Pizza!

I love pizza. And I've been making it, or at least trying to, off and on for years. What follows is the dough recipe that I've been using all these years. It came from a cook book that may have been called Pizza and was purchased back in the days of University Bookstore book sales, where they would lay out tables of books discounted to $5, and we would rush to check them out between classes. I got a lot of cook books at those sales, and though few of them have made it through my moves with me, the good recipes have stuck. And this is one of them.

I'm just sharing the dough recipe here, because actually I don't have a recipe for the pizza sauce, I have a very basic idea that I adapt every time depending on what I have around. But there are many wonderful sauce recipes, and people usually have their own variations. Just keep in mind your pizza sauce should be a little thicker and cooked down further than a regular pasta sauce.

Now for an important tip: for the best homemade pizza, you must bake it in a cast iron skillet. Restaurant pizzas are usually made in beautiful industrial or wood fired ovens that few of us have at home, and some slide the pizzas directly onto the hot floor of the oven, or do any number of other things we home cooks can't even attempt. The best solution I have found to crust up the bottom of the pizza is the method from Serious Eats: use a cast iron skillet, and "fry" the pizza over a regular burner on the stove for 3-5 minutes before baking the pizza. You will get a beautiful crunch at the bottom of your crust, and you don't need to go out and buy a pizza stone or anything (which I never found that effective anyway). Since this method is described at length on their website, you can check it out if you want further explanation, but that's basically what to do. The results are worth it.

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 7g active dry yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 + 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup semolina flour
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Combine the water, yeast and sugar in a big bowl. Stir briefly and set aside for 10 minutes or until bubbles and frothy foam form on the surface. If the foam doesn't form in 10 minutes, your yeast is dead: discard it all and begin again.
2. Once the yeast is sufficiently foamy, dump in 1 1/2 cup flour, the semolina flour, olive oil, salt, oregano and basil. Stir to combine fully
3. Gradually kneed the rest of the flour, and turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead further for 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. 
4. Rinse out your mixing bowl and coat the inside with 1-2 tbsp olive oil
5. Shape the dough into a ball, and set it in the oiled bowl, rolling it around first to coat all the sides with oil. Cover with a damp kitchen cloth and set aside to rise for 1 hour in a warm place, or until doubled in size.
6. Meanwhile, make your tomato sauce according to your liking, and prepare your toppings. (This time I made chicken meatballs, and what I could find in my fridge, which happened to be green peppers and mixed olives. It was very nice considering we have limited options available here in lock down. Anyway, decide your toppings to your liking.)
7. Once the dough is risen, cut it in half (or in 4 pieces, if you are making pizzas the size of a cast iron pan, because then you can easily make 4)
8. Dust your pan with semolina flour to keep the dough from sticking 
9. Roll out your dough to the size of the cast iron pan you're using, set it in the pan, and leave it to rise again for 10-20 minutes.
   
   
   
   To Assemble:
10. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F or 190 degrees C
11. Spread the pizza sauce over the crust, top with your chosen toppings and cheese
    
    Now for the key step:
12. Once your pizza is assembled in your cast iron pan, place the pan on a burner at medium heat, and cook your pizza 3-5 minutes on the stove top to crust up the bottom.
13. Once the crust is starting to cook, or after 2-3 minutes on medium heat, move the pan carefully into an oven preheated to 400 degrees F or 190 degrees C, and bake for a further 20-30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling, and the crust is crispy and brown at the bottom. The pizza should smell divine, and you should be able to distinctly smell the baked crust as well.
14. Let cool very slightly, then move to a cutting board, and carefully cut with a knife, or even better, with kitchen scissors. Serve hot.

Enjoy!