Taiwanese Semolina Sourdough Focaccia

I still have some Lap Cheong (Chinese sausage) left over from my Lap Cheong filled buns so wanted to use some up. I’ve been wondering what to top a focaccia with to go along with the lap cheong when I saw a post by King Arthur of a Taiwanese Focaccia, so I borrowed some of their ideas and added a couple of slight changes of my own. For one I had a bit of semola rimacinata left that I wanted to use up so all the flour in this focaccia is that finely ground semolina. One negative to this flour is that it is challenging to get a really open crumb, but that’s alright it doesn’t really bother me. So in addition to the lap cheong, I added toasted sesame seed oil, black and white sesame seeds, scallions, corn, kewpie mayo and cilantro.


The levain was made the night before and the dough was developed using the stand mixer adding the oil last. Bulk fermentation went for about 6 hours and then the dough had a cold retard until the following day.

The cold dough was then transferred to a 9” cake pan that was well oiled with olive oil. The dough was easily stretched out to fill the pan. The dough was left to double in size. About 30 mins prior to doubling in size the oven was pre-heated at 450°F.

The dough was docked using very wet fingers. Toasted sesame seed oil was drizzled on the dough. The following were placed on the dough, sliced pre-cooked lap cheong, corn, scallions, black and white sesame seeds and then kewpie mayo.

The focaccia was baked for 30 mins. The focaccia was removed from the pan and then a bit more kewpie mayo was drizzled on and cilantro was added.



Here’s a video I made about this bread.

That looks wonderful, Benny. That’s a fairly good open crumb for Rimacinata. My breads with 100% SR are never that open. Very nicely done video, as well as the photography - terrific lighting, beautiful color, and an excellent closeup. Very professional.
Richard

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Thanks kindly Richard, I’m not sure what it is about semolina, but it is darn difficult to get it to open up. Anyhow, the focaccia made a good dinner for me two nights in a row. Back to challah tomorrow trying out 100% whole wheat this time.
Benny