Pizza Night

Homemade pizza is an almost weekly occurrence around these parts. This week we were entertaining, so we made three pizzas instead of the usual single pizza. I also tried my hand at making the pizza dough from scratch (with mixed results), following a recipe from my new fancy bread book written by Peter Reinhart.

The fun started the night before, as this bread dough needed to rest in the refrigerator overnight before it was ready to be tossed out for pizza dough. 

4 1/2 C flour, chilled (I used all-purpose flour but I think I will try bread flour next time. All-purpose flour is used to make a softer crust, but given our problems tossing the dough, we might need to toughen up with bread flour.)

1 3/4 t salt

1 teaspoon yeast (recipe calls for instant yeast, but I only have active dry yeast, so I added a generous teaspoon with the liquid ingredients)

1/4 C oil

1 3/4 C water, cold (I had to add more water when I was mixing the dough)

Divide dough into six more-or-less-equal balls, wrap in oiled plastic wrap, and stick in the refrigerator. Take dough out of fridge 2 hours before you're ready to make pizza the next day. Press balls out into 1/2 inch thick disks and let them rest on the counter. Toss by hand. Get ready for fun.

Whew. We had lots of trouble tossing the dough. You're supposed to be able to gently bounce the dough on the backs on your hands and then work up to a toss. We found that the dough stretched out too much in the middle while staying too thick on the edges. We also made the fatal mistake of trying to ball up dough that we had already stretched out, resulting in tense little balls of dough that refused to stretch out again--tearing and bouncing back into a ball rather than stretching out nicely. No do-overs for spreading this dough Better luck next time, I guess.

Now on to the pizza sauce. The sauce is Ben's area of expertise, so he'll be taking over for this portion.

Hi all. I'm going to give you a recipe for pizza sauce, but frankly, it's pretty meaningless. Usually I go to the cupboard and just keep tossing spices into the tomato sauce until it tastes like something. Frequently, the result is good. This time, I kept track of all the stuff I added to the sauce, but the amounts are almost all contrived, so do what you like

First, one of the small cans each of tomato paste and tomato sauce. This give a great consistency for the sauce, but Carolyn and I like ours on the thick side.

Roughly equal amounts of the following. I used somewhere on the heavy side of 1 tablespoon:

black pepper

red pepper

white pepper

onion powder

garlic powder

italian seasoning

oregano

teaspoon of fennel seed 

salt to taste

Finish it off with 1 - 2 tablespoons of brown sugar (some use honey). Of all the the ingredients, this sweet element is the most important. It cuts the acidity of the tomato and adds a really interesting tone to the flavor.

The further in advance you make your pizza sauce, the better it will be. As with marinades, soups, and other sauces, time allows the flavors to develop and sink into the tomato. Last night, I ended up making the sauce fairly late, so the ingredient amounts are on the heavy side to make up for the fact that the flavors didn't have time to develop. Don't do it this way. Also, if you're only making one pizza, say just for you and the missus, skip the tomato sauce. Instead, use tomato paste and add small amounts of water until the consistency is how you like it.

Finally, the pizzas themselves. Two of the pizzas we made were fairly standard: one with green pepper and mushroom and one with pepperoni (Turkey pepperoni because our friends are cutting back on fats or calories or something. We didn't ask.). The only thing I'll note about these pizzas is: don't use too much cheese. I know everyone loves cheese and thinks more cheese = a better pizza, but it's just not true. The best pizza is the one with balance, where the flavors of the bread, sauce, cheese and toppings all come through. Have some mozzarella on the side, if you must, but leave the pizza alone.

The final pizza was a taco pizza, fast becoming Carolyn's favorite thing. Basically, just make a cheese pizza, light on the sauce and cheese. Pull it out of the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes or so to cool the cheese before the next step. Then spread refried beans on top, crushed chips, tomato, sprinkle on some hot sauce, and finish with shredded cheese. Everyone loved this pizza.

We baked the pizzas on cookie sheets in the oven, as hot as we could go (425). Next time we'll try moving the oven rack to the lowest rung to try to get the crust more done. Not having an oven that cooks to 800 degrees is a real handicap in pizza making.