Chewy, onion-strewn, and impossibly sharable — this focaccia onion board will make you cancel your next bagel order
Welcome to the cutting room floor. Whenever I finish a cookbook, there are recipes that didn’t make the final book not because they’re flawed in any way, but because they weren’t necessary. Saed News Keepers already has a couple great savory breads and sufficient caramelized onion magnificence, so I pulled this recipe out because I knew it would be perfect for the site, right now. Why? This week is the most significant Jewish holiday of the year, Yom Kippur, a day of atonement. It is traditional to fast for the day, and the fast is traditionally broken with a dairy meal, quite often a giant spread of bagels and fixings. But that wasn’t the first time I made this. In March 2020, when the whole world shut down, so of course did all of the bagel shops in my neighborhood. I started making easy bagel-y breads so we could still enjoy our cream cheese and lox weekend fix. This one has a cool history, too.
The pletzel is an Eastern European savory flatbread smothered in onions and poppy seeds with a chew similar to focaccia, but usually thinner and more crisp. Once they made it to America, they were common in Jewish bakeries, going by the name onion board or onion flat. But they’ve fallen out of favor — wrongly; one bite of this will make that clear. Put out as part of a breakfast spread, I find them a more indulgent but less heavy bagel alternative that is still fantastic with everything we like on bagels — lox, cream cheese, paper-thin slices of red onion, cucumber, tomato, capers. While the no-knead focaccia base rises, you cook the onions; while the bread bakes, you set out your fixings. When it comes out of the oven, your home smells impossibly good, and you probably didn’t even have to go shopping to make it happen.
Servings: 6 Time: 3 hours (about 45 minutes active)
• 3 cups (390 grams) all-purpose flour
• Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon (3 grams) instant yeast
• 1 1/2 cups (355 grams) lukewarm water
• Olive oil
• 2 large yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds
Make the dough: In a large bowl, combine the flour, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and instant yeast. Add the water and use a spoon, rubber spatula or a dough whisk to mix until the water is absorbed and a shaggy, sticky dough is formed.
Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise until doubled at room temperature for 1 3/4 to 2 hours. Alternatively, let it rise in the fridge overnight for 8 to 10 hours.
Meanwhile, prepare your onions: Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Once hot, add 2 tablespoons olive oil. Once the oil is heated, add the onions and 1 teaspoon kosher salt.
Cook onions, stirring every minute or two, until a medium brown, almost caramel colored, about 25 minutes. Scrape onions onto a plate to cool while you finish the bread.
Finish the focaccia: When the dough is doubled, line a 9×13 cake pan with parchment paper and drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil over it. Do not deflate your dough, just scrape it onto the oiled parchment.
Drizzle the top of the dough with another tablespoon of olive oil and use your fingers to dimple the dough, flattening it out. It’s okay if it doesn’t reach the edges.
Let the dimpled dough rest at room temperature for 15 minutes and heat your oven to 425°F. After 15 minutes, dimple the dough only where needed a little further into the corners.
Let rest for a final 15 minutes before scattering the top with onions, poppy seeds, and a few pinches of salt.
Bake the focaccia for 25 minutes, until deeply golden brown at the edges and across the top.
While it bakes, prepare any toppings you’d like to serve it with, such as cream cheese or butter, lox, thinly sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, or capers.
To serve: Loosen the focaccia if it’s stuck in any place and slide it onto a cutting board. Cut into 12 squares, using a sharp knife to get through the onions on top without pulling them off, and replace any that scatter. Eat right away.
Focaccia keeps at room temperature for 1 to 2 days. Reheat on a baking sheet at 350°F for 10 to 12 minutes.
These are not caramelized onions; we do not need 60 to 90 minutes over low heat with constant stirring. That is not how any ancestor of mine cooked onions. I’m intentionally using a higher heat for more quickly developed flavor. If they’re not picking up color by 20 minutes, bump up the heat slightly. If they’re coloring too fast to make it to 20 to 25 minutes, reduce the heat. We want to stop shy of a dark bronzed color, as the onions will finish in the oven and we don’t want them to burn.
