Not Your Mother's Cookbooks

Roman Bread sprinkled with herbs

Roman bread is the house bread at the Casa Vieja restaurant near Arizona State University. It is a lovely uneven shape baked on a baking sheet and essentially a foccacia. The onion is added with all the other ingredients, so that it is incorporated right into the flat bread dough.  Sprinkle it with grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese in place of the salt, or another herb like dried basil, before baking.  There is never any leftover, but if so, it is good for stuffings.

Makes 1 flat bread

Ingredients

• 1 1/2-and 2-pound loaves
• 1 cup water
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/3 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
• Topping
• 3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dried rosemary, crushed
• Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling

Instructions

1. Place the ingredients, except the topping, in the pan according to manufacturer’s instructions.  Program for the Dough cycle; press Start.  (This recipe is not suitable for the Delay cycle.)
2. Brush a rectangular baking sheet with olive oil.  After the rising cycle ends, at the beep immediately remove the bread pan and turn out the dough onto the baking sheet.  With oiled fingers or a rolling pin, press and flatten the dough into a 1-inch thick oval.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until double in bulk, 40 minutes.
3. Place a baking stone on the lowest rack of a cold oven and preheat it to 425º for 20 minutes; otherwise preheat the oven to 400º.  Using a small, sharp knife, slash the top with a big tic-tack-toe grid, no more than 1/2-inch deep.  Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with the rosemary.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until browned.  Sprinkle with the coarse salt right when it comes out of the oven.  Serve cut into squares the day it is made, warm or at room temperature.

Excerpted from The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, by Beth Hensperger. (c) 2000, used by permission from the Harvard Common Press.