Apple-Onion Focaccia for a Yummy Party Appetizer
Every week, Yahoo Food spotlights a cookbook that stands out from the rest. This week’s cookbook is Thug Kitchen Party Grub (Rodale Books), a collection of party-ready vegan recipes. Read more about Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week here.
Photograph by Matt Holloway/Thug Kitchen
By Thug Kitchen
Apple-Onion Focaccia
Makes one big-a** f***ing loaf of bread
This motherf***er will make your whole place smell like fall even in the middle of spring. And yeah, that’s a d*** good thing.
2 teaspoons plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced into thin strips
1 large apple, halved, cored, and sliced into thin half-moons*
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
Everyday Pizza Dough (see below)
1 tablespoon unsweetened nondairy milk of your choice
Balsamic Dipping Sauce (optional)
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Pinch of red pepper flakes
*Granny Smith, Pink Lady, whateverthef*** you’re willing to eat will work here.
Crank your oven up to 450°F. Grease a rimmed baking sheet so your bread doesn’t stick.
In a medium skillet, heat up 1 teaspoon of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté those f***ers around until they look kinda brown and delicious, 5 to 7 minutes. Scrape the onion out of the pan onto a plate.
Throw another 1 teaspoon olive oil into the same pan. Add the apple slices and cook them over medium heat. Add the lemon juice and thyme or rosemary and sauté until the apple slices are slightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes total. Remove from the heat, ’cuz it’s dough time.
On a well-floured surface, shape your dough into a 4 x 10-inch rectangle about an inch or so thick. Don’t pull out a f***ing ruler, just eyeball that s***. Place that on your super-greased-up baking sheet. Take your fingertips and dimple the top of the bread like you’re a phantom of the opera, or some s*** like that, playing the organ in a dramatic way. You know what the f*** we’re saying. Mix the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil with the milk and brush this all over the dough.
Scatter half the onions all over the bread, dimple that s*** a little more, and then lay down all the apple slices in a single layer. Make a cool or dumb pattern, spell out f***, whatever. Scatter on the rest of the onions and then throw that s*** in the oven. Bake until the bread looks nice and golden, 15 to 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temp.
If you are making the dipping sauce, just mix all the ingredients together on a low-rimmed plate or bowl and get to f***ing dipping.
Everyday Pizza Dough
Makes enough for four individual pizzas or one big f***ing focaccia
This is our go-to dough for all our pizzas and focaccia. F***, you could even make cinnamon rolls out of it if you got a little creative. What’s great about it is that you don’t have to knead this yeasty motherf***er for very long, so you get all of the tastiness with a lot less of the work. Boom. If you are making pizza, just throw on your toppings, brush some olive oil on the crust, and bake that s*** at 475°F on a baking sheet until the crust is golden, 10 to 12 minutes.
4 cups all-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour or a mix of the two flours, plus more for rolling out
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¾ cups warm water*
2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast**
½ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
*Like the temperature of a tea that you could tell used to be warm but has been sitting out for a couple minutes.
**Or one ¼-ounce envelope of yeast.
Whisk the flour and salt together in a big bowl and set it aside.
In a small glass, mix together the warm water, yeast, and sugar. Wait a couple minutes and see if the glass looks kinda foamy at the top. If nothing f***ing happens, then your yeast is old as s*** and died, so you need to get some new stuff. RIP.
When the yeast is ready to go, pour that whole glass into the flour bowl and stir it together until a shaggy dough comes together. Still got a ton of flour hanging out in the bowl? Add a little bit more water, up to ¼ cup more, a tablespoon at a time, until there are no more piles of dry flour. This s*** depends a lot on how much moisture is in the flour, so it changes all the time. SCIENCE! Knead the dough for a couple minutes until a smooth ball comes together. Rub the olive oil over the dough and put it in a bowl. Cover that s*** with a clean kitchen towel and let it rise someplace that isn’t too cold or drafty until it’s about doubled in size, about 1 ½ hours.
When it’s all big and ready to go, punch it down to let some of the gas escape and just knead that s*** a couple more times to get it back into a ball shape. At this point you can divide the dough into 4 equal parts and roll out the dough to make your pizzas, or throw the dough in a zip-top bag and stick it in the fridge for the next week. Just let it warm back up to about room temp before trying to roll it out after it’s been in the fridge.
To roll out the dough, throw some extra flour out on your counter and pat some on your rolling pin. (No rolling pin? Go f***ing get one and stop trying to use a wine bottle. It won’t end well, trust us.) Roll your dough out into a circle-ish shape about ¼ inch thick.
Reprinted with permission from Thug Kitchen Party Grub (Rodale Books).
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