Prologue: Let’s eat!

Focaccia 

Not for nothing is our unofficial party name the Fromage Formation! We are cheese and bread fanatics (most of us won’t say no to wine to complete that trio). And this is the bread that we almost always have to nibble as we start in on our game each session.

This is based on the Bon Appetite Shockingly Easy No-knead Focaccia recipe. I like to switch things up with different flours, based on the color, texture, and flavor of the loaf that I want. And  I always like the piney, herbal boost of rosemary in my focaccia. 

In my laziness, I make this all in a single bowl (less washing up), avidly making use of the zero/tare function on my digital scale. But I do like to give it the full overnight rest in the refrigerator. The more intense flavor and pillowy texture are worth taking a few minutes the night before a gaming session to mix up this super-simple dough! 

Makes one 9×13 inch loaf.

Ingredients:

I packet/7g/1/4 oz (2.25 tsp) active dry yeast

10g (2 tsp) brown sugar

600ml (2.5 cups) lukewarm water

625g (5 cups) bread flour (if I have it, I will substitute 50-75g of the bread flour with rye or whole wheat flour)

10g  (2 tsp) kosher salt

4-6g (2-3 tbsp) chopped fresh rosemary (can substitute with chopped thyme, parsley, sage, fresh lemon peel, or a mixture of any of these)

90ml (6 tbsp) olive oil, divided

60g  (4 tbsp) butter, plus extra for the pan

4 peeled garlic cloves, crushed, finely chopped, or grated on a Microplane grater

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix 7g yeast, 10g brown sugar, and 600ml lukewarm water. Let sit for five minutes while you get out your flour, salt, and chop your rosemary. The mixture will get a little airy and may even foam (this is good – the yeast lives!).
2. Add 625g bread flour (or your preferred mix of flours), 10g salt, and your desired amount of chopped fresh rosemary to the bowl. Mix well until all the ingredients come together and no dry flour remains visible (I use a plastic dough/bowl scraper for this step but a spatula or wooden spoon would also work).
3. Add 60ml olive oil to the bowl. I sort of smoosh my dough mass to one side of the bowl and  add the oil to the bottom of the bowl then gently turn the dough around, coating the bottom and sides of the bowl, and the dough mass, in the oil. I like to scrape the sides of the bowl fairly clean of dough as I do this – I’m not really mixing the oil into the dough but everything is getting well-greased and well-acquainted.
4. Cover the bowl with a reusable lid or plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight or for at least 8 hours. It will slowly but satisfyingly rise into a bubbly blob. If you do not have time for an overnight rise, leave the bowl, covered, at room temperature for 2-3 hours. 
5. Line a 9×13 inch baking dish with parchment paper and butter well (good as extra security against the focaccia sticking to the pan and also adds flavor and that golden crispy texture to the outside of the loaf). Add 30ml of olive oil to the baking pan.
6. Transfer the dough mass to the baking dish. I usually gently tease and prod the blob to get it to slowly pour itself out of the bowl without squishing out too many of the bubbles. I do not typically bother to stretch it out or try to shape it to the baking dish. As it comes up to temperature and continues to rise, it will spread out evenly to fill the available space. It is a very cooperative and lively little dough. Leave it in a warm place (like on top of the fridge or on a counter above a running dishwater), uncovered, to rise. This will take at least 2 hours but I have left it alone for 4 hours to grow and this has resulted the best, most air-filled rise.
7. At least 30 minutes before you are ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees F. (This ensures an evenly heated oven when you place your bread in the oven). Place a rack in the middle of the oven. Drizzle the top of the risen dough with another 30 ml of olive oil and oil your hands so they do not stick to the dough. Poke holes throughout the top of the dough (this is the deranged pianist moment – dimple the entire surface of the focaccia and push your fingers deep to reach through the dough to the base of the pan). Sprinkle the surface of the focaccia with flaky sea salt (a couple of good pinches). Place the baking dish in the oven and bake the loaf until golden brown with an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. In my aging oven this takes 40 minutes and I rotate the pan halfway through to ensure even browning.
8. Melt 60g of butter in a small pan on the stove and, once it is bubbling, add the chopped or crushed garlic. I like the raw garlic flavor to cook out a little so I usually let this mixture froth and simmer for at least one minute, while swishing the contents of the pot around regularly. I will say that one of my favorite focaccias resulted from me first forgetting the butter while it was melting (resulting in a slightly more toasty, ‘brown butter’ effect) and then also leaving the garlic in a little longer than usual (again, getting a more golden toasted garlic as a result). The whole thing had a more pronounced nutty and garlicky flavor – yum!
9. When your bread comes out of the oven, brush the melted garlic butter all over the surface of the focaccia. Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes and then slice and enjoy!

I like the garlic butter variation best but sometimes I will mix things up with a pepper, onion, olive, and feta version. Or a multi cheese version (both pictured above).

This is best fresh but we always have left overs and they are very nice toasted for sandwich bread over the few days. I also love croutons made from stale focaccia. I have not tried freezing this bread because it is so easy to make fresh and so much part of my routine to prepare for gaming days. But, if freezing in slices, the Bon Appetite recipe suggests reheating the frozen bread on a baking sheet in a 300 degree F oven.

Cheese Notes:

We have gotten into the habit of taking turns providing the cheesy goodness to our gaming sessions. Between the two families of gamers and our voracious offspring, we represent the full spectrum of cheese preferences and so will usually try for a varied selection. We range from the Bean, cheddar and Gruyère aficionado, to EH who is into all cheeses rich, soft, and creamy, to PH who lives for the balanced blue and the nuttiness of aged hard cheeses, to AL who is heavily into funk (the more eye-wateringly stinky the better), to CL who good-naturedly enjoys all that is offered to him. Here are some of our favorites:

Delin Brillat-Savarin, triple crème cow milk cheese –  buttery, mild, very creamy, comforting.

St. Andre Triple Cream, cow’s milk and cream cheese – super rich, slightly mushroomy but mostly sweet sweet creamy deliciousness.

Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor – soft and luscious outside, firming up towards the center into a more crumbly texture with the delicate scent of truffles.

Jasper Hill Harbison, spruce bark-wrapped bloomy rind cow milk cheese – wonderfully odd and unexpected notes of woodsy resin permeate every bite of this treat due to the bark exterior. Added bonus of a sweet and creamy funk within. Exceptionally good.

Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog, goat’s milk bloomy rind cheese – meltingly creamy outside, layer of ashy mushroomy flavor down the middle, little bit of bite in the center.

Alta Langa La Tur – mixture of three milks: cow, sheep, and goat, soft ripened cheese – rather odiferous but very balanced and creamy. An absolute favorite!

Brebirouse D’argental, rind washed soft sheep’s milk cheese – stinky, creamy, and very pretty to look at (if you like orange moist wrinkles, anyway – oooh, it’s the Trump cheese!).

Firefly Farms Cabra Lamancha, soft-ish goat’s milk cheese – medium pungency but very earthy, slightly tangy, and a pleasing medium-soft texture.

Hervé Mons Epoisses, cow’s milk cheese, rind washed with Marc de Bourgogne – the one cheese to rule them all – with its deathly stench of decay anyway! My absolute favorite, my-cheese-to-take-to-a-desert-island (and probably best suited to time alone on a distant archipelago). Therefore additional rhapsodizing will now follow. I realize that little of this description sounds appealing but, trust me, this is the best cheese! When eaten at the right moment in its stinky journey of ripening, the wrinkled outside (it looks like a pink-orange brain) is a wet-paper-thin skin holding in barely solid, lava-flow of cheesy goodness. The smell is really much more overpowering than the flavor. Which is strong but balanced with both nutty and strongly meaty components. It is incredibly savory in flavor but with hits of sweetness and floral notes too. The texture is smooth, smooth, smooth creaminess. Excellent and well worth getting past the eye-watering odor to sample.

Mitica, Herb Capricho de Cabra, fresh goat milk cheese coated in chopped herbs – tangy, slightly crumbly but still creamy, herbal notes.

Emmi Le Gruyère Switzerland AOP Cheese, firm cow’s milk cheese – floral and nutty with that irresistible crystalline crunch.

Clarina 3 Year Gouda, firm cow’s milk cheese – waxy in its crumbliness, pops with salty crunch, strongly salty but also has that milky and floral afterglow.

Clarina 18 month Aged Gouda, firm cow’s milk cheese – less crumbly than its older variant, still has some pleasantly chewy dense meatiness to it. Less salty and sweeter with more noticeable herbaceous and floral flavors.

Klare Melk Truffle Gouda, young gouda cow’s milk cheese with truffle shavings embedded in it – very mild firm cheese that is the perfect backdrop for the pungent earthy taste-smell of the truffle nuggets.

Deer Creek 36 month cheddar, cow’s milk cheese – just as it says on the packet: smooth and bold. It is dense, rich, and complex. 

Red Dragon, cheddar cheese with whole grain mustard and ale – pleasantly firm and savory with little pops of mustard seed for texture and bitter-sweet heat.

Saint Agur, cow’s milk blue cheese – not for the faint of heart, it is spicy in its blue-ness with a meatiness that lingers. Nice yielding texture.

Hervé Mons 1924 Bleu – a silky, slightly sweet cheese with large pockets of blue mold that really let you savor the texture and flavor contrast of the blue with the creamy base. Really really good.

Igor Gorgonzola Dolce, cow’s milk blue – softly and smugly creamy with a fruity sweetness and subtle but diffuse blue notes.

Ski Queen Gjetost cheese –  a creamy caramel block of cheese that smells more sweet than its buttery-salty-toffee taste. It also crumbles and squeaks in delightfully unexpected ways. A fun and unique experience.

Sides and Charcuterie:

Begrudgingly acknowledging that occasional breaks from cheese and bread are a thing that our bodies probably want and need, here are some of the nibbles that we often have alongside the dairy and carbohydrate feast:

Raw vegetables: Celery, broccoli, radishes, red peppers.

Fruit, fresh and dry: Apples, grapes, dried figs, dried apricots, dried cranberries.

Nuts: Almonds are a favorite but any other varieties can be used.

Charcuterie:  salami, sopressata, chorizo, jamon serrano, prosciutto – we will often get those little trays with an assorted selection of these. Because they offer a good variety of porky, salty, fatty, spicy, and hammy treats.

Beverages:

Wine, wine, and more wine! I mean, nothing prescriptive here: drink what you like, what you feel is healthy and safe for you, and what makes you happy. Of course.

In my case, that just happens to be some kind of fairly full-bodied red wine. I find this to pair well with most of the cheeses that I like. I will often default to Chilean wines because they tend to be tasty for the price. And, let’s face it, most of the budget has already gone to lovingly fermented dairy products by this point in the shopping…

The rest of the Fromage Formation share my enthusiasm for reds but are also, at this early point in the session, happily imbibing soda, beer, or cider. Here are some that we like:

Carnivore Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 – So jammy it’s ridiculous. But I still love it! It is all dark fruit.

Apostole Cuvée Alexandre Carmenere 2022 – Nice balance of fruit and spice. 

La Playa Estate Merlot 2022 – Berries, vanilla, and oak.

Casillero del Diablo Reserva Privada Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 – Good with rind washed smelly cheeses.

Terre del Barolo Vinum Vita Est Barolo 2017 – Earthy, tannic, sweet. It has all the good things.

Colores Del Sol Malbec Mendoza Argentina 2021 – Well-balanced and easy to glug.

Maduro Brown Ale, Cigar City – Chocolate, coffee, smoky toffee. Very intense and memorable.

Campfire Amplifier, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery – This is smoky S’mores in a bottle. Chocolatey, nutty, sweet, and rich.

Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale – A well-rounded, pleasantly nutty, smooth-drinking ale.

Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider – High ABV warning! This has the most fragrantly apple flavor but it packs an unexpected punch.

Original Sin Black Widow Cider, blackberry and apple – Lolth-approved, sweetly tart.