herlongwayhome

There’s almost always bread on the table when I host.

Sometimes it’s a warm baguette from a good bakery. Sometimes it’s something simple I pick up on the way home. And sometimes, when the timing works, it’s focaccia from my own sourdough starter.

I’ve been baking sourdough for a few years now, and my starter — allegedly dating back to 1700s France — is named Papillon. It means butterfly in French, which has always been one of my favorite words.

Around here we call her Pappie.

And when she’s especially bubbly and active, my girls will peek into the jar and say, “Pappie is so happy!”

Sourdough has quietly become part of the rhythm of our kitchen. Most weeks I make a few different recipes — a loaf, pizza dough, or focaccia — depending on what we’re cooking.

This cherry pepper and olive focaccia was the bread I served alongside roasted garlic and white wine chicken for dinner recently. It’s salty, bright, and the kind of bread that disappears quickly once it hits the table.

About the Recipe

The focaccia itself isn’t my recipe.

I used the excellent sourdough focaccia recipe from Moments of Sugar, which has become one of my go-to formulas.

But this topping combination — cherry peppers and olives — is something I come back to often. The slight heat from the peppers and the briny olives work beautifully with olive oil-rich focaccia.

If you have a favorite focaccia recipe — sourdough or yeasted — use that.

This post is really about the topping idea, not the dough.

Hosting Note

Bread like this does something important on a dinner table.

It gives guests something to tear into. Something to dip into sauces. Something to pass around.

And sometimes those simple details — warm bread, good olive oil, a sprinkle of salt — are what people remember most.

Serving Ideas

This focaccia pairs especially well with:

• roasted chicken dishes
• simple salads with vinaigrette
• whipped ricotta or herbed yogurt
• roasted vegetables

For the dinner where I served it, the table looked like this:

• roasted garlic and white wine chicken
• roasted broccolini
• cherry pepper and olive focaccia

Simple, cozy, and exactly what we needed that night.