Pizza! Pizza! 8 December 2005

Makes: 1 pizza, good for two ravenous people!

We’ve been making pizza since last year. From scratch. Before you dismiss this recipe as just too plain hard (over ordering it), hear me out. You have our entire year of experimentation to help you out, unlike us demigods who relied mainly on recipe books and trial-and-error. I think we got the knack of making good crust alongside all that breadmaking. We’ve had crusts spanning the entire spectrum - raw and doughy to hard and crunchy (I am euphemizing everything here).

But … the crust is a crucial part of pizza. The topping is actually the easy part!
Once you’ve got it, I swear that you will be so picky with your pizzas that even you will get annoyed at yourself. The allure of ordering in pizza just disappears (sorry to Pizza Hut, etc!)

Disclaimer: I bet the Italian ancestors would turn in their graves with our technique. But we’ve referred to recipe books for Jamie Oliver, Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo … and of course modified as we’ve seen fit.

Anyhow, without much ado:

Ingredients:
Crust:
Whole wheat or 00 flour, 1 cup
Semolina flour, 1 cup
Salt, ½ teaspoon
Sugar, 1 teaspoon
Dry yeast, ½ teaspoon
Water, about one cup

Tomato sauce:
Tomatoes, around 8 that are red, ripe and firm
Red wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon
Garlic, 3 cloves, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Oregano, dried and ground, ½ teaspoon (believe me it makes a difference)
Olive oil, about three tablespoons

Easiest toppings:
Mozzarella cheese, fresh is best, about 100 grams for one pizza
Basil, about a handful
Mushrooms, thinly cut, and soaked in garlic and olive oil (optional)

Directions:
Crust:

I could say that you refer back to the cottage bread recipe, but I will make it easy on you and get it in detail here again. You can also refer to the photos on “baking bread” to get the general idea of the descriptions below, as making crust and making bread follow the same steps.

Pile your semolina on your working area and form a well in the middle. Then put your whole wheat/favorite flour in the well. Re-form your well. Put in the salt, sugar and yeast … in the middle of the well again. Now, pour in about 1/2 cup of the water.

With one hand, mix the flour inside the well bit by bit. It’ll a little gluey at first but as you incorporate the flour in, you eventually form your dough. Add in the remaining water bit by bit as you are mixing. Adjust your water if it’s lumpy (remember, you are striving for the consistency of Play-Dough). Now, a little elbow grease - knead. When it’s a nice consistency, form a ball and dust off with semolina flour. Score the top of your ball thrice. Let rest for 40 minutes, covered and away from drafts. When you get back to it, the dough should be about double its original size.

Get your frustrations out and punch out all that the air in the dough. Knead for a minute or so. Form a ball and roll out into a round-ish pizza crust. Dust again with semolina flour. Flatten with your rolling pin. No need for a perfect circumference, just as long as its round-ish.

The thickness is really a matter of preference - we like our pizza crust with a little crunch, so we roll it out to a little more than 1/8 inch thick. For thin crusts, we simply use the cookie tray that comes with the oven. For thicker crusts, we prefer to use our cast iron pan. Now, coat your pan well with olive oil.

Now, preheat your oven at 475 deg F while your prepare your topping.

For your tomato sauce:

Score the bottoms of your tomatoes, then drop them in boiling water, about a minute. Peel skins off. In separate pan, sauté garlic and oregano in olive oil. Add tomatoes and vinegar and simmer for a few minutes. Crush a few of the tomatoes so that juices run out. Simmer some more. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spread over your pizza crust.

Add your other toppings. Tear your mozzarella, and shred/crush your basil leaves and scatter over the pizza.

Pop your pizza in the oven for about 10 minutes. It’s done when the edges are nice and golden and the mozzarella should just-about start to brown.

Cut it up and eat hot! Yum!

Based on various recipes by Gennaro Contaldo, Antonio Carluccio and Jamie Oliver.