pizza and the limits of d.i.y.
5 p.m. yesterday found me in the kitchen, chopping carrots into snack-sized sticks and trimming the ends off uncooked green beans so that we could have a snack. And then I laughed because what could be more of a New Years cliché but raw crudités and the promise of a healthier tomorrow. Yawn. Or, at least yawn to the traditional notions of health food; I actually made us pizza and an enormous salad for dinner.
But first, a small detour. Alex and I went to brunch at a friend’s apartment in the Upper East Side yesterday, stopping at Eli’s on the way home for provisions. Despite it’s unseemly pricing structure, I used to love this store but yesterday it just left a funny taste in my mouth as I realized that I’m just not the customer they’re after. Pre-made cookie and dinner roll dough? Pre-chopped vegetables? Day old chocolate cake? I suppose if I was frightened of my kitchen and had endless funds at my disposal, this place would be a godsend. But instead I just felt like pleading to their customers: pizza dough is so easy to make! Lately this has become like my battle cry, trying to convince people not to be so afraid of failing at a recipe that food choices are instead left to companies who possibly have their best interests in mind, but most definitely not before their bottom line.
To wit: Three-quarters of a teaspoon of yeast, one teaspoon of salt, one and a half cups of flour, half a cup of lukewarm water and a tablespoon of olive oil. Stir. Knead. Let sit for one to two hours, until it has doubled. Deflate. Wait twenty minutes. Roll. Add toppings and seasonings. Bake at your oven’s top temperature for about 10 minutes. Eat the best pizza for two, ever, brimming with self-satisfaction.
Except now I have a huge hankering for Eli Zabar’s Health Salad — also called Eating My Words as it is the one prepared food I am physically incapable of resisting the purchase of whenever I’m in either neighborhood, and they had none available yesterday. Have I tried my hand at it in my own kitchen with great success? Does the salad cost about $4 for forty-two cents worth of ingredients? Why can’t I see the big picture and stop buying it when I can make it myself? Er, ah… Well, it tastes better after it sits for a couple days, and I’m not that patient. You see? We all have our reasons, and I promise, I’m not judging yours. But, do hope you try my pizza dough, at least once, and see if it makes a convert out of you. And I’ll do my best to come up with a fail-proof formula for that crunchy salad.
Pizza Dough
Makes enough for one small, thin crust pizza. Double it if you like your pizza thick and bready.
1½ cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon active dry yeast
½ cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.
If you are finding this step difficult, one of the best tricks I picked up from my bread-making class is to simply pause. Leave the dough in a lightly-floured spot, put the empty bowl upside-down on top of it and come back in 2 to 5 minutes, at which point you will find the dough a lot more lovable.
Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it — one-bowl recipe! — dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.
Dump it back on the floured counter (yup, I leave mine messy), and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes.
Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal and preheat your oven to its top temperature. Roll out the pizza, toss on whatever topping and seasonings you like. (I always err on the side of skimpy with toppings so to not weight down the dough too much, or if I have multiple toppings, to keep them very thinly sliced.)
Bake it for about 10 minutes until it’s lightly blistered and impossible to resist.
the “h” could eat pizza every night of the week. your dough recipe will be put to usee tomorrow i am sure. as i am sick right now, a pizza sounds pretty good about now… i always crave bad bad things when i am not feeling well. thanks for another great idea!
Ok, I can accept that the dough is yummy, but how do you do the rising for 2 hours when you are at work all day? My hubby is generally starving by the time he gets home and is not willing/able to wait for 2+ hours for dough to rise.
I am absolutely open to suggestions.
Tammy - Now, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.:) Then again, I’m not a cheese-aholic nor one who loves my pizza doused in olive oil, so keeping it light isn’t hard. You can even bulk up the veggies so each slice is abundantly more filling, though less pizza-y. Good luck!
Nicole - Excellent point; I almost always make this on the weekends, or we inevitably eat a late dinner. Now, I haven’t done this yet, but one thing that will take the pressure off the evening is just stir it up in the morning, and then let it rise in the fridge. It slows down the process so much, 8 to 10 hours might be just what it needs to double. That would just leave you with the 20 minute rise, during which time you could heat the oven, chop your toppings, etc. The flavor should actually be better because a long rise makes always makes for richer flavor. I promise to very soon give this method a try and get the times down for you guys (though if you try it, let me know).
Oh, I am laughing after reading that post. So funny and so true. When it comes to pizza dough, my SO and I have a not-quite-DIY trick: we go to our favorite pizzeria and ask for raw dough. We live in New Haven, CT, a town known for really, really good thin crust pizza…and the pizzeria dough is always fantastic. What I do miss, though, is the change to kneed ingredients into the dough. Mmmm, garlic and basil crust.
To tammy: I crave bad things when I am sick too! No soup for me - I want mac’n'cheese and hash browns! (weirdly enough)
You are making me want a pizza stone. I am still resisting baking or anything similar that involves dough. Please… stop >:T
Happy new year, and thanks for always sharing your wonderful food & recipes with the rest of us. Best to you.
Yvo - I actually wrecked my pizza stone with the caramel overflow from the pecan bars, so I’m between them right now. But really, a thin metal pizza tray we have worked just fine. So, more or less, you’ll need another excuse. :)
No need to convert me! That is the same pizza recipe I use. But beyond the pizza dough, you have succeeded in explaining so perfectly why we should all be making pizza dough at home. Damn your good!
And don’t worry about the salad … we all have our little treats.
Happy 2007!
The dough does work. I’ve successfully made it (after a failed first attempt). I cut back on the salt, but that is personal taste. I loaded mine up with caramelized onions, goat cheese, tomatoes and spinach (before ecoli). Turned out really yummy. Thanks Deb!
Cabots low-fat Vermont Chedder Cheese!! Best on home made pizza’s (or in my case, English Muffin Pizza’s!)
You’re right - home made pizzas are ridiculously easy, and I’ve found that by keeping a few par-baked bases in my freezers, it makes for a delish and very easy meal when I need something in a hurry!
Deb, I don’t do much cooking but this seems simple enough so I may try it. One question though: why can’t you substitute the white flour entirely with whole wheat flour?
Yay! Lots of converts!
Mara - Whole wheat flour has lower gluten contents than all-purpose flour, so when used 100 percent, the bread tends not to be soft or chewy. I can imagine that with the high heats and thin crust of this recipe, you’d end up with something like a cracker if you went all-whole wheat, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment. Try it 50/50 and see if you can work your way up to 2/3-1/3. There are also gluten additives/bread enrichers available at many stores, something you would add a teaspoon or tablespoon of to a dough for each cup of flour and might compensate for some of the lost gluten in whole wheat flour, allowing you to use a higher percentage of it.
Last month I was on a pizza making kick and couldn’t find a recipe I liked. Maybe yours will be the one!
I make pizza crust and double the recipe and split it in half and freeze one crust worth. A quick thaw/rise, and you’re ready to go on a weeknight.
I love to add rosemary to my dough, too, and sometimes a handful of fresh grated parm.
I’m replying in this comment, which is probably rude, but thanks for all the cocoa nibs suggestions. I have plenty of homework now! Also, got a Le Creuset lidded oval thing for Christmas that’s the perfect bread baker for that Bitman/whomever recipe. Will try asap.
A dear friend of mine is a professional pastry chef but she still buys pre-made pizza dough at the local italian deli. So crazy!
The dough recipe I use is basically the double-sized version of of yours (we like a thicker crust at my house), although it generally doesn’t need such a long rise. I give it about 20 to 30 minutes for the first rise, then punch it down and roll it to fit in the pizza pan. And it does a brief second rise while I’m assembling the toppings….maybe 5 or 10 minutes. The whole thing takes a little more than an hour to get on the table, which is just about twice the time it takes to have a pie delivered, but so much tastier that it’s worth the wait.
Deb, I love your pictures! They’re just brilliant. Rising dough in the fridge works fine, I’ve done this often for Sunday morning bread rolls (though never for pizza…)
For whole wheat flour, my experience is that adding some buttermilk helps to keep it soft. As I just mix until it “feels good”, I’m no help at how much is needed… but whole wheat flour usually soaks up more than white one.
Where did you get your little spice containers???
My boyfriend got me a pizza stone for Christmas, and we tried it out last night with a yummy focaccia that stuck to the stone! After I’ve got the stone ready again, I’ll give this pizza a try. You mentioned that a pizza tray works too, but do you prefer the taste of a pizza on the stone? This whole stone thing is new for me…
I came close to making pizza dough the other day, but we bought the dough from Trader joe’s and made calzones. I’ve been apprehensive about doing pizza because I don’t know how to get it from the counter to the hot pizza stone in the oven. Any tricks to suggest, or do I need to just suck it up and get a pizza peel?
Sarah - You know, they actually suggest that you never wash your pizza stone — soap is supposed to get into the pores and not easily come out. They say you can sand it to get baked-on junk off. Or, just use water and make sure it dries out completely between uses (some people will go as far as to dry it out in the oven at a low temperature for an hour or so). The pizza stone bakes more evenly than a tray, as it conducts better and it supposed to make for a more consistent and better-quality crust. It’s also great to bake any bread on, for the same reasons. I do prefer it, but have been making do without it until I get around to buying a new one.
Ann - A peel isn’t really necessary, unless you want to get super-duper into bread-making and want to be all professional. In my bread class, not having enough bread peels to go around, we’d put a piece of parchment paper on the back of a sheet pan, add cornmeal (though less necessary since nothing will stick to parchment paper), put the formed dough on top, and shimmy it onto the oven floor (or in this case, the stone), parchment paper and all. No worries about baking it on top of the parchment paper, it baked like it wasn’t there. Also makes for a cleaner pizza stone, non? (Note to self: start doing it this way.) You can take it out the same exact way.
I’m mostly right there with you on all the pre-made, pre-packaged stuff. I haven’t bought a bottled salad dressing in years, for instance. There was an article in the New Yorker [last fall?] about the dumbing down of the Food Network and how instead of telling you how to MAKE things, the current batch of chefs shows you how to SHOP for pre-made ingredients and combine them into something. Grrrrr!
The pizza looks amazing, by the way.
Looks easy and sounds completely delicious, but what about the sauce? That would be the thing that would keep me from making homemade pizza. And what kind of cheese is best for straight-up traditional flavor: pure mozzarella? Or Should we mix like Mr. Gatti’s does??
I am very interested in making homemade pizza!!
I type this as I finish off my second slice of pizza. Crust was excellent though I might bake it for 5 minutes on the stone before adding toppings just to achieve my desired crispiness. I loved making it myself though - I don’t think I have made homemade pizza since I was a kid!
I’ll do no knead bread in the next couple of days…
Allow me to change the subject ever so slightly.
Apparently, Deb is too modest to let you know she has been nominated (by myself, amongst others) to win in the humor category at the Well-fed network “Best food blog” awards (yes, Deb, you ARE funny). Here is the links for you to vote:
http://wellfed.net/2007/01/03/top-5-best-food-blog-humor/
While you are at it, check out the other categories because there are a lot of big favorites (Orangette, Cream puffs in Venice, to name a few), but you can also find some new favorites, Lucullian delights is a new favorite of mine, for instance.
Good luck, Deb!!!
I have pizza on the menu for Friday night and was looking for a new crust recipe!
Congrats, btw, on the nomination. I just headed over there to place my votes!
Deb- that stone issue. I hope you didn’t toss it. It can be saved! Put it in the sink and cover with hot water — no soap — and let it soak over night. In the morning you should be able to scrub the affending material from the surface. Then put it in you oven on the bottom rack and let it dry out there for a couple of days. Whenever you use the oven, it’ll dry out. (That’s where I store my favorite stone most of the time! You may need to reseason the top - by baking something oily — like canned cresent rolls or the like, but it should be rehabbed!
As someone who’s generally skeered of making anything with yeast, I think you’ve convinced me to try. Your pizza looks delicious! But I have to say I’m skeptical of anything called “health salad” — think I’ll take your word for it on that one.
Deb, we just made pizza last night too! I’ve been experimenting with different recipes for crust. Yours looks like the one from Marcella Hazan, which we’ve enjoyed. Currently I’m playing with one of Mollie Katzen’s recipes, which has no oil in the dough but oil on the pan. Somehow this dough is too wet after the first rise, but it has a nice mouth feel after its cooked.
I bake at 450 and do the crust w/sauce + oil for 12 minutes before putting on the toppings for the last 5.
Grayson - the easiest sauce ever: mince 1 clove garlic, heat in 1 T olive oil until golden (not brown!), add 15 oz can of diced tomatoes. If you can find the fire-roasted tomatoes that will add a nice flavor. Simmer for ~20 minutes until oil separates from tomatoes. Salt to taste. I sometimes puree this sauce for the pizza. This will make enough sauce for 2 small pizzas.
Question- are you supposed to preheat your pizza stone!?! I’ve been just throwing the pizza and/or stromboli right onto the room-temperature stone and baking…am I missing out on a perfectly-done crust?? I was wondering why your stone caught the overflow of caramel!
I learn something new everyday!
Karen - Thanks so much! I was hoping someone would add a quick recipe. That one is very close to what I use, though I typically use whole tomatoes so I can break them up as I choose, add a little onion or shallot with the garlic. Easy as pie, right? But, if I have an open jar on hand — and this time, it was Rao’s as I’d wanted to check it out after Julia Moskin’s piece on supermarket gems (it’s delicious, btw) — I use that first.
Megan - I usually just leave mine in the oven at all times, hence it catching the mess, because it heats everything more evenly.
Farmerbeth - Yup, I tossed it. Honestly, it was cheap to begin wtih and had suffered years of misuse in my uneducated hands. My next one will be treated like the prized possession it is.
Terry B - I completely agree about the combining of pre-made ingredients known as cooking. But oh, how their advertisers and profit margins must appreciate this approach. Prego/Ragu would not like it if they were showing people how easy homemade sauce is to whip up.
Oh, and Marce - I had no idea. A humor blog? They must be kidding. But, I am flattered nonetheless. Thanks for the shout-out!
I suppose it is the regional cooking thing, but I would have cheese on top of that nice-looking pizza in your pic.
I make pizza every Friday evening. My dough recipe is similar to this one, except mine is scaled up to 3 cups of flour so I can make 2 medium sized pies. To speed the rise time, i use fast rise yeast and proof the dough in the that was preheated to 200 degrees for ten minutes and turned off. The dough doubles in size in about 45-60 minutes. I split it in to two balls, give it another 15 minutes and then roll out my crusts.
Could you tell us more about this health salad which is so marvelous? How do you make your version? I see what looks like radicchio…
We did it! We made pizza! Your dough recipe is just perfect. I used my brand new stone (seasoned a bit earlier than expected thanks to a couple of early mishaps, but seasoned to perfection) and made one delicious pizza. Wine Guy (my boyfriend) and I used your recipe for the dough, then put a layer of tomato paste, some Italian Seasoning, Thyme and Oregano, mozzarella, caribbean jerk chicken, bacon, sundried tomatoes and crumbled feta, then baked for 12 minutes and 30 seconds and had perfect pizza. The crust was light and airy, but the bottom was nice and crisp and firm. Hurrah! Just what we were craving and just the perfect timing for my Christmas gift. Thank you!
Deb, I love your site and I tried the pizza recently. I don’t have a pizza stone, but used a standard metal baking sheet thinking it would be all right. Things were going well until I put it in the oven at top temperature (500 degrees) and the top of the pizza cooked beautifully, but the bottom hardly cooked at all. I checked the oven to make sure everything was working correctly, and it is. What am I doing wrong? I’d love to be able to cook like you, and if I can’t handle the pizza then I dread what could happen if I were to try the english muffins (which look YUM). Thanks for any help you can offer!
I am also a newlywed and totally relate to so many of your posts! This pizza looked awesome, I just had to try it out. I used your pizza dough recipe and it came out perfect! My husband was so impressed and I was so proud of myself. I love your blog and it is inspiring me to try to diy instead of doing my usual semi-homemade. Thanks!
Hi Deb,
I’m looking forward to trying your pizza dough recipe! Sounds like this is the pizza dough i’ve been looking for! i just had one question, my oven is a bit complicated. Should i put the setting so that heat is coming from both bottom and top or only bottom? my oven has those pictures on the sides which suggest and require me to put it on either setting… thanks a lot!
Sam
Hi Deb–
As I’m writing this, my pizza is resting until it’s not too hot to touch. It looks beautiful! I used a variation on your roasted-tomato sauce (just a pint of grape tomatoes, garlic and olive oil roasted for 20 mins) with some basil and mozzarella, and I can’t wait to cut into it.
I wanted to chime in on the pizza stone issue — I took Alton Brown’s advice and went to a building supply store and bought a box of unglazed quarry tile (I got 6″ x 6″ x .5″) and laid out two layers of three by three tiles — so I now have an eighteen by eighteen by one inch makeshift pizza stone on the floor of my oven. All in, it cost me $8.40, and I still have ten tiles left over — enough to replace the top layer if I have a “caramel incident”. I don’t plan to remove them from the bottom of my oven. I also used the sheet-pan-parchment-paper trick, and it worked like a charm.
Oh man, just took a break to get the first slice, and it’s amazing. The crust is nice and crispy. Forget Sur La Table, go to Home Depot!
Thanks a million to you and to Heels for the excellent advice about being able to fridge the dough for the day (while I’m out earning so I can buy more toppings) or freezer it before the 20-min rise; then defrost and use it on a week night. I’ll try that and it will be all pizza all the time in this house, I’m sure.
Deb, this is the first pizza I’ve ever made and I always make it 1/2 wholewheat flour + 1/2 plain flour. Because I am that lazy (and I have an oversized oven), I make two crusts by rolling out very thinly. Then, to make a sauce-like layer I spread a little sun-dried tomato oil on the rolled out rounds, then smear tomato paste on top. Then I add toppings. Despite it being rife with such short cuts, me and my guy LOVE this pizza. We call it smitza as in, “Smitza tonight? Let the salivating commence!”
Oh, and I finally bought a pizza stone after making the pizza four or five times. The damage? It cost 99 euro (it’s oversized to fit my oversized oven). I returned to the store THREE precious Saturday mornings before I convinced myself to buy it and haul it home on my Dutch bicycle. The benefit? I keep the stone in the bottom of the oven. I get gorgeous pizza crust and it heats the oversized oven e v e n l y every time I use it for any reason (which was a problem that I was just living with before). *fab*
Hi Deb
I love making pizza but have yet to make a realy good base so I will give your pizza dough a try this weekend and let you know. Oh am thinking of buying a pizza stone any sugestions.
this is a great recipe! I am going to make this tomorrow! Wish me luck :)
Koopa
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http://blog.sillica.com
So I tried the whole “put it in the fridge” thing to see if the dough would rise while I was at work, since I really wanted pizza tonight, but I also really didn’t want to eat at 8PM. It didn’t rise at ALL. Which meant that I had to take it out when I got home from work, and let it rise … and … well, we ate at 7:45, which is barely under the mark. Not sure the husband will let me back in the kitchen this week. Lesson learned: save this for a weekend meal!
I made the same pizza dough yesterday with double the ingredients to make a round pizza the size of my pizza stone. I stayed away from the cheese and other bad stuff and went ahead and smothered it with romaine lettuce, shreaded carrots, diced tomatoes, diced green peppers and finely cut red onion on top. What I did was to put the pizza dough (shaped of course) on the stone and bake it for 5 minutes on 450 degrees F. Then I took it out and put a thin layer of pizza quick sauce on it and put it back in the oven for another 7-8 minutes untll it was nice and lightly browned. I pulled it out and put all the salad ingredients on top oh yeah and I almost forgot the black olives! I then made a balsamic vinegarette to top it off. I used some white vinegar, balsamic, vinegar, olive oil, garlic powder, sugar and oregano. Oh my god it was to die for! It was my first time trying this and it was scrumdiddlyicious! Its a must try!