Who doesn’t love focaccia, and being so close to Italy (in Spain) yet still so far from Italian food, it was an obvious choice for me. You really can’t find many products that aren’t Spanish here. Same goes for Italian products outside of Italy. And I’m sure it’s similar for other countries here. They’re not like America where you have your pick of all kinds of products. They’re very proud of their local specialties and that’s the majority of what’s on the market. So it was time for focaccia.
Fanny at Foodbeam has been a good source for lots of recipes for me, namely the plaisir sucre and now her focaccia. I found another one I thought I liked, but they had me refrigerating the dough overnight, and you know what cold can do to yeast. The recipe I used was very detailed with lots of pictures, so I thought it was great. My Italian roommate even approved. He said it was like being in an Italian home (he also said that this morning when he smelled coffee). His one suggestion? Make more air bubbles in it, so I guess that would be a bit more kneading and folding, for next time. But there will definitely be a next time, as this was a keeper.
Oh and p.s. this was my first time to use fresh yeast, as in the States it’s much more common to find the dry stuff. It was a weird little sandy-colored chunky, moist substance. But it worked great. A good experiment would be to see how it would turn out with dry yeast.
Rosemary Focaccia
Adapted from Foodbeam
starter
200 g warm water
150 g bread flour
7 g fresh yeast, crumbled up
then
150 g warm water
15 ml olive oil (and lots extra for kneading and folding and sprinkling)
375 bread flour
10 g salt (plus some for sprinkling)
rosemary (fresh or dried, fresh is probably a stronger taste)
First mix the first three ingredients (the starter) together in a large bowl. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave at warm room temperature (or if you don’t have warm room temperature, heat the oven up just a tiny bit, then turn off and put your starter in there) for 2 hours, stirring the mixture after about an hour. The mixture should be a bit bubbly.
Now whisk in the water and oil, then the flour and salt until everything is roughly combined. Cover again and let rest for 10 minutes. Now is where it gets a little bit messy. Find a nice smooth table or something large where you can knead your dough, and cover it with oil, then put the dough on it, splash some oil on the dough and your hands. Now pull the dough with one hand while the other hand holds it in place, fold it back onto itself and turn (ya know, knead it…just pull it apart and put back together, turning every now and then). It’ll start sticking to the surface, so when it does, stop. You should only be kneading for less than a minute. Do this two more times at 10-minute intervals, covering with a cloth in between kneading. After the third time, cover with the cloth and leave for 40 minutes (make sure everything is well oiled, the surface and the dough, otherwise it will stick to everything). Now you stretch and fold the dough (this is apparently what makes the air bubbles in the final product). So pull it out into a big rectangle, it doesn’t have to be perfect, and fold into thirds, and then fold that new smaller rectangle into thirds also.
You’ll do this two more times also, but at 40-minute intervals. And remember to splash on a bit of oil and cover with a cloth between stretching/folding. After the last time, you let it rest for 30 more minutes, and then you’re almost ready to bake. Put olive oil in the bottom and sides of a baking tray, then stretch the dough out into the shape of the tray so you get a rectangle, then using your fingers punch into it and pull apart, so you get those indents from your finger tips. Cover with a cloth (I know, again) and let rest for 20 minutes in a warm place (yes, last time). Now pull the corners of the dough to edges of the tray if they’ve pulled in a bit, and sprinkle some olive oil, a nice helping of salt, rosemary, and a tiny bit of water all over the top. 
Bake at 220 C for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat to 200 C and cook 15 more minutes. Let cool a bit and enjoy. 
And remember, the leftovers are great the next day for a sandwich of prosciutto, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, and basil or arugula.
But then you look around you at the people eating, and the magret de pato listed on the menu, and you realize it’s not just dessert. There’s food there too. This must be investigated further, you think. And it was. Well, it has been, numerous times. 
There’s this lunchtime institution in Spain called the menú del día, which is your (usually) reasonably priced, fixed menu, only available at lunch. It includes a starter, a main, dessert, bread, and a glass of wine. It can range anywhere from 7 to 25 euros, and of course sometimes more, depending on where you go. On the lower end of the spectrum are your typical, common bars/restaurants that will have soup or ‘ensalada rusa’ (a salad covered with mayonnaise but that does not contain any greens, as far as I can tell), or most of the other characteristic plates that you see sometimes in glass counters all day long at the same place. For mains it might be something like fish or sausage, and these places are fine, you mainly pay for what you get, but there are also places that do the peasant food just right, and you get hearty, tasty, fresh food for cheap. But all these places usually have one thing in common: bad desserts. It’s either generic, store bought ice cream, yogurt (served in it’s Danone container, mind you, and if you’re wondering, I do not consider this to be dessert) or macedonia de frutas (like Del Monte canned fruit). This is not good. In situations like these, you’re better off going without dessert. 
Mains were entrecote with fries, pretty standard but good, and dorada with quinoa and a tiny salad, and you’ll notice a hefty portion of pesto oil, which never hurts. These were both also very good and up to our Dolso standards.
Dessert was a brownie with a banana cream, which doesn’t normally sound great to me (something about the banana cream), but ended up pretty good. 
My constant lunch partner loves the desserts because there’s usually a sprinkling of crunchy, salty cookie like crumbs, or perhaps brownie crumbs thrown over the top that bring a nice bit of salt to the creamy desserts. 
The mains were confit of duck with ratatouille and potatoes dauphine, and a crusted grouper, which we didn’t get so I didn’t know how it was, but the duck was a big hit. The first time I came to Dolso I had duck, which I don’t normally eat, or order out, but was amazed, it was so tender and perfectly cooked, moist, and all that other good stuff. 
Finally, the dessert was another sort of cream/mousse, that was ok, but one thing I’ve noticed since we started going: the desserts on the menú del día are getting smaller.
They still have that glass display case of pyramids and semi-circles of impressive desserts, but those have never been included in the menu, and the ones that are served as part are shrinking. Other than the duck, I was a little disappointed with the tart, it was nothing special. Third Meal (I actually had this all written up with only the first two meals, but decided I needed a third one to post also, so I took one for the team and went to Dolso again last week…)
The mains were emperador (which I didn’t discover until much after the fact meant swordfish) with carrot puree, quinoa, and cauliflower. 
I went for this one, and it was good, they tend to use quinoa a lot and I have become a huge fan, and the presentation is always great, but the swordfish was a bit overcooked in my opinion. I was actually much more taken with the other option, the burger. I know, a burger. 
Not a greasy American burger with cheese slathered between two buns (I might not be opposed to that, how I miss those…), but a patty of ground beef, cooked perfectly and served over a bed of spelt or faro, or some grain not identified, but like little bits of pasta, and all drizzled with that great basil oil/pesto sauce I was talking about. This was really great and it sounds so humble as a burger. The dessert was better than the last one we had had, it was a brownie with some lemon cream and couple little fruits. I’m always in the mood for a brownie. 
I’m not done yet though, you didn’t think I’d tell you all about a dessert restaurant and not get to the heart of it? There have been a few exceptional ‘take-outs’ from Dolso, and they come from the famed glass case. There’s one thing I discovered upon eating them that you don’t get from just viewing them. They have this insane texture, I don’t know how they do it, it’s like an extremely light cake, that’s a bit spongy, but also fluffy, and seems to have the texture of a cloud (what I think of as a cloud). It’s not springy like elastic, but you can punch it in, and it’s so light and sort of melts in your mouth. I don’t know how else to describe it, or what exactly it is, but good. At first it was confusing and I wasn’t sure, but now I look forward to it. Here are some of the actual desserts (that Dolso is better known for). 
One is a fig based dessert, and the other, a more citrusy one, though I can’t remember exactly. I'm sorry there's no cross section of these...I might just have to stroll down to Dolso and get myself a cake strictly for foodblogging purposes. Next is another dessert, but not one of their intriguing cakes, this is like a chocolate and hazelnut (my two best friends) mousse and cream combination. 
Obviously very happy with this one. And it came topped with a brownie and some candied hazelnuts.
So, for the most part people (I might be the leader of this group) think that Spain does not have good desserts. In this case, I would show them the way to Dolso, and get them lunch while at it.
Dolso
So, cut each piece individualy first and put a good layer of brown sugar over the top, and then torch it, and you’ll see the sugar bubbling and melting together. It’s great. If you don’t have a blow torch, a broiler in the oven works too, that’s what I normally use at home. Now feel free to shatter burnt sugar. Shatter away. It’s fun.
Paccheri is the pasta, as you can see a big, smooth tube shape, and alla gricia means with bits of guanciale (or bacon as a substitute) and pecorino cheese, it sounds very simple but was delicious and has been recreated since this trip. I would go back to this restaurant for this dish. The other standout plate at the first dinner was the salad, which included radicchio, butternut squash, and guanciale again. A really good combination, the sweet squash and the bitter radicchio, and of course the salty meat. 
We got another pasta dish, which I don’t remember and obviously didn’t find it significant enough to take a picture, and a plate of assorted meats and cheeses, which was just mediocre. We’ve had better in Barcelona. Also had better in Italy. 
One more thing about Rome: they’re sometimes known for their offal based dishes. That’s to say, after the butchers sold all the parts people wanted to buy, they ate what was left over. So for weak-stomached Americans such as myself, it’s all unappealing stuff like tripe and tongues and more. Lucky for me, anywhere you go in Italy, you can find pasta. There’s one dish that is specifically Roman: pajata. Get ready for it, weaklings. It’s baby lamb’s or cow’s intestines that aren’t cleaned out and therefore still have the mother’s milk in them.
I knew that I was not going to try this. D knew that he had to. When we got to Agustarello it was a bit on the edge of Testaccio, and it was a quiet Saturday afternoon, it felt like Sunday. We got there right when it opened, so it was quiet too. The wait staff was nice enough, and more than waiters, it felt like some family that owned it sent out the stylish Roman woman to talk to us and take our orders. I couldn’t decide between two pastas, so we talked to her and agreed on a sample plate of both. D jumped on his first chance at pajata, served with rigatoni. Anyways, my first pasta was great. 
I’m kicking myself now for not remembering the name of the noodles, but they were something like picci where they are a little thicker in the middle and thin out at the end of the tube. They were served with simple chicory, and some grated cheese over, and really good. 
I would’ve taken two plates of that. Next, I got gnocchi because I do love them, but these did not seem homemade and were just ok.
But that first pasta definitely made up for them. I did not try D’s pajata, he thoroughly enjoyed it, but I opted out of it. And if you look closely, you can see inside the intestine. 
That night we ventured back to Testaccio and went to a place we had read about in guide books called Trattoria da Oio o Casa Mia, and had to wait in a line. we ended up eating next to some friendly Germans (it was the kind of restaurant where the tables are separate but maybe by the space of an inch). It was very loud and crowded, and I enjoyed my pasta, I got carbonara, which is also typical Roman (I saw it on just about every menu along with bucatini allla amatriciana) but more well known outside of Italy than the previous things we tried. It was nothing different, like my alla gricia or with ciccoria, but it was creamy and rich, just how I like it. 
D was not so happy with his, he got something like lamb and thought it wasn’t very juicy or tender. 
This would be our Sunday lunch. There’s a famous deli such as this in Testaccio called Volpetti. It’s just a tiny shop considering the amount of products it packs in. They’ve got a little bread counter when you first walk in to your right, and straight ahead is the glass case that spans the length of the store, housing meats and cheeses. Down at the far end, they have the preserved things, like olives, artichokes, stuffed peppers, and sauces or spreads like tapenade and pesto and all that good stuff. On the opposite wall, there’s more cheese in a smaller case, I think for fresher cheeses like certain goats cheese and mozzarella. If there were no prices, we could have lived in this store. But we had budgets and realized we wouldn’t be able to take everything on our picnic, so I tried to remember what little Italian I knew and ended up getting some sort of mixture between Spanish, English, and Italian. The men behind the counters were very understanding and patient. We got our supplies and then on Sunday walked around the Coliseum and settled overlooking the ruins to eat everything, which included: focaccia, sundried tomatoes, artichokes, eggplant, olives, two types of cheese, one being a very soft, fresh goat cheese wrapped in some sort of cabbage leaf, 
wine, and of course, my favorite pesto. Can’t complain about the picnic lunch at all, I just wish I could do it everyday. 
Well this is where my food pictures stop. There was a complaint from D, that we never made it to have Roman pizza, we were going to on our last night, but I couldn’t wait and wanted pasta. We ended up at another place in Testaccio and I had bucatini al’amatriciana finally, which was just ok. So next time, we’ll have to try the pizza.
Oh, and one last note: not only did I add candied Clementine peel, but also a couple drops of orange oil. And I’m putting up a picture of these oils because if you haven’t noticed, I tend to use them a lot in desserts, like in margarita cheesecake, or cookies, or anything, they’re great, and I’ve decided they’re almost necessary to have around the house. And they’re extremely potent, so you only need a bit. 
This means you can take it out after 15-20 minutes or leave it in for as long as an hour. When you think they’re good and ready, remove the peels and place, not touching, on parchment paper to dry. When they have hardened, break or cut them into little bits and they’re ready to mix into the semifreddo.