A good friend of ours passed on his sour dough to us. We tried out several bread and pizza recipes, but considering everyones thumbs up in the family (ranging from 2 to 85 years), our favourite recipe using the sour dough is the Focaccia!

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

• 200 g sourdough, fed with whole grain flour the evening before
• 500 g flour (00)
• olive oil (extra virgin)
• 1 tsp of salt
• coarse salt
• lukewarm water
• any filling you like

How to grow your own sourdough starter

1) Find a friend who has it and convince him to pass you some.

2) You must always remember to feed it at least once a week.

3) For feeding, mix 150 g of sourdough with 150 g of whole grain flour and 100 ml of water. You can store half of it in a jar in the fridge, and use the other half to bake the focaccia.

4) If you want to use it, you must remember to feed it the day before.

In a bowl, mix the sourdough with the flour, the tsp of salt, 5 tbs of olive oil and the lukewarm water. Then knead on a clean wooden surface for about 10 minutes to obtain an elastic dough. Put the dough back in the bowl under a wet cloth until size has doubled (3-4 hours).

Turn out the dough onto the wooden surface, knock back and spread out flat into an oiled baking tray using your fingers. You should obtain a layer of about 1-2 cm high.Leave it under the wet cloth for another 2 hours.

Wet your fingers with water and punch some holes in the dough. Cover with abundant olive oil and spread some coarse salt over it. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 5 minutes at 200°C, then for another 30 minutes at 180°C.

Wait until it cools down to cut it open and fill it with whatever you prefer. We served it with ham, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.