Pizza

Dough

1/2 cup sourdough starter

3/4 cup water

2 cup flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. olive oil

Toppings

Quality uncooked tomato sauce or crushed Roma tomatoes

Sea salt, fine

Cracked black pepper

Oregano, dried or fresh

Extra virgin olive oil

Full fat mozzarella cheese, dry or fresh

Cooked meats

Uncooked thinly sliced veggies

Making the Dough

To mixer add all ingredients, holding back 1/2 cup flour.  Mix for 1 minute and stop.  Let dough rest for 20 minutes; the flour will absorb the water prior to mixing, and this is a critical step in the gluten developing its structure.  Mix 5 more minutes; this is called a wet knead, and is also critical.  Add remaining flour and mix 3 more minutes.  Form 3 dough balls and place in oiled Pyrex.  Leave out a few hours, then place in fridge for at least 2, and as many as 6, days; this allows the lactobacilli time to grow and create flavor.  Seal container but make sure air can escape as it expands.

Preparing to Cook

Remove dough balls from fridge 2 hours before cooking to bring them to room temperature.  Preheat oven with pizza stone to 550F, one hour before cooking.  Throw some flour down on a counter and place the dough on it.  Get a little flour on your hands, tops and bottoms, and lift the dough ball up, placing it on the backs of your hands.  Work gently in a circular motion, focusing your effort near the edges.  Set the dough back down on the floured counter and gently stretch the edges until you have a nice 12 to 14 inch circle.  Never use a rolling pin; use your hands.  A rolling pin will squash all of those lovely air pockets right out of the dough.  Lightly flour your pizza peel.  Pick up your pie dough, and place it on the peel.

Toppings

At this point, you can throw on top whatever you want, keeping to the following rules.

·      Apply all the surface ingredients relatively quickly so the pie doesn’t start sticking to the peel.

·      Use high quality tomato sauce, or freshly crushed Roma tomatoes, but do not cook it first.

·      Spices I use are mostly just oregano, salt and red pepper, but you can use any spices you fancy.

·      Don't add cheese, meat, or veggies to the 1" center of the pie, as this part cooks slowest and is the weakest when cut into slices.

·      Sprinkle your spices on top of the sauce; smelling something is an important part of tasting it.  It also prevents spice burning.

·      Use only quality full-fat cheeses.  Either shredded or in chunks is fine, I prefer chunks.  I don’t need every bite to be identical.

·      Use fresh raw veggies, they will cook plenty in the oven, and you want them a little crispy, not mushy.

·      Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over the top if you want to.

·      For sauce-less pizza, add the oil first, so you don’t wash away the spices.  Also, it gives the spices something to stick to.

·      For sauce pizza, do this step last, otherwise the whole surface may slide off when sliding it into the oven.  Also, you want the sauce to marry with the dough, not sit on top of it.

Cook the Pie

Give the peel a quick gentle shake to make sure the pizza will slide off easily.  Slide pie into oven, holding the peel at a slight angle.  You’ll have to jiggle it at first so the pie slides off without losing any toppings.  Cook 6-8 minutes, depending on thickness of dough and amount of toppings.  There should be some charring around the edges, but don’t let it get brown, you want it spongy, not like a cracker.  This entire process takes lots of practice, so don’t get discouraged.  Buon appetito!

Ciao,

Mike

December 2011