pizza party

after testing out some pizzas with some food lion mozzarella and prego sauce, i stepped it up a notch for some friends coming into town. i made a traditional pizza margherita with homemade marinara and smoked mozzarella cheese and a prosciutto and goat cheese pizza with homemade black mission fig spread. 

 

on the fig pizza (above, right slices), you can see how my crust has some nice air bubbles below the surface of the crust. these are OK bubbles, as it makes for a more airy crust. i guess this game about from my rolling skills before the final proofing of the dough. below is a second pizza margerita that i made, and i think it has the best crust of them all:

my experimentation with pizza

i decided my first substantive post would be of my current project: pizza. if youve ever had homemade pizza or really good pizza from a restaurant, you know that delivery pizza is never a substitute for the real thing. some downtime during the summer gave me the opportunity to test out my pizza making skills. i first did some research by reading some pizza dough recipes, watched a few youtube clips (including the good eats - thin is beautiful episode), and consulting my friend (who is a veteran of at-home pizza making). next- i got the right equipment. this basically involved a mixer and a pizza peel (or paddle). i use the paddle and the dough hook attachment to my mixer. obviously, if you dont have a heavy duty mixer like mine, then you can resort to hand kneeding your dough. this involves mixing the wet ingredients in a "well" made of the dry ingredients. to understand this technique, i suggest youtube'ing a few videos. i use the mixer because its faster and easier. the pizza peel took me a while to get ($15 at the local mennonite farmer's market) because they really considered a speciality kitchen item. check online at places like amazon.com for some more affordable ones. ALSO- use a pizza stone or quarry stone (available from your local lowe's or home depot for cheap) as a surface to cook the pizza directly on top of. the pizza stone stays in your oven on the bottom rack when you preheat the oven and allows for even cooking (see the good eats episode for more info). anyway, onto the ingredients.

in the mixer:

• 2cups all purpose flour (i used king arthur's brand, which is widely available, is high quality, and has a fairly high level of glutenous protein. good eats' alton brown also said that you can also substitute any flour that is made for bread machines, which have high levels of protein also).
• 1 tablespoon of (kosher) salt
• 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

in a measuring cup or another cooking vessel:

• 3/4 cup of warm water (should be around 100 degrees or just warm enough so that you can feel that the water is warm, not hot.) this should go 
• 1 1/2 tablespoon or so of sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast (available in the baking or butter/egg/dairy aisle of most grocery stores)

mix and let the water, sugar and yeast set out in their container for 5-10 minutes. if you are successful, there will be a bunch of frothy bubbles that form on top of the water- that means youre yeast are ready for the pizza party. if you dont see any bubbles, then maybe your water was too warm/not warm enough (so try again) or maybe your yeast packet was bad (and the yeast were dead on arrival). 

after your yeast mixture blooms, pour the wet stuff in the mixer with the oil and dry ingredients. i use the paddle attachment on my mixer first and beat the mixer on low (setting 1) until most of the flour is incorporated. after a few clicks at setting 2, i add a little more flour until the dough mixture is just slightly sticky (wet) to the touch. then i scrape off the dough from the paddle and put on the dough hook after greasing it with some cooking spray. i vary the dough hook speed from medium (2-3) and gradually add flour until the dough ball no longer sticks to my fingers (i pull it off of the hook, and hand knead it for a second to get a feel for the dough). this is crucial. if youre dough is too wet, you could mix it for days and still not get a good consistency (which i struggled with badly my first attempt) and if it is too dry (and thus, in need of water), it wont be easy to roll out later. anyway- keep adding flour and beating it in the mixer for about 15-20mins, pulling it off the hook every now and then and if the dough separates into multiple balls. to tell if its done kneeding, i take a golf ball size of dough out and hand pull it, like im making a mini pizza. if you can stretch the dough enough so that you can see your finger behind a thin (drumhead-skin) layer of dough without it tearing, then youre good to go. if not, then keep mixing it and/or add a bit more of flour. 

the next part involves you squeezing the dough so that you make a ball out of it, similar to mozzarella cheese. you want a tight, smooth, skin around the dough ball and pinch the rest behind the dough ball. for more specific technique on this, refer to the good eats video (sorry that i didnt take any pics). then put the ball in a glass/steel/plastic bowl that is roughly 3-4 times larger than the dough ball, smear the ball in olive oil to coat, and put plastic wrap on the bowl. from here- the dough could go one of two ways: 1) park it in a warm area (or just on your countertop) for 30-40mins if you want pizza immediately. 2) park it in your fridge for 24hrs or so and let the dough rise slowly. the latter option is always better for taste, as slower rising dough has more time to develop flavor, however- sometimes you just gotta feed yourself or your buddies in a flash. 

after the dough rises [whether via option 1) or 2)], then i split the dough ball in 2 with a knife (thus giving you enough dough for 2 personal pizzas). with each half, i press and beat it down on the countertop (cleaned of course!) and pop/smooth out any air bubbles that the yeast formed (or else your pizza will explode). after smoothing it down into a thin layer, then reform the dough into a bowl like you did earlier. let that dough ball rest for anywhere from 15 (if your dough was at room temp) to 30 (if you took your dough out of the fridge) minutes. it should feel sorta like the dough you get from those pilsbury cans, room temp and sorta spongy, before you try to roll out your pizza. 

after this proofing, its time to roll. on a pizza peel/plate/cutting board/turned over cookie sheet dusted with flour, you can begin to roll out your pizza. i do the stretch from the center and pull method, so that i can get a gentle, even pull while trying to minimize and breakage. this takes some trial and error. just try and get the pizza dough as even as possible and make it fairly thin. ive found that the best thickness of the crust results from a little bit of rolling (using a wooden rolling pin/wine bottle with the stickers removed) dusted with flour. this gave me an even crust that wasnt too thick. if youre dough keep stretching it, then maybe you should let the dough sit for a few more minutes and try again.

at this point, preheat your oven to its max temperature (BELOW CLEAN/BROIL!) which should be around 500-525 degrees. yes it will probably smell of burnt cheese from all those lame frozen pizzas that have dripped in your oven, so it wouldnt hurt to turn on your fan/open the windows if you can. 

 

after you have some sort of shape (my first trial resembled the shape of africa) stretched out on your pizza peel, shake the peel back and forth to make sure that your pizza dough slides easily on/off of it. if not, then add more flour before preceding to the toppings. first, brush the crust with olive oil to help it brown without burning. dont make the crust too large, as it will expand in the oven. next- put a little bit of sauce in the middle and swirl it around. DO NOT dump a bunch of sauce on your pizza. this will result in a lake of liquid in the middle. pizza places use less sauce than you imagine- you just want enough to barely coat the non-crust of the pizza. you can use a canned/bottled tomato sauce or make your own. next- add whatever spices you like on top of the sauce: red pepper flake, oregano, etc. i also like to add some fresh basil from my herb garden at this stage because this basil crisps up (without burning) under the layer of cheese to make a more intense basil flavor. the next layer is cheese- i use low moisture mozzarella (the shredded kind in a bag is fine) and a little bit of parmesan for flavor. slide your pizza on your peel as a double check and into the oven it goes (make sure its preheated)!

this suckers dont take long to cook- less than ten minutes. check after about 4 minutes. pop any giant air bubbles that form in the crust with a knife and let it cook until the edges of the crust are just barely golden brown and the cheese is melted. slide your peel/plate under the pizza (dont burn yourself- its hot in there!) and admire your pizza while it cools for 3mins or so. after cooling, you can add more fresh basil on top and youve got a pizza fit for a king! actually- youre first few runs will probably turn out less than desirable. dont quit though! ill post some pictures of my pizza creations in the next post. good luck!

testing the water

im a fairly normal college student who cooks much more than the normal college student. i grew up around my mother in the kitchen and spent a lot of time as a kid making my own meals while my parents were at work. i feel that food is not only vital to life, but its also a way to better understand places both near and far, whether you are searing a piece of locally-raised beef or using some special blend of spices from the far east. the goal of this blog will be to record and share some of the creations that i've made in my own kitchen. i hope to make these sort of recipes accessible to most people. great dishes need not be flashy (although a little presentation goes a long way!). i will emphasize a lot of the techniques and the steps that i used to reach each end result, because cooking is always a constant trial and error process of refinement. this author is barely testing the water of culinary perfection.