Italian Food: Cheese And Ham Stuffed Focaccia

When I am in Umbria, I typically make focaccia at least once a week. I usually share some with our farmhouse guests, and my husband likes to snack on it throughout the day as he does his daily chores. I also like to cut a couple of larger squares that I freeze for the future to use to create a panini whenever I crave one. For some reason, when I return to North America I get out of the habit of making focaccia, and I realized recently that I hadn’t made any type of bread since I left Italy in October.

 Obviously, I need to get back in the kitchen and start baking! Instead of making my usual basic focaccia last week, I decided to create a stuffed focaccia, usually a ham and cheese filling. I combined ricotta cheese along with some grated mozzarella and pecorino and added in some cooked ham. 

The finished dish reminded me of a Pizza Ripiena or Torta Pasqualina, a cheesy pie made every year for Easter. 

This recipe can be easily adapted depending on your personal tastes, and you could change the type of cheese, or use salami or spicy soppressata in place of the ham. You could also include some cooked greens such as Swiss chard or spinach, but just make sure that the greens are squeezed dry before you add them to the filling.

This stuffed focaccia is an easy recipe to make, just make sure you roll out your dough on a floured surface to prevent sticking and be careful to seal the edges well as described so that the filling doesn’t ooze out. I froze half my focaccia because there are just two of us home to eat it, and I just reheat the focaccia after thawing wrapped in foil in a preheated 350 degree F. oven. Although this focaccia is tasty served at room temperature, we enjoyed it better after it sat in the refrigerator overnight.

Source: http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2017/01/cheese-and-ham-stuffed-focaccia/