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Tonight I made pizza with an assortment of mushrooms from the farmer's market. The crust came out very well indeed. Part of that is that I am getting better at shaping the pizza quickly -- I've been doing a thing where I make a disk by draping the dough over my fists and stretching, but then rapidly transferring it to the pan and shaping it by making my hands into C shapes and moving over and around the dough with the sides of my hands, stretching just by moving them outward. Somehow this works well for me as a way of getting the dough evenly stretched out with a minimum of fuss and bother, while leaving a nice even thicker edge all around. The other thing that I think helped is that I moved the rack up to the very top of the oven, a strategy recommended by John Thorne for getting the hottest possible temperatures out of a home oven. The result was wonderfully crisp of crust but chewy and tender inside, even in the thinnest parts of the circle.
You will be able to tell from all this that I possess neither a pizza peel nor a stone -- I just shape the pizza right on a big steel baking sheet, well coated with olive oil. Clearly this strategy is utterly inauthentic, and I do sometimes feel like I ought to get a peel and some unglazed tiles and do it right. But then my shaping strategy would be hard to adapt to a peel, and my new top-of-the-oven technique would not work well with leaving the tiles permanently in the oven. Nor, come to think of it, would I have much confidence in my ability to transfer pizza from peel to stones in such a tight space. So goodbye, dull care, and also authenticity, I say.
The pizza dough recipe I have here is attributed in my notebook to Carol Field's The Italian Baker. But now I have my own copy of the book, and I don't see any recipe there that quite corresponds. So either it is from another book of hers, or it has been already poked and prodded and adjusted into shape by others who have gone before. It is very good. The quantities below make two sizeable thin pizzas, or one thickish one. For the two of us, or for us and one guest, I halve them.
GOOD PIZZA
1 1/2 c. warm water
2 t. dry yeast
1 1/2 t. sugar
Let these sit for 5-10 minutes.
Add 2 T. olive oil, 4 c. flour, and 1 1/2 t. salt. Mix well and knead very thoroughly. Clean your bowl and oil it lightly. Return dough to bowl, cover with a tea towel, and set in a warm, still place.
First rise: 1 hour or until doubled. Punch down.
Second rise: 20 minutes maximum.
Heat oven to 450° F. While it warms up, shape the pizza (or the first of your two pizzas, if that's what you're up to). Apply your sauce and other treats, but not cheese. Bake 10 minutes. Then add the cheese and any delicate toppings, like basil or other fresh leafy things. Return to oven and bake just until the cheese is bubbly.
Posted by redfox at April 06, 2003 10:00 PM (dinner reports)all breads | breakfast | dinner reports | drink | eating out | essays | etcetera | lunch | news | recipes | salads | snacks | soups | sweets | tips | travel | vegetables | weekly meals |
