Best Pizza in Town
Posted by parker about 1 year ago
It is an article of faith in my house (wherever that may be) that the best pizza in town (whichever town that may be) comes from my oven.
It's a mix of scratch (the dough) and store (the sauce) but with pizza, how you do it is almost as important as what you use.
The dough I make in a bread maker. The recipe came from the manual; I do it mostly from memory now.
- 1 cup water
- 2 Tbsp. oil
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1.5 cup bread flour (or other white flour)
- 1 tsp. active dry yeast
Put it in the bread maker and let it run.
I divide the resulting boule of dough and freeze one half for later. Then I start the oven pre-heating: 425° F.
Then the stretching happens. I never learned the toss-and-spin method, so I flatten the sphere on my hands first, stretch it on a pan by hand for a little way, then use a rolling pin to go the rest of the way. I put corn meal on the pan to keep the dough from sticking. Once I have the dough out to about the size of the pan, I crimp up the edges, then thoroughly perforate the disk with a fork. This keeps the dough from bubbling up.
The disk should be baked nine or ten minutes (it should just be starting to brown) by itself while you get the rest of the pizza ready. Then whip it out on to the pan again, and start putting together the pizza.
The key here is the order of application: sauce first, toppings next, cheese last. I use pizza sauce from the store, but if you're good with tomato sauce, feel free to make your own. Tomato paste works well, too, and if you find the taste too bland, oregano is your friend. Oregano may be your friend anyway. Sprinkle it over the pizza after applying the sauce. I've been trying to find a good barbecue sauce to substitute, but that hasn't worked for me yet.
Toppings go next. Feel free to experiment. I've used mushrooms (cut them small), all colors of bell peppers, turkey bacon, onions, scallions, ground beef (pre-cook it a bit), chicken chunks (again, pre-cooked) and potatoes (cook these a bit, too) in various combinations with good results. The trick is to get an even distribution and don't let the toppings congregate in the center of your pizza. Remember that you're going to be cutting through the center, and you don't want your slices to sag and dump their toppings on their way to your mouth.
Cheese comes on last. You can grate your own mozzarella or buy the bagged stuff; it doesn't make much difference. You probably need less than you think; remember that it will spread when it melts. You don't want a big sheet of cheese smothering your pizza. Again, make sure you get out close to the edges of the pizza.
Now, the whole pie goes back in the oven for another nine or ten minutes. Different people like the cheese done different amounts; for me, I like to see the cheese on the edges just starting to brown. At that point it's time to bring it out.
Wait a few minutes before slicing, so the cheese can set back up a bit. Otherwise all the cheese will come with your knife or wheel. Once you start cutting, you can do wedges if you want; mine never meet properly in the middle, so I've started slicing my pizzas into six by doing one big cut through the middle, then two smaller, perpendicular cuts, like a big H where the crossbar goes across the whole pizza. I'm left with two mostly-square "center" pieces and four more traditional wedges on the outside. Nobody said you had to slice your pizza into wedges; do whatever works.
