Pizza

One of my "rules," in the kitchen, is that if I can make "it" better than I can buy "it," I will. "Better" is a relative term here. I can make better fresh pasta than I can buy, but when I weigh the mess, the fighting with the cats as the pasta dough gets extruded, pulling cat litter out of the finished product, and all that jazz, I'll buy it instead. I can't make it THAT much better. There are more than a few things like that (mustard, ketchup, yogurt are some of them), including jam, and one of these days I'll blog the "Annalena as Lucy" story of the time I decided I would make jam for all of our friends for Christmas.

That, incidentally created the "three legged rule" for Christmas: men: booze; women: jewelry; children: cash (and let's face it. When you get right down to it, wouldn't you rather have cash?).

So, what does this have to do with pizza? I make great pizza. I make pizza that will make you swoon. I make pizza that is SO good I would propose to me over it (and that's saying something, since I know what I'm like in. NEVER MIND).

But seriously, pizza is very easy to make. It's absurdly easy to make. And you don't need to be "Mr. Machine" like me, and have a pizza stone, a pizza peel , a pizza paddle (very useful for scaring people by the way. This big wooden paddle comes out and you tell people with a straight face: "oh, this is what we use when things get rough" or "this is how we keep the cats in line." )

I never said I wasn't demented.

Like many things Italian, good pizza is about the starch: the crust. And like many things, you can do it better at home, and it's a lot faster than you think. What you'll need is a bowl for making and rising the dough, a flat surface to spread it out, a baking sheet (one of those "cookie sheets"), and a piece of parchment paper.

The dough I use is from Annie Somerville, the chef of "Greens" in San Francisco. And I honestly do feel my pizzas are better than theirs.


This is a recipe for one pizza dough, but you really should double it and freeze half. Or double it and make it twice. Having the dough around is a great thing. If, unlike me, you have a microwave, you can make a last second decision and have pizza quickly.

You need half a tablespoon (that's 1.5 teaspoons) of yeast, and a half teaspoon of sugar. You put this into 2/3 of a cup of water (COLD. Remember the bread recipe below????), 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil, 1.5 tablespoons of corn meal (and you CAN leave t his out. Not everyone has cornmeal in the house, and unless you keep it in the freezer, its probably gone rancid), 1.5 cups of flour, and half a teaspoon of salt. You mix all of this up until it's combined. Don't work it too hard. You don't knead it at all.

Put this aside, and let it rise for 45 minutes.

Now if you look at those proportions, and you're mathematically inclined, and compare it to my bread recipe, you'll notice something interesting: to make bread, you take 1 cup water, and 3 cups of flour. Here, you're using 2/3 cup water, and 1.5 cups of flour. Basically, you're making a wet batch of bread dough.

After 45 minutes, punch the dough down, and now, turn your o ven up to as high as it can go without the broiler feature. For most of us, that's 500. Th at's ideal.

Let the punched down dough rise for another thirty minutes. Now, you're ready to go. You have your hot oven, and your crust makings.

Take your cookie sheet and turn it UPSIDE DOWN. Wet it, and put a parchment paper sheet on top of it, to keep it held down. On a flat surface, toss down about half a cup of flour and flour your hands too. Spread out the pizza crust, making it any shape you like. Round is of course traditional, but it's certainly not required. And don't get obsessive about the circle. You're not in a competition. Pick it up (no need to be gentle), and put it on the parchment paper. If you need to, adjust it. Now, use your toppings. Traditional is, of course, tomato sauce and cheese. Use a THIN coating of tomato sauce, and slices of mozzarella (Note I did NOT say parmagiana. Read below about why). Other possibilities are endless. Cooked red peppers, cooked green peppers, cooked mushrooms, cooked summer squash, etc (here's a rule for you too: the vegetables on pizza should ALWAYS be precooked. They won't be in the oven long enough to cook through). Another rule of thumb: use your judgment: if you think the stuff would burn in the oven, don't put it on the pizza BEFORE YOU BAKE it. That's why you don't have the parmagiana on my pizza yet. Other ingredients you use after the baking: cooked leafy greens (spinach, chard, nettles), prosciutto , raw greens (arugula), things like that. Play with different cheeses too. And where is it written that you HAVE to use tomato sauce?

Get your masterpiece into the oven and bake. You have to keep an eye on it now. Most books say fifteen minutes. In my opinion, that overbakes the pizza. Start looking at eight minutes, and keep looking after that. When it looks brown enough, and the cheese no longer makes big, BIG bubbles, you're ready.

Taking the cookie sheet out when it's hot is tricky. Use big oven mitts or something like that. While the pizza is still hot, put on the parmagiana, and/or any of the other toppings that you don't bake. Let this cool for about ten minutes, and then pour out some red wine, or some soda, and chow down.

I love using cooked leeks and fontina, without tomato sauce. Another really favorite topping is thin sliced potatoes, that I put on the pizza when I'm baking it, and then fresh rosemary when it comes out of the oven. Also, a classic pizza, with arugula first and then prosciutto second, after it comes out of the oven, is one of those combinations that would make me propose to myself.

This is also an ideal way to get kids to cook. They love making their own, mini pizzas, which you do the same way, cooking for the same length of time.

If you have a lot of people over, while the first one is cooling, get the second one set up and keep up the relay. And you may never have one of those big cardboard boxes in your house ever again