Every Friday is our pizza night and I usually make it. Over the course of nine years I have pretty well perfected the technique and since I always keep the ingredients on hand it makes for a pretty easy dinner. The one thing that makes the pizza even better is to eat it with a movie. That is our Friday night ritual and the kids love it. And if truth be told Eric and I really look forward to it too. We seldom deviate from it. If we happen to have Friday night guests they too are subject to pizza. Even in the summer when it is really too hot to have the oven on, we grill it.
The dough is really simple but I have discovered that if I make it in the morning, not adding all the flour, and let it rise forgotten in some corner until dinner time, then the dough is not too tough and puffs up very nicely when it hits the oven.
So here is the dough recipe:
1 1/2c. flour (you will add more later)
1 Tbsp. yeast
11/2 t. salt
1c. warm water
Mix all the ingredients together and let stand several hours. When you are ready to make your pizza, you will need to mix in enough flour, about 11/2 more cups, to make a dough. Knead and roll out to fit your pan. I use a pizza stone which works beautifully. I also pour olive oil and cornmeal on the bottom of the stone for added texture, flavor, and to keep the pizza from sticking.
For the sauce I just use a can of tomato sauce and add a bit of sugar, some salt, and garlic and it simmer a bit on the stove top.
The toppings are of course the fun part. Of late we have been loving fresh mozzarella cheese with clipped herbs from the garden, oregano, chives, thyme, and basil. The basil has to be added after baking the pizza or it turns black.
Another great thing about this recipe is that it doesn’t have to rise once if you don’t have the time.
Also, we knew an Italian man who made pizza and swore by baking the crust for about 5 minutes and then adding the pizza toppings. It keeps the crust from getting soggy.
My sister, Beth, got us addicted to stuffed crust using cheese sticks. Once when we were out of those, I substituted jalepeno pepper jack cheese and that is what we use every time now.
Do you use a preheated stone, or just put it in cool? I’ve done pizza on a stone lots of times, always preheated, but it always stresses me out to the max, because getting a fully loaded pizza onto a 400 degree stone without dropping toppings all over the bottom of the oven is a skill I haven’t yet mastered. Even my handy pizza peel doesn’t take the stress out of the process entirely – unless I put so much cornmeal on the peel that the pizza itself is WAY too crunchy when it’s baked. So, hot or cold?
cold but oiled with a srinkling of cornmeal, assemble in peace and tranquility and then put in a super hot oven, like 450º – 580º
Sounds good. We need to bring back pizza+friday movie night again this next summer!