Your Next Cocktail Hour
Roasted Grape and Olive Focaccia with Herby Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onions
Happy Friday, eater-gatherers. I hope you have relaxing long weekend plans. If you’d like an easy baking project that will set you up handsomely for cocktail hour in the bright afternoon chill, then boy, have I got an idea for you.
I was an exceptionally mediocre cross country runner in my youth. My first memory of high school running practice is of pain, but my second is of grapes. About a half mile down our training road was a patch of Concord grape vines cascading over an old stone wall, and the first time I got hit with the scent of ripe grapes baked in the early autumn sun it was a revelation. It smelled woodsy and organic with all the intense sweetness of jam. It made me understand what artificial grape flavor was trying to achieve. I’d cling to consciousness during those runs for the promise of that scent.
Every fall I start thinking about those grapes. I walk past the single grape vine in my neighborhood and visit the patch in my hometown’s conservation land for a hit of that smell. I curse the gods and ask them why, why must apple and pumpkin season always eclipse that of their smaller, juicier fall counterparts? So you can imagine my excitement when I became aware of schiacciata all’uva: Tuscan grape focaccia.
What’s the difference between focaccia and schiacciata, you ask? Schiacciata is focaccia’s thinner, crispier cousin from Tuscany. It rises only once, then is pressed down – “schiacciata” actually means “squashed” or “pressed.” In the fall, it’s made with the last of the wine grapes from the harvest and eaten as a midmorning snack. The Internet says it goes well with cheese and a glass of wine. I challenge you to think of a more romantic cocktail hour.
I considered making traditional schiacciata all’uva, but the layer of crushed grapes in the center of the dough intimidated me. So I found a Smitten Kitchen adaptation of a Claudia Fleming recipe and decided to start from there. I didn’t have Concord grapes, and when I was honest with myself, I realized I lack the patience to seed them, no matter how much I love their fragrance. So I used black table grapes, hoping they would scratch my grapey itch. Here is the result:
Looks pretty, right? But it was underwhelming. There were two problems. First, the grapes: the black grapes didn’t become jammy, intense pockets of flavor. They remained pallid, lukewarm hemispheres of grape-like water. Second, the rosemary: I needed more.
And then the community weighed in. I posted the above photo on Instagram and asked folks about their interest in grape focaccia. Many were on the fence. My cousin Caitlin said that the inclusion of olives would seal the deal for her, and my friend Trish said that if I tossed in some goat cheese she’d be sold. Both ideas were excellent. I knew what I had to do.
I halved and roasted the black grapes with a little olive oil, salt, and a teaspoon of rosemary for an hour at 300 to concentrate their flavors and get some of their moisture out. I added olives to the top of one loaf and made up an herbed goat cheese spread with caramelized onions. Here’s the final product:
The response, my friends, was enormous. And by enormous I mean that a few people reached out on Instagram and said it looked really good. But the true test came at my parents’ house. I brought some over for lunch. We inhaled it. They kept the leftovers and finished them at dinner. And well they should have – the grapes were intensely flavorful and jammy, the rosemary was a savory force to be reckoned with, the pairing of salty olives and jammy grapes was surprising and addictive, and the tangy goat cheese spread complemented and balanced the sweetness of the grapes.
I hope you make this for lunch, a snack, or a cocktail hour this weekend. I especially recommend the latter. Enjoy the smell of the grapes as you roast them. And whatever you do, don’t eat your creation at room temperature: have it warm from the oven, and always crisp up leftovers in a frying pan.
I’m taking next week off to work on some other projects, so I hope you have a wonderful couple of weeks! Talk to you in late October.
Happy eating and gathering,
Katie
Roasted Grape and Olive Focaccia
Adapted barely from Deb Perelman, who adapted it from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course
2 to 2 ½ cups seedless black or red grapes
2 ½ teaspoons fresh rosemary, divided
3/4 cup (177 ml) warm water (105° to 110°F)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) milk, slightly warmed
1 1/2 teaspoons (6 grams) sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons (5 grams) active dry yeast
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) salt
6 tablespoons (90 ml) olive oil
1 tablespoon (4 grams) raw or another coarse sugar
10 kalamata olives, halved
Flaky sea salt to taste
Preheat the oven to 300. Cut all the large grapes in half lengthwise (you can leave any small ones whole). Spread them out on a baking tray. Drizzle with a little olive oil, a pinch of salt, and 1-1 ½ teaspoons of chopped rosemary. Mix well. Roast for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Let them cool. (You will have extra – they’re delicious on salads.)
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, stir together the water, milk, sugar, and yeast. Let the mixture sit until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add the flour, salt and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to the yeast mixture and mix for two minutes on low. Attach the dough hook, raise the speed to medium-low and knead the dough for 8 minutes longer. (You can also knead by hand – take care not to under-knead.)
Brush a large bowl with a generous amount of olive oil. Scrape dough into the bowl and brush the top with additional oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a cool place until it doubles in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Press the dough down with a floured hand. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and divide it into two balls. Brush a large baking sheet (or two small ones) with olive oil, place the balls of dough on it and brush the top with more oil. Set it aside for 20 minutes, lightly covered with a kitchen towel. After 20 minutes, dip your fingers in olive oil and press and stretch each ball of dough into a 8 to 9-inch circle-ish shape. It will be dimpled from your fingers. Cover again with the towel and let it rise for another 1 1/4 hours in a cool place.
Preheat the oven to 450. Brush tops of dough with remaining olive oil. This is where you treat each one slightly differently. Top the first round with about ¾ cup grapes, half the remaining rosemary, most of the tablespoon of coarse sugar, and a good large pinch of flaky salt. Top the second round with another ¾ cup grapes and stud regularly with the olives; then, sprinkle over the remainder of the rosemary, a small amount of coarse sugar, and a smaller pinch of flaky salt. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and puffed around edges. Let cool before serving. Serve warm with herbed goat cheese spread (below).
Herbed Goat Cheese Spread with Caramelized Onions
1 yellow onion
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
5 ounces goat cheese
2 tablespoons full-fat Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Fresh herbs (basil, parsley, oregano, whatever you have)
Slice the onion into thin half moons. Add a glug of oil to a frying pan and add the onions. Turn the heat to medium low (though I got impatient at times and went up to medium) and cook the onions, stirring occasionally and monitoring the heat to ensure they don’t get crispy, until they are sweet, jammy, and caramelized. This takes me 30 minutes. If you happen to have a delicious bottle of aged maple vinegar that your friend Ellie gave you, add a splash at the end of cooking and cook it off for additional sweetness.
Meanwhile, add the goat cheese and yogurt to a bowl. Mash with a fork to incorporate. Add the olive oil and mix well. The goat cheese should be much less crumbly and more spreadable. Finely chop your herbs (I used a teaspoon or two) and mix them in well.
Transfer the goat cheese spread to a serving bowl and top with the caramelized onions. Serve with the grape and olive focaccia and a glass of red wine and tell apples and pumpkins to BUZZ OFF.
My mouth is watering reading this