Let’s Make Pizza!

Some people conjure up pizza by picking up the phone and ordering delivery or using the Domino’s Pizza app. Then there are the pre-baked pizza shells in the supermarket (I used my share of those over the years), and the pre-made dough ready to be rolled, stretched, and baked.  Living in the boondocks, though, there is no pizza delivery and no grocery store around the corner. What to do…. How about making pizza from scratch? It’s actually very easy. Even a five-year-old can do it! (This appears to be the slogan for Aunt Jane’s Cooking School. My only pupil, Elsa, likes pizza, so it was a natural choice for last week’s lesson.)

Here’s what you’ll need. The mushrooms, of course, are a matter of taste. You can put pretty much anything atop your pizza. Elsa prefers a bit of sauce and cheese. Old school. I knew that others in her family would enjoy a few toppings, so I sautéed in a splash of olive oil some mushrooms, onions and garlic, all sliced (the garlic very thin) with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

We used shredded Fontina cheese (mild and melty, but not stringy like mozzarella) mixed with a bit of leftover grated parmesan that was floating around in my frig. (That’s a weird image, especially after just watching Apollo 13 as a farewell to Bill Paxton. We watched Twister, too…. Cow. )

Here are the dough ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 cup lukewarm water

1 1/2 cups (8 1/4 ounces) bread flour*

2 1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast (1 packet)

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon flaxseed meal (optional)

(2 tablespoons olive oil to coat the baking sheet)

*Bread flour gives the crust a nice chew. If you don’t have it, though, go ahead and use all purpose.

Distribute 2 tablespoons olive oil onto a rimmed baking sheet and set aside. (I use a silicon pastry brush for this.)

Combine water and 1 tablespoon oil. Put the remaining ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a dough hook. (You could also do this in a food processor.)  Mix to combine on low speed, then slowly pour in the liquid until the dough comes together, about a minute. (Use the pulse function on a food processor.)

Increase speed to medium-high and mix until dough is smooth and comes away from the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes. (It will probably happen faster in a food processor.)

Place the dough on the oiled baking sheet, turn to coat, and stretch by hand to a roughly 10 by 6-inch rectangle. It can really be “rough,” as the photo below shows!

Cover the baking sheet lightly with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot. In my little house in single-digit weather, that means near the wood stove! Leave to rise until puffy and doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

For the purposes of Cooking School, I made a full recipe of dough, shown on the larger baking sheet (technically, it’s a half-size commercial sheet) and a half-recipe of dough, shown on the smaller baking sheet (quarter-size). That way Elsa and I could work on the dough simultaneously, and Todd and I would have a small pizza to keep for our own dinner.

While the dough was rising I left to pick up Elsa from the Sandwich Children’s Center, where she goes after half-day kindergarten at Sandwich Central School. I brought our dog Beau with me to be sure that the pizza dough would be intact when we returned. (No dough for Beau!)

Elsa always walks through the Cooking School door ready to go. She grabs her wooden stool, goes right to the kitchen sink and washes her hands. Then she stands still while I secure her apron (rather like putting an astronaut into a space suit). She can tie the bow herself, thank you very much. Then she moves her stool to the work counter and surveys the set up. “There’s a lot going on here,” she said on this afternoon.

Start by preheating the oven to 450 degrees and patting and stretching the risen pizza dough to fit each pan. In the photo, Elsa is working on the small pan. The idea is to evenly distribute the dough. It’s not hard to do, but Elsa’s ended up a bit thin where she pressed in her handprint. That’s okay!

Recover the dough with the same plastic wrap and return the baking sheets to their warm spot for about 45 minutes (until the dough is a bit puffy and the oven is thoroughly preheated). In the meantime, prepare the sauce.

 

 

Here are the basic sauce ingredients:

1, 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups (8 0z) Fontina cheese, shredded*

Pizza seasoning to taste (an Italian seasoning herb mix, Penzey’s “pizza flavoring” herb mix, whatever…)

Fresh basil (optional but really nice as a finishing touch)

Any other toppings you’d like. I sautéed in 1 tablespoon olive oil a pint of sliced Baby Bella mushrooms, half a yellow onion sliced thin, and three cloves of garlic sliced very thin, sprinkled with a little salt and pepper. For the small pizza I used onion and pepperoni. My favorite topping of all is caramelized onions, gruyere cheese, and thyme — no sauce. Yum!

* If you’d rather start with pre-shredded cheese, that’s fine. America’s Test Kitchen recommends Kraft Shredded Mozzarella. I also added about 1/4 cup pre-shredded parmesan that had been taking up space in my refrigerator (but wasn’t moldy… yet!).

 

Elsa wasn’t entirely sure about working a can opener, but she was up to the challenge. As usual ~ no problem!

Next, empty the can of tomatoes into a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl to drain. After about a half hour, stirring a couple of times, a lot of tomato water will have pooled in the bowl and the tomatoes will be nice and thick. Measure  3/4 cup for the regular-size pizza (a scant 1/2 cup for the smaller one).

Stir in the salt, olive oil, and any other herbs, and voila ~ sauce!

Start the baking process by poking the surface of the dough with a dinner fork, sprinkling a little bit of kosher salt on top, and popping it in the oven for about 10 minutes so it’s dry and firm when you apply the toppings.

Spread the sauce evenly over the partially-baked pizza dough, leaving at least a half inch clear on the sides. Distribute any toppings, and sprinkle with cheese. Notice in the photo that none of the ingredients is applied heavily. This less-is-more approach ensures a pizza with a pleasingly crispy crust that isn’t overwhelmed by sloppy toppings that end up in your lap… Just sayin’

Pop the topped pizza into the oven and bake until the edges of the crust are nicely browned and the cheese is melted and beginning to brown in spots, about 15 minutes.

Remove the pizza from the oven, then slide it out of the pan onto a wire cooling rack. This allows the steam from the bottom of the crust to release and makes for a wonderfully crispy bite. Slice or tear the fresh basil leaves and sprinkle over the top of the pizza right before cutting and serving. (If the cut basil is left for too long, it will turn brown.)

I showed Elsa the chiffonade  technique for slicing herbs into thin ribbons. (This is “cooking school,” after all!) Stack the basil leaves one on top of the other, roll them up lengthwise, and slice thinly. Fluff them up and you have lovely little basil curls for the top of your pizza.

The pizzas look ever so humble but make no mistake ~ they’re crispy-cheesy delicious!