Favorite Shots: Oh Stella

Pritty picture. Pretty perfect pizza pairing. Oh Stella.

L

Pipe Dream #133: To Give A Last Hurrah – Grilled Pizza Crust

Sometimes when I meet new people, I tell them I love pizza. I like to be as real as possible lest anyone should assume that I was someone who didn’t like pizza, and therefore, would never invite me to eat pizza with them, and therefore, my life would be awful forever.

Not quite sure about the punctuation in that run-on sentence, but whatever. I really like pizza. However, I have never attempted to make it myself until today. Or shall I say, until yesterday, because apparently, the secret to a really complex crust flavor is to let the dough rest from 10-48 hours before baking it. Who knew?

I consider this near-authentic pizza to be a sort of last hurrah for summer. It’s fresh and grilled and uses up all those tomatoes that are overrunning your garden right now. I didn’t even bother making a real sauce for this. Just chucked some tomatoes, garlic, spices and olive oil in the food processor and slopped it on raw. Excellent choice.

We topped the pizzas with everything from chicken andouille sausage to avocado, but you can really use anything you have on hand. There are some fab ideas for unusual pizza toppings over here, with step-by-step instructions on grilling up the pizzas. If you don’t feel like reading the instructions, I will give you a summary:

Oil the grill. Cook crusts for two minutes until bubbly and beginning to brown. Loosen the crusts with a metal spatula and cook for an additional minute.

Flip crusts and cook for two more minutes. Pile on your toppings of choice. This time, return to the grill with the pizzas on a metal cookie sheet or pizza stone. Close the grill and heat until cheese is melted and toppings are warm.

And then gaze at your colorfully delightful creation. And then devour. And then wonder why you don’t just move to Italy. Wouldn’t life be happy?

Second best thing,

L

Best-Ever Pizza Dough

Adapted from Rachael Ray

makes enough dough for four 9-inch pizzas or sixteen 3-to-4 inch pizzas

1 cup lukewarm water
1 tsp. honey
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
3 cups (or more) all-purpose or bread flour
1 3/4 tsp. coarse salt
2 tbsp. olive oil

Mix 1 cup warm water and 1 tsp. honey in a liquid measuring cup until the honey dissolves. Sprinkle with 2 1/4 tsp. of active dry yeast and let the mixture stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (This is proofing. Remember proofing?) Meanwhile, using a food processor, pulse 3 cups flour and 1 3/4 tsp. salt to mix.

Pour the yeast mixture and 2 tbsp. olive oil over the flour mixture. Process until the dough comes together in a sticky ball, about 20 to 30 seconds.

Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead, using the heel of your hand, until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Lightly oil a large bowl; add the dough, turning to coat. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let the dough stand in a warm, draft-free area until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Punch the dough down, then turn out onto a cutting board. Using a knife, quarter the dough.

Shape 1 dough wedge roughly into a ball. Place the dough ball on the work surface and cup your hand lightly over it. Rotate your hand counterclockwise, letting the dough roll on the work surface. Continue until the surface of the dough is smooth. Repeat with the remaining dough wedges.

Place each dough ball in a large resealable plastic bag or plastic container with a lid. Refrigerate for 10 to 48 hours (the dough will continue to rise). Let the dough sit at room temperature for 1 hour before shaping, or freeze for up to 2 weeks. Let the frozen dough sit at room temperature for 2 hours before shaping.

Turn out 1 ball of dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Press it out on the work surface into a 9-inch round, a long rectangle or an oval. Repeat with the remaining dough balls. To make 3- to 4-inch mini pizzas, cut each dough ball into 4 pieces, then press or stretch into shape.

 

How To Proof Yeast

I ran into some mental and emotional issues this year. Several times, I tried to make a recipe that included yeast. Each time I tried to make a “sponge,” the yeast wouldn’t proof. Even though I was using fresh yeast!

Proofing your yeast is a way to make sure that your yeast still lives and that it will work in whatever recipe you are using. A good sponge is, indeed, the proof of this.

Anyway, I was real frustrated and, needless to say, sad that my yeast was failing me. I was missing out on delicious goodies like cinnamon rolls and braided lemon breads and brioches. Hello.

Now, I could have been failing for a number of reasons. Mostly to do with the temperature of the water being perfectly correct. But! I recently read an article that talked about how in order for yeast to properly form a sponge, it needs to have sugars to feed on. The sugars make it grow–just another way yeast and I are so similar.

I feel like milk should have enough sugar in it to help the yeast proof? But don’t quote me on that, because I’ve tried it a few times. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But water definitely does not have sugar in it, so if that is the base of your proof, then you’ll need to add sugar.

This is what proofing yeast looks like.

Step One: Heat water until it is lukewarm. It should not be cold, but not hot. ‘Warm’ is maybe a better word thank ‘lukewarm’ to describe the correct temperature, but I don’t want you to get ideas and go on thinking you can use really warm water. It should be just warm.

Step Two: Stir in your sugar of choice according to the recipe until dissolved.

Step Three: Sprinkle yeast over the surface of the water. Some recipes call for it to be stirred in. Try and be as even as possible with your sprinkling.

Step Four: Wait 5-10 minutes until the sponge is foamy. Now you’re good to go!

You can succeed! The benefits far outweigh the three minutes of mental anguish you may have to endure as you wait for your yeast to proof. CINNAMON ROLLS.
L