It always amazes me how some simple foods can taste so incredible. Focaccia is one of those foods, it has few ingredients, yet it’s almost magical how great it tastes! Focaccia is not pizza and is about 2000 years older, a sort of missing link between traditional flat bread and pizza. Above all it is distinctly Italian. Focaccia has undergone many upgrades and evolutions; however, the basic recipe has remained unchanged.
Today, focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread similar in style and texture to pizza. The interesting part, however, is that Focaccia started out as a side dish but over time it became part of the main dish as sandwich bread. If we go further back in time, focaccia was the only star of the show and was originally the prototype of early pizza.
A few years ago, Brion & I got ‘hooked’ on focaccia bread. I experimented with various recipes until I landed on the sweet potato focaccia. Experiment no more! For our liking this was the ultimate focaccia. Of course, I couldn’t just leave it at bread. My next thought was to make it into handheld stuffed focaccia pockets for picnics or lunch on the go.
Today, I’d like to share my newly ‘developed’ focaccia pocket. It consists of sweet potato focaccia filled with roast turkey, bacon & stuffing served with cranberry sauce on the side. We just loved this ‘next level’ of focaccia bread.
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POCKETS
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- 320 gm (about 1 1/3 cups) orange sweet potato
- 1 Tbsp active dry yeast
- 4 1/2 cups flour, divided
- 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water, divided
- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 slices bacon
- 350 gm turkey, roasted & shredded
- 1/4 tsp EACH summer savory, sage & thyme
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 Tbsp butter,
- 1 small onion or leek, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 150 gm fresh mushrooms, halved & sliced
- 1/4 tsp EACH garlic & onion powder, sea salt & white pepper
- 1/2 cup milk
- 150 gm Boursin cheese w/ garlic & fine herbs
- 3 cups or more leftover turkey bread stuffing from roasted turkey
Ingredients
Sweet Potato Focaccia
Filling
Boursin Sauce
Stuffing
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- In a skillet, cook bacon until just crisp, then remove to a paper towel lined plate to drain; chop when cooled. Remove all but 1 Tbsp of the bacon drippings from skillet.
- Add butter to the skillet, sauté onions, garlic & mushrooms with herbs & spices, scraping up any brown bits, until the onions have softened & mushrooms have lost most of their size & moisture. Stir in the bacon & shredded cooked turkey, taste for seasoning. Cook for another minute or two, then remove from heat & set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine yeast, 1/2 cup flour & 1/2 cup lukewarm water. Allow to sit for about 20 minutes until frothy.
- Cook & mash sweet potato; add it along with the remaining 3/4 cup lukewarm water, 3 Tbsp olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp salt & 4 cups flour. When dough forms, knead for about 7-8 minutes until the dough is soft & satiny. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap & allow to rise in a draft fee place until doubled in size, about an hour.
- In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Stir in the spices. Add the milk and adjust heat to steaming -- do not simmer or boil. Add Boursin to the milk mixture, break it up into pieces with the side of a large spoon and stir until Boursin has melted into the mixture. Remove from heat. Add to turkey/veg mixture.
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Spread work surface with olive oil. Place risen dough on it & cut into 12 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Roll out each ball into a 6-inch circle. Divide the filling between the 12 circles of dough. Top each one with about a 1/4 cup stuffing. Fold to form a turnover & pinch edges to seal in filling.
- On 2 parchment lined baking sheets, place filled focaccia. Sprinkle with dried rosemary & coarse sea salt if using.
- Bake for about 20 minutes or until slightly browned. Remove from oven & cool on wire racks. Serve with cranberry sauce on the side if desired.