Best Garlic Bread? 🥖
Mastering Easy Focaccia at Home... with many flavor possibilities!
Good Day Friends, 🥖
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads reading! I cooked for Papa Octopod today and had a little help from Momma Octopod 🙌
Summertime is in full swing so we enjoyed farm fresh tomatoes 🍅 & corn 🌽 , had a wonderful chilled rice salad 🍚 🥗 and went full-on with some perfectly marbled NY Strips 🥩
Yes, I even fired up the grill in the crazy heat because one of favorite nostalgic tastes is Grilled Steaks… Papa Octopod always did that for us growing up… so now I’m returning him the favor!
Here’s a few highlights!
One tip, when you’re cooking or grilling NY Strips, start them on the cap (standing up, as you see in the video). This allows you to get a great char/caramelization on that luscious fat then cook your steaks as normal.
Perfectly grilled; rested… then sliced. I rested these steaks with pats of butter 🧈 on top before covering with foil… the butter slowly melts and combines with the resting meat juices. After slicing the steaks all of that buttery-beef-juice gets poured over the slices of steak 🥩 and then finished with Maldon sea salt.
Absolutely lush!
Cooking is especially meaningful on holiday occasions… good ingredients and solid techniques will never steer you wrong!
Notice there were no crazy flavor combinations… Grilled Beef & Fresh Tomato are absolutely magic IMO. In fact, I poured the remaining beefy-butter juices back into the leftover tomatoes to sit overnight… that will take those tomatoes next level as they sit waiting to be crushed tomorrow!
Easy Focaccia Bread 🥖 🇮🇹
One of the paid subscribers asked for more bread recipes. I’m happy to oblige because I have been an avid baker all my life. When I got into fine dining kitchens I would go in early and work for free so the bread bakers would show me how to work with the dough, proofing, shaping, maintaining starters… the works!
This was all before I went down the long-fermentation rabbit hole which is my preferred style of baking now… however, most home cooks want something quick, easy, no fuss… and we can still make something delicious.
So today we are going to make a quick, easy, no-fuss Focaccia bread that can be finished with 1,000,000 different toppings. You can make this the best garlic bread you’ve ever had. You can top with good, whole olives and chopped rosemary… and many other variations.
The important thing on this recipe is, it’s all done in one day, and from start to finish can be ready in 3 hours (or less depending on your kitchen temperature) and most of that time is hands off!
I’m going to also make notes before dropping the recipe so can see what we do to speed up the dough, still get a great result… and contrast that with longer-fermented doughs and if there’s interest… we can have monthly bread drops for those wanting to get down that rabbit hole!
This is one of the first doughs I learned cooking professionally… it was nostalgic making it again after all these years, and was taught to me be an Italian chef who remains a good friend!
Let’s Bake!
(PS: Last Coffee ☕️ orders ship tomorrow! Thanks to all who got in. You will love these!)
