little feast, haven't you?
And you're feeling a little bit sorry for yourself.
Not gonna go down that route too much,
but he has been to toilet several times.
But most importantly, he is emitting,
every 10 to 15 minutes, the most potent smell
and it is, oof!
Yeah, boy, I'd be proud if it was me.
So the good thing is with the dough here,
what we're gonna make,
it still gotta prove like a normal bread.
So we'll get that first stage going,
and then I'll take him out and see if he just wants to share
that smell that he's emitting with the rest of the world.
So yes, let's crack on.
- [Automated Voice] Focaccia.
- Focaccia.
Did I say focaccia, focaccia.
- [Automated Voice] Focaccia.
- Focaccia, 'caccia.
I was just wondering if there was any sort of meaning
behind that word, focaccia.
It just says a type of Italian flat bread
made with yeast and olive oil, flavoured with herbs,
which is exactly what we're doing today.
I thought we might have some sort of like deeper,
inner meaning, but no, it's just an Italian flatbread,
which hopefully will be bloomin' stonking.
If you don't know, when I look at recipes
and ideas of things to do, I kind of combine
lots of different inspiration
and get tips from you guys ahead of it
then I put a video out and I get like 10,000 more,
and I really appreciate that.
But what sometimes people do is actually cook the garlic
and the herbs together to try and infuse
and intensify those flavours.
And that's what we're gonna do with our rosemary.
So you can see these are on little spriggy things like that.
Sometimes people at barbecues as well, they kind of like,
they have like a stick
with like tied different herbs together.
And like, like whack it.
I've seen that before and I'm like,
is that actually doing anything?
But what I tend to do is just push it against the stalk,
the way that it wants to fall.
And you do just get the nice bits of rosemary there.
So you're just left with your...
Ooh, look at me, I'm a propeller.
You don't want that bit in it.
Amazing if you don't mind.
(garlic squishing)
Yeah, it's a Barry Lewis one, optional,
but that just hoovers it all up, I love it.
That's in my veggie prep kit, by the way,
I've only got 100 of these left
until probably about seven months from now as I talk.
So if you haven't got one,
and you fancy one, that is in the kit as well.
So it's worth a look if you want, but that, I just love it.
Hoovers it up, that's two cloves
and a good handful of the rosemary.
That's the flavours I'm going for, ooh. (laughs)
But if you want to add any more herbs and flavourings
other than the seasoning...
Paprika.
No, I think Italians would hate me for that.
We'll just carry on.
Yeah, and with the rosemary, I'm just roughly chopping up.
It doesn't need to be anything too crazy,
but just get it a little bit smaller.
(playful music)
I did actually have a chance to go to Italy
just before the lockdown started to learn about olive oil.
So I might look to try and do that again soon,
once life gets back to normal, which we've done it folks,
I think we are slowly getting there.
But this is the olive oil
and we're gonna cook the rosemary and the garlic in that.
Yeah, I mean, after what Stuart told me, oh,
that sort of trip to see olive oil, I'd be like,
"Hey, hey Micky, you wanna buy some olive oil, huh?"
(speaks in foreign language)
Look after your olives, folks,
and that's a good life lesson.
So let's get that olive oil.
Oh, that's a lovely golden, rich colour.
I do love olive oil actually, it's naughty.
I'm not like Jamie Oliver Star
or, like, put it on everything but you know what I mean.
Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna add the garlic in
just about a couple of minutes later
because I find that garlic cooks quite quick
and the minute, we don't really want to burn the garlic.
This is a new chopping board.
It's got a really annoying groove in it, right, okay.
Note to Barry: Never use this again.
(pepper mill grinding)
So we're gonna cook this up,
it should be probably 10 minutes.
I'll keep stirring it,
but remember, olive oil in general has a lower smoke point
so you really want to sort of monitor it.
So I really shouldn't be talking, we should be...
Just try and bring it down a little bit closer.
I really wish you could smell this.
The olive oil smell is very potent.
But then the freshness of the rosemary's coming out,
pushing them around there.
To be honest, they're doing...
Oh my gosh, that's close!
They're doing nothing right now.
That'd be more about taste, I think.
But then after a couple of minutes,
like we say, the garlic sat here quite low heat.
We'll add it in.
We just don't want this to brown too soon.
All right, so it's been about four minutes.
I'm gonna push this in.
Oh yeah.
It starts to go lightly brown,
take it off the heat immediately.
And I'm gonna pour it straight back into my jug
as quick as I can.
Smells a bit like rosemary garlic bread now.
Ah!
The garlic was starting to go,
just a tinge of brown on there, and that's fine.
We just do not, it'll burn really, really quick.
So this is just cooling down, nice and fragrant to one side,
and this is my plain flour ready for making the dough.
There was a time, no-knead focaccia recipe,
and I think I love no-knead bread, that simplicity,
but as it was my first time doing it, first time,
there was no need in this,
I thought I'd rather, feel as,
I wanna do it properly, you know?
And hopefully I am.
We have got a jug with some warm water in.
We've also got some honey, okay.
So we're gonna put about, I'm gonna call it a squirdge,
like half a teaspoon.
All the recipes you sent me, over the time
and the research I've done it tended to mostly be honey
and not sugar in with this, so that's fine.
So honey and water, and this is some fast-action yeast.
Like just one of those sachets,
which is typically about a tablespoon.
So I'm just gonna give that a little stir
so it kind of meets and it's all friendly in the warm water
and the honey mingles and gets that yeast going
because we are gonna leave this
for a couple of minutes, all right.
Whilst that's doing that, one thing they say,
you might bake bread from time to time
and have the fast-action yeast sachets,
if you can get the fresh stuff from a supermarket,
quite hard to get, or from a bakery, they might let,
they'd be like, what, do you want my bread?
But if you buy the sachets...
Look at all the cocoa powder we've got,
I do like chocolate cake.
Like if you have a packet of this
beware that the expiry date does go off
and I've found that even if you use it,
it's normally about a year,
even if you use it after six, seven months, yeast does die.
Sorry, rest in peace, yeast, yo.
So basically just try and bake as much as you can, yeah.
Yeah it really is the yeast you could do.
A big bowl of that.
We're gonna get half of our flour in first of all,
then we're gonna get all of the yeast, look,
look at that, it's like a pint of Guinness.
Gonna get all of that in there, lovely.
Now this mixture has cooled down, but I need to be careful.
I can't do this with one hand.
We want to get half of this in there.
But if I just pour it,
some of the actual ingredients are gonna stay in there.
I want to kind of get half of it all,
I wanna make sure I get all the garlic and rosemary
in there too.
So half of this.
Let's just get that mingling together.
Mix this through.
Apparently we just do this initially just to get it all
to be absorbed by the flour.
Then more will go in.
You can see that thickening up and then taking to it.
That is all we want.
And then we keep it rested for another five minutes.
I'm not actually sure why we do this step,
but it was very common so we'll do that.
All right, so that has been another five minutes.
A couple of bubbles appearing there.
Maybe it does get the yeast working, I don't know,
certainly the most oiliest bread that I've ever made,
but the rest of the flour is now going in
and also some unnecessary pig salt bae.
We'll just bring this together and hopefully,
I'm wanting it to thicken a little bit more
so I can handle it and oh,
it looks to be doing that, brilliant.
Oh, there we go.
You can see it's gone sort of nice and elasticy like that.
And when you knead it on a surface,
you're gonna add a little bit more flour to it anyway.
Let's do that now.
A nice big clean bowl.
We've got a little bit of olive oil.
How much, probably should have used the cheap stuff.
Trust me, this wasn't the cheapest,
but by far there are way more expensive ones.
I don't know what the most, I might Google that in a minute.
Just 'cause we've got to wait for this to prove.
Oil it up the sides.
Ah, smells so good!
I think I've just suddenly realised
how much I love olive oil, this recipe.
Yeah, feeling really authentic.
Gah!
To be fair, it is quite a wet dough, still.
And now randomly it smells a bit.
It is super, I mean the oil is definitely doing that.
It's making it really delicate.
As I'm holding it, it's still a teeny bit tacky.
So a little bit flour as we go.
And once I'm happy that it's not gonna stick to my hands,
I'm gonna start working it through for a good 10 minutes
like this, but still I'm getting a little bit,
a little bit of tack.
Pew!
But that is a lovely tender dough.
I always feel like the electric mixer
just wouldn't have respected it.
I wanted it to be kind and I feel part of this,
like, my hands now smell amazing.
(playful music)
There we go, after 10 minutes of solid kneading,
it feels like my third child.
I just feel really proud of it.
Right, so there is our greased bowl from earlier,
gonna lift that dough, oh my gosh,
carefully in there.
Now normally I would go to get the Wrapmaster 3000
just some cling film on there,
but you always hear about the damp tea towel thing
and I haven't done that for bloomin' ages.
So just 'cause I want to, I'm gonna do that.
Does anyone know? Can you please let me know?
Why does it have to be damp? What does that do?
I could Google it, but I like you and I want to talk to you.
It's a nice warm day today.
This is gonna hopefully double in size in the temperature
that where it is now, I'm not gonna put it anywhere crazy.
Just make sure that's covered.
And now is a good time for me to take Boston out.
You've been popping off quite a bit, haven't you?
You just farted, didn't you?
Feel sorry for you, mate, having to put up with that.
So we're back, a good 45 minute walk.
I think Boston enjoyed that way more than Amy and I did,
but here we go.
Look, haven't even moved it, boom. Look at that.
I would say that's more than doubled in size.
Ah!
So now we take a tray.
Add a bit more oil on the base.
It actually might help manoeuvre the dough
because we're literally plonking it in here any minute now.
Oh, oh, that is so light and foamy and airy.
Ha!
Gonna push it into the corners. Oh this is beautiful.
Come, come here, come see this.
Remember, this is my first time doing it.
So please be kind, Italians.
And generally you are quite nice to me.
There is one country I'm not gonna mention,
where I did a recipe from there and it was,
yeah, we won't do that again. (laughs)
Now make the dimples.
Now this is just like sort of pushing it like this.
And apparently that is to compress the air
to prevent it from rising too much.
And I don't know if I should be doing this
with a wooden spoon or not, but I'm having a lot of fun.
It's also creating little pockets
that with the remaining oil, garlic, rosemary mixture
we can pour in and those pockets can fill with the oil
and some of those flavourings.
I am really, really happy with that.
Wah!
So let's bring that mixture in
and I'm just gonna drizzle it over the top.
We've got the garlic and we are gonna have
that rosemary topping on it as well, that's how it, ah!
We are getting authentic here folks, I feel it.
I'm feeling my inner Starbucks coming out.
So there we go, just enough, and these lovely little pocket,
I think every little pocket
has either got some rosemary, some garlic,
some of the pepper, some of the oil in there,
but I don't think I've completely drenched it.
I really hope I haven't ruined it 'cause it smells so good.
So we leave it now for about 25 minutes again,
just to rise up a little bit more.
I hope it does with this weight on it.
And then we bake.
All right, this oven is 450 Fahrenheit,
which is 230 C or 210 fan AKA rather chuffing hot.
It's not gonna take long to bake.
It has puffed up and doubled.
Let's get it going.
Part of me just really hopes
I didn't put too much oil in,
I'm just gonna end up frying the whole bread,
but there is a sort of fried crispy, crunchy coating
on it anyway.
You can use it as a pizza base as well.
But I think for today we're just gonna have it as bread
and just gobble it up.
Please work.
It's been surprisingly easy so far.
Just gonna plonk it, oh no,
I'm not gonna plonk it down, I'm gonna show you, look.
Look at that lovely golden colour on that.
Super good.
Maybe I could have done it a little less
so it's lightly golden, but I love that richness to it.
The smell is outstanding.
Not much rise, the holes have done their job,
it's shrunk a little bit, it's,
all the oil's gone into it.
Like, is this kind of like,
is focaccia, is it a hybrid between bread and fry bread?
The oil has gone in.
Like, I wanna gloss it a little bit once we cool it down.
So let's do that. This transfers to a wire rack.
Like so, whew!
And look, all of that oil that I put in there
has gone from that tray.
Ah, yeah. (laughs)
It's almost got holes in the bottom.
Maybe I pressed the holes a bit too much,
but never look at the bottom of your focaccia.
I'm immensely proud of that.
Remember, slather it in pizza sauce, cheese toppings,
all that stuff.
Keep that oven hot, couple of minutes,
you've got yourself a pizza.
Cut it into nice, even, consistent slices
you can make a Starbucks-inspired sandwich,
but we're just gonna rip some chunks off and dunk away.
Behold, one of my most favourite things in the world,
balsamic vinegar and olive oil, AKA a very tasty oil spill.
(bread crunches)
Ooh, nice.
I'm hoping for a crunchy top, crunchy bottom,
and a nice soft, oh wow.
Yes, my friends, look.
Oh, and it's still slightly warm.
This must be consumed immediately.
Oh my word.
Now I'm tasting it straight after making it
and seeing the whole construction of it.
I do kind of get this like light fried vibe to it,
but I love it.
I'm not a massive fan of fry bread normally,
but it's just that coating either end,
the softness inside
and the flavour driven into that dough.
And then on top, I didn't even brush this again.
You could do that if you wanted to just to enhance it,
but it doesn't need it.
I now appreciate and actually understand it
now that we've made it.
So I really hope, mm, oh.
I really hope you give this a go.
Mm, I just got myself a little pot of just balsamic vinegar.
So no oil in there, and we put enough in it,
and that tasted sensational.
I think it kind of compensated for it anyway, ah.
Please try this.
Don't forget to subscribe
if you haven't already and tell all your friends
about the channel
and if you try any of the recipes today,
through any of the years, pick your social media of choice,
send me a photo, I love to see it.
Bye!
♪ Check your level player ♪
♪ No matter what your style ♪
♪ The kitchen's for me ♪
♪ Sideburns, moustache, goatee, maybe all three ♪
And the other good news is this guy
seems to have stopped trumping as well.
(laughs) Well, you're sitting by him now, he must be.
Hey, trapeze artists.
What's that big net for?
Oh, that's for catcher.
Try this recipe.