P
Italian · Recco
Focaccia di Recco col Formaggio IGP
Recco's extraordinary focaccia — technically not a focaccia in any conventional sense but a paper-thin unleavened double-layer bread with fresh, spreadable cheese (crescenza or stracchino) sandwiched inside, baked on an oiled copper tray at maximum oven temperature until the top blisters and the cheese melts into a liquid interior. The IGP protection covers both the preparation and the geographic origin. The dough contains no yeast, no rising time, and must be stretched to translucency. Focaccia col formaggio is one of Italy's most technically demanding flatbreads.
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I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
300 g
plain white flour (type 00)
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
150 ml
water
room temperature
Your own market
30 ml
extra-virgin olive oil
plus extra for the tray and the top layer
Your own market
1 tsp
fine salt
Your own market
400 g
crescenza or stracchino
cold, broken into irregular pieces
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
II
The Method
1
Combine the flour, salt, olive oil and water. Work the mass until it forms a smooth, extensible dough — it should be supple enough to stretch without snapping back. Wrap and rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. The dough is ready when it yields immediately to gentle pressure and shows no elasticity.
2
Set the oven to its maximum temperature — 250 °C in a domestic oven, 300 °C or above in a professional one. Oil a copper baking tray generously with olive oil. Divide the dough into two equal pieces.
3
Take the first piece of dough and stretch it over the backs of the hands and forearms — never use a rolling pin. Work outward from the centre, rotating and re-draping, until the sheet is stretched to translucency and covers the oiled tray with a slight overhang. The sheet must be thin enough that the tray is faintly visible through it; any opacity signals insufficient stretching.
4
Distribute the crescenza in irregular pieces across the surface of the bottom sheet, spacing them evenly so that no area is left without cheese and no area is overloaded. Uneven distribution produces zones that are simultaneously over-cooked and under-cooked. This is where the dish lives or dies: if the cheese is unevenly placed or the dough has not been stretched to true translucency, neither can be corrected after the oven.
5
Stretch the second piece of dough by the same hand-and-forearm method until it matches the first in thinness and translucency. Drape it over the cheese layer. Press the overhanging edges of both sheets together and trim or fold them to seal the perimeter. Paint the entire top surface with olive oil.
6
Slide the tray into the oven at maximum heat. Bake until the top layer is blistered, golden-brown in patches, and the cheese beneath is visibly liquid and moving when the tray is tilted. The surface should show the characteristic uneven blistering — pale translucent areas beside deep golden ones — that only extreme heat and hand-stretched dough can produce.
7
Remove from the oven. Cut and serve immediately on the tray: once the focaccia cools even slightly, the crescenza solidifies and the defining contrast between shatteringly crisp dough and liquid cheese interior is lost.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Crescenza sourced directly from a Ligurian or Lombard caseificio at peak freshness; copper baking tray; stone-milled type 00 flour; a domestic oven modified or pre-heated on the highest setting for a full hour with a baking steel to approach 300 °C.
02
Estate — Fresh crescenza or stracchino from a specialist Italian deli, within two days of production date; heavy-gauge steel tray; good-quality type 00 flour; oven at 250 °C with a pizza stone pre-heated on the floor.
03
Market — Commercially available stracchino from a supermarket with a close sell-by date; standard baking tray; type 00 or plain flour; domestic oven at maximum temperature.
04
House — Any fresh, neutral, spreadable soft cheese (not mascarpone, ricotta or standard mozzarella, which do not behave correctly); oven at its highest setting; plain flour. The result will diverge from the IGP benchmark but the principle of the dish survives.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Touch. The rested dough yields immediately to a fingertip without springing back — it is ready to stretch.
◇Sight. The stretched sheet is thin enough that the tray below is faintly visible through it — true translucency, not merely thinness.
◇Sight. The baked top surface shows uneven blistering — deep gold and near-white patches side by side — the visual signature of extreme heat and hand-stretching.
◇Sight. When the tray is tilted, the cheese layer beneath the top sheet moves as a liquid — it is fully melted and the focaccia is done.
◇Where it lives or dies. The dish lives or dies at the moment the cheese is placed on a truly translucent, hand-stretched base sheet — if either the stretching or the distribution is flawed, no subsequent step can recover it.
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VI
What to Pour
The pairing
Wine
From British Columbia
Wine
Without alcohol
GT's Synergy Organic Kombucha — Gingerade
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
Non-alcoholic
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The whole pairingPillar VII
Origin and lineage are part of membership.
Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.
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