Focaccia from Leftover Pizza Dough

Three leftover pizza dough balls pressed into a tray, dimpled, soaked with a salt brine in the Ligurian way, topped with cherry tomatoes, and baked on the falling heat after the pizzas.

Untested: I have not cooked this one yet — the pizza oven has not been bought. It is here for the Pizza Ovens dive, and it is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

• 3 leftover pizza dough balls (about 250 g each)
• 100 g (3½ oz) cherry tomatoes, halved

½ teaspoon dried oregano

• 5 g (1¼ teaspoons) extra-virgin olive oil — about 3 g for the tray, 2 g to finish
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 50 ml (¼ cup) water

Directions

1. Press. Press the three dough balls together into one. Oil a baking tray, put the dough in, cover, and let it relax 20 minutes.
2. Stretch and dimple it with your fingertips to fill the tray.
3. Brine. Dissolve the salt in the water and pour it over the dough.
4. Top. Press the tomatoes into the dough, squeezing them a little. Sprinkle with oregano and drizzle with the rest of the oil.
5. Bake with the stone at about 570 °F (300 °C): 2 minutes with the door closed, turn, 2 minutes more, then let the oven fall to about 390 °F (200 °C) and bake about 10 minutes more, until golden.
6. Cool 5 minutes before cutting.

Notes

Source Adapted from Lauren Smith, “Leftover Dough Focaccia with Tomatoes and Oregano,” on Ooni’s recipe pages.

The brine Pouring salted water over the dimpled dough before baking is the Ligurian focaccia technique; it seasons the bread and keeps the top moist.

When A good use of a wood oven as the fire dies back after the pizzas.

Temperatures are for the oven floor (stone), read with an infrared thermometer. A pizza oven’s built-in gauge reads the air, which runs much hotter.

The Pizza Ovens dive on the Food site covers the oven, the fire and the dough in depth.