NICO | GALOPPO || journal

The days are becoming wetter and colder out here in Carrboro, NC. Sure, you can turn on the heating, but a much better way to warm up the house (and your inner self) is to make some pizza. So I finally got around to test that pizza dough recipe that I’ve long wanted to try. It’s Jeffrey Steingarten’s recipe for “Perfection Pizza” from his incredibly entertaining book “It Must’ve Been Something I Ate: The Return of the Man Who Ate Everything”.

It was incredibly easy to make, and the first big test for the refurbished KitchenAid that I had acquired back in September. I can honestly say that this was the best damn pizza I’ve made so far. The crust was perfectly crisp, yet chewy on the inside and filled with big pockets of air in the outer rim. Add a spoonful of tomato passata, a few slices of fresh mozzarella, salt&pepper and finish of with basil and a drizzle of good extra-virgin olive oil right as you take it out of the oven, and voila… perfection pizza. On one half, I added some thin slices of freshly-cut proscuitto and topped it with peppery rucola to finish off, which makes a very worthy alternative (if not better than perfection).

Check out some more pictures here, and see below for the recipe.

Perfection Pizza

From: “It Must’ve Been Something I Ate: The Return of the Man Who Ate Everything” by Jeffrey Steingarten (#)

I halved the original recipe which was for four pizzas, the instructions below yield two large 13 inch pizzas.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour, half all-purpose unbleached and half bread flour, both preferably King Arthur brand (I cheated and used King Arthur for the bread flour but a generic brand for the all-purpose)
• 3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 3/4 tbs. salt
• 1 1/2 cups of cold water
• 3 tbs. extra-virgin olive oil, plus a few teaspoons to oil the measuring cup and plates to hold the rising dough
• 1/2 cup cornmeal or semolina
• 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce, I used tomato passata (strained tomatoes) straight from the box
• 1 ball of fresh mozzarella (I guess buffalo mozzarella would be even better, but that is incredibly expensive over here)

Equipment

• Electric mixer suitable for kneading dough (such as my new KitchenAid )
• Ceramic baking stone, atleast 14 inches across (essential for crispy crust)
• Wooden peel (or for Jason: paddle) or rimless baking sheet for transferring the dough to and from oven

Preparation

Here I explain how to make the dough. The rest is pretty standard pizza-assembly, so I suggest you go and read the book if you really want to know the details. Anyway, you should read the book no matter what, it’s an awesome read!.

1. In the mixer bowl, stir together flours, yeast and salt. Pour in the water and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the ingredients come together into a shaggy dough. Mount the bowls on the mixer and attach the beater (not the dough hook — this dough is too wet for conventional kneading). Mix on slow speed for about 1 minute, then increase the speed to high for 5-7 minutes, scraping down the beater and bowl several times during the process. The original recipe only calls for 3 minutes of kneading, but my dough wasn’t passing the window-test yet, so I continued.
2. Scrape and pour the dough onto a heavily floured work surface. Keep your fingers, countertop and dough very well floured; this is a very moist and soft dough that sticks to anything. And use a pastry/pizza scraper, makes your life much easier! The dough will spread int oan irregular blob. Fold the far end over to the near end so that half the floured underside covers the rest of the dough. Let it rest for about 10 minutes.
3. With a dough scraper, divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth ball. Place one ball on the well-oiled, 8-inch plates, generously dust their tops with flour, and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Put the second ball into an oiled, 1-qt measuring cup or any container that has atleast (and approximately) a content of 1 quart and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Mark where the ball reaches on the measuring cup. Let the dough rise until it is doubled, your mark will tell you when this is the case! This will take atleast 3-4 hours, in my case it took overnight!
4. Refrigerate for atleast 1-3 hours, atmost 24 hours.
5. Set and preheat the oven as high as it can go. Jeffrey Steingarten made an oven in his back garden, attaining temperatures of upto 750°F, but I just used my oven at its highest temperature (500°F).
6. Generously dust your peel with flour and pour one of the balls of dough (now disks) onto the peel and let rest for about an hour.
7. Stretch into a 14 inch disk (as always, flour your hands and work quickly!), top as suggested (or not) and pop into the oven using the peel.
8. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly, the underside and crust are crisp, and charred here and there.