One shabbos way back when it came up over a meal that I like to cook, and that I owned a pizza stone and make pizza. Given that, it seems logical to assemble a bunch of friends one Saturday night and I would make pizza for everyone.
This melave malka had been in the works for months but finally came to fruition last Saturday night. People came, fun was had, and Rachel and I made pizza in the kitchen. The verdict? The people loved our pizza! In fact, some suggested we bake pies for sale during the nine days, although a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that we'd be earning less than minimum wage, so we gave up that idea.
Anyway, if you want to bake pizza and impress your friends, here's how to do it.
The recipe - use this one. A couple notes about the recipe.
- You need a scale, to weigh your ingredients. There is no other way to make sure you're putting in the right amount of stuff, specifically flour.
- You need a mixer, such as a kitchenaid. We had to borrow one because we just returned ours so we could buy a 220 volt/50 Hz one (ישראל!)
- The dough is super sticky. You're gonna be like "whaaat? it toootally needs more flour, yo!" Don't do it. Just follow what Peter says.
- He says to divide each batch into 6 pieces. I divided mine into 4 pieces, and I think I made the right call.
- For the rising, we used a gallon ziplock bag for each piece. Don't forget to oil everything up, or the pizza will stick.
Our dough sat in the fridge for about 48 hours, and tasted amazing. You could get results with 24 hours, too. If you don't do the long, slow, fridge ferment it won't taste bad but you won't get the same kind of flavor we got.
On the night you want to make the pizza, you need to heat your pizza stone up for 45 minutes to an hour at some extremely hot setting, like 450 or 500 degrees if you can. That stone needs to be HOT.
A quick word. Some people claim you don't need to use a stone, and that you don't need so much heat. I can only say that these people don't like pizza with a crispy crust. They must like eating pizza that is floppy and where the dough isn't baked. Because if you, like I, enjoy eating pizza that is baked through, crispy underneath and not burnt on top you NEED to use a pizza stone. Trust me, I've been trying to recreate pizzeria pizza at home since I was twelve. I've tried 80 gajillion different ways. It's pizza stone or bust, guys.
Next, roll out the dough. If you have a really big stone, you can roll the dough onto what's called a pizza peel (those big, wooden spatulas. I have one) and bake the pizza straight on the oven, like they do in pizzerias. My stone is small, though, so what I do is form the dough in a round pizza pie pan and put that straight on the stone. It's not as crispy as if you go straight on, but it's a close second.
This dough, by the way, is going to be soft and somewhat delicate. I don't know how to toss pizza dough, but even if you do you might not want to. It's so soft and elastic that all you need is a well floured surface to just flatten it out and work it into a crust with your hands. If you're using a pan you can just spread it out towards the edges until the pan is filled.
Oh, also, I threw some cornmeal into the bottom of the pan before putting the crust down. Gives the pizza a little extra crunch. Totally optional. If you don't use a pan you can rub some corn meal on the peel, so it gets under the crust and will crisp up on the stone.
My sauce is really simple. Chop a small onion, cook in olive oil, add salt, pepper, and garlic powder, add tomato sauce. Add brown sugar. That's it. I believe that less is more - feel free to disagree and go to town on the herbs and spices, feel free to use organic heirloom tomatoes, feel free to do whatever.
It doesn't matter what you put in your sauce, but just remember that too much sauce on the pizza will make it bad. I bad 64 ounces of sauce and I barely used a quarter of that, and I made 8 pizzas. Spread the sauce really thin. It will look meager, but you will thank me later.
Then you add cheese. Actually, if Rachel is nearby, as her to add the cheese because she will add the cheese in a uniform layer, not too much and not too little. Just right.
Then slide the pizza onto the stone and bake for, oh 7 to 10 minutes. I don't know exactly. When it's done it will look done, and you will know.
Enjoy.
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