A French anchovy focaccia that has all the flavors of the Mediterranean. Excellent hot for the aperitif, but also as cold as a schiscetta to take to the office
This recipe was born in Nice and is famous throughout the south of France. The origin of the name comes from pissalat that is salted fish because in its original version there was one salted fish based cream.
Today the pissaladière is the focaccia prepared with one salted anchovy filling cooked with onions and aromatic herbs. The extra touch is given by the black olives which are used as a final decoration.
The best ones are typically French, but you can also use good Italian Taggiasca olives.
The pissaladière recipe
First prepare the base, which is a classic bread dough.
work 320 g of 00 flour with 2 g of dry brewer's yeast, 180 ml of water at room temperature e 15 g of extra virgin olive oil. Also add a teaspoon of malt or honey and work the dough well.
Only at the end add a pinch of salt and let it rise for a couple of hours.
Meanwhile, wash well 400 g of anchovies in salt eliminating the head and the central bone.
In a pan, cook with extra virgin olive oil and a dash of water a kilo of onions finely chop, keeping the medium-low heat.
Add half-cooked desalted capers and a mixture of thyme and bay leaves and, after having made the onions flavor well, add also 50 g of pureed anchovies or chopped with a knife (a part of those previously washed).
Be careful, the onions must not take too much color, but only soften and blend with the other ingredients.
Once the dough has risen, roll it out with your hands inside a well-oiled baking pan.
Season with the cream of onions and then decorate the pissaladière with the remaining anchovies, creating a reticulate similar to that of a classic tart. You can also arrange the anchovies in a different way, the important thing is that they are one beautiful decoration for the focaccia. Also add some desiccated caper and the black olives and bake in 200 ° for about 25 minutes.
Puff pastry, yes or no?
If you do not want to prepare the base of the pissaladière you can use puff pastry or brisé ready, but let's be honest, the result will not be the same.
The particularity of this focaccia is also the consistency which must be more or less than a pizza.
Pizza dough already ready? Yes, but only if you really don't have time.
The Ligurian version: the sardenaira
There is an all-Italian version of the pissaladière.
It is typical of Liguria, precisely of Sanremo And his name is sardenaira.
To prepare it, you must first add more yeast in the dough which will be high and soft just like that of the Ligurian fugassa.
For 500 g of flour, 12 g of yeast, 250 g of water, 60 g of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt are required.
Once the base is prepared and left to rise for a few hours, roll it out and season it with tomato pulp, capers, desalted olives, anchovies in very clean salt, abundant oregano and cloves of garlic in shirt. And this is precisely the peculiarity of this recipe. Not one or two segments, but at least a dozen scattered over the entire surface.
Then cook the focaccia after seasoning it with extra virgin olive oil at 230 ° for about 25 minutes.
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