This is Dave's world famous pizza recipe !!!
It makes VERY good pizza, once you master this recipe, none of your
family or friends will ever want to go out for pizza again.
If you don't like the way I make pizza, too bad, but the crust recipe
herein is a shining jewel.
Ingredients:
The Sauce
(1) 8 oz can Contadina tomato sauce
(that's one of the small half-size ones)
Fresh garlic or garlic powder to taste.
Oregano to taste
(1) miniscule dash of fresh or powdered thyme
The Crust
3 cups of bread flour
(ordinary unbleached white flour works well too, or for a
variation, use 2 1/2 cups of white, and 1/2 cup of whole wheat)
1 tsp. salt
2 TBSP cooking oil
(Italian virgin olive oil works best, but regular oil will work)
(1) tsp. of dill weed
(or even better, try that "It's a Dilly" salt substitute made by Parsley Patch)
1 TBSP honey
(cuacamonga squeeze-bear works well)
1 Package of quick-rise yeast
(use Fleichmann's quick-rise or Red Star rapid rise)
1 cup of water
The Toppings
(1) 12 oz ball of Mozzarella cheese
(insert your favorites here...)
Here are a few recommended combinations I like to do:
ham or canadian bacon
pineapple (I know this sounds nasty, but its actually good)
olives
pepperoni
olives
hot Italian sausage
Italian dry salami
mushrooms
olives
Ok, so you're a vegetarian...That doesn't mean you can't make pizza,
try this nice flavorful combo...
Substitute a garlic/basil pesto for the traditional tomato-based sauce
Fresh tomato slices
Whole garlic cloves
Italian or Greek olives
Feta Cheese (mix with mozzarella)
When making homemade pizza, try not to OD on toppings by trying to put
everything you can imagine on it. All the toppings will overpower
each other and the pizza will lose its subtlety.
Here we go...
o First make the crust.
o Pour package of yeast into a big mixing bowl.
o Pour honey over yeast.
o Pour warm water over the honey and yeast.
(warm means fairly hot, but not scalding hot or youl'l kill the yeast)
o Let stand and ferment for about 5-10 minutes until a bubbley foam forms
on top of the yeast mixture. This means the yeast is working well :-)
o Stir in 1 cup of flour.
(use a wooden spoon, or if you've got a Kitchen Aid industrial mixer
like I don't, you've got it going on, use the dough hook)
o Add the salt, the dill, and the cooking oil now.
o Stir in the remaining flour a little at a time, occasionally alternating
with extra water as needed.
(I'm trusting you to know how to follow a standard bread recipe in the
sense that you should know by now that flour and water amounts are
never exact and are generally ball-park figures)
o Finish the dough by kneading by hand about 200 strokes.
(This builds a protein called gluten in the dough and adds structure and
character)
o Now, if you've made bread before, you should have a dough that is smooth
and soft, and not dried out. If it is dried out, you have screwed up and
need to knead in some more water until you get it right.
o Preheat your oven on about low for 1 minute, THEN SWITCH IT OFF !!!
(that's important, by the way)
o Place dough in a well-oiled bowl and cover with a wet paper towel.
(the wet towel adds humidity and accellerates the process)
o Place bowl of dough in warm oven and let rise until it has roughly
doubled in volume.
(this generally takes about 30 minutes)
o While waiting, go make the sauce and chop and slice up your cheese and
toppings.
o Combine sauce ingredients to make sauce. This is not difficult, trust me.
o Oil an ALUMINUM pizza pan or a CERAMIC PIZZA TILE
(Superstone makes the best ceramic tile for this, for about $40 you can
get one at any good home store ie HomeExpress or someplace comparable.
Whatever you do, DON'T USE STAINLESS STEEL, IT WON'T WORK)
o Punch the now-risen dough down onto the pizza pan and spread it out
evenly.
o Preheat your oven on about low for 1 minute, THEN SWITCH IT OFF !!!
(that's important, by the way)
o Place pizza pan in warm oven and let dough rise until it's as thick as
you like your pizza.
o When you reach this point, crank up the heat to 400 F
o If you have a small narrow oven, pull the pizza out and skip the next
step - proceed directly to the pizza assembly phase.
o If you have a normal size oven, cook the crust until just the faintest
traces of brown crispness appear near the center, then pull the crust
out of the oven and commence pizza assembly.
Pizza Assembly
o Paint the sauce down evenly onto the crust.
o Lay about 80% of the mozzarella cheese on top of this sauce layer.
o Lay your toppings on top of this cheese layer largest first.
o Lay the remaining cheese on top of the topping layer.
o Bake at 400 F until cheese is slightly browned.
o Pull your new pizza out of the oven and LET STAND 5 MINUTES BEFORE
slicing.
Enjoy !!!
If this works for you and you like it, or have any questions or problems
with it, drop me a line at:
david@ecst.csuchico.edu