Making your mouth water? It takes a bit of effort but you can do this at home too. More pics at the bottom...
Ah, pizza. Pizza, pizza pizza - the world's favourite food.
When it's good, it wraps you in a comforting cheesy, doughy, fragrant blanket, protecting you from the world and releasing you from the the fraught feelings of homesickness, hangover, and heartache.
When it's bad you curse your dining decision for days - the wasted calories and bad cheese-karma cursing through your veins (literally) well past the point the bad taste left your mouth.
If you live in pizza hot spots like Napoli, Brooklyn or The Mission you've got it sussed. Obsessive pizza freaks (see right hand column) litter your neighbourhood, ready to spin you a perfect pie.
If, like the rest of us (I live in London, btw) pizza purchase is more akin to Russian roulette, and if you show any interest at all in cooking your own food, then you will have toyed with the idea of creating your perfect pizza at home.
Alas, two things have been missing from your pizza-a-la-casa dream -
a decent, fail proof dough recipe and the correct cooking environment
- clearly, not all of us have a wood fired oven so we need to improvise, but we can (with a bit of effort) create a great pizza dough.
The following recipe/method outlines the necessary steps to create a pizza just like the one pictured above. I emphasize the really important steps to get that blistered, chewy dough - what you stick on the top is up to you. Your home, your pizza - stick what you like on it.
As long as it's not Chinese chicken or pineapple I don't give a damn!
So, if you love pizza. REALLY love pizza then, the chances are, the thing that marks out a good one from a bad one for you is the base.
That volcanic heat from the pizza oven combined with a strong, well prepped dough gets you a long way to a great pizza.
So how do we do this in the home?
Lets start with the dough. I hate it when you find a recipe online and you realise you need to start it seven days in advanced to get that "authentic taste".
I'm afraid that there's a bit of that here, but it's dead simple and you only need to start the night before - it's worth it, trust me.
We start with a 'sponge' of flour, water, yeast and sugar - mix together and leave for 12 hours - that's it!
Take a mixing jug and add 5 tablespoons of strong, white bread flour.
Add an equal quantity of water - just do it by eye.
Add 1/4 teaspoon of dried yeast (that standard packet stuff) and the same of sugar (unrefined, brown would be best).
Mix and mix and mix - get all the flour at the bottom - leave at room temp. until you go to bed, at which point stick it in the fridge.
Take our sponge out of the fridge. You'll probably notice a layer of water (normally at the bottom, sometimes near the top), stick a spoon in the jug to create a gap so you can pour the water off. Don't drink! It's foul...
Tip the remaining sponge into a mixing bowl and added about 300ml of water, another 1/4 teaspoon of the yeast and about a little more than that of salt (Maldon or similar is best).
**This next step is all about judging the consistency of the dough - you just have to feel it**
For 3 decent sized pizzas (as in the top picture) you'll want to add about 3 cups of flour (375grams) but not all in one go.
Add a cup, stir it in and take a look. Have you got a slimy, gluey mixture? Good - that means you haven't added too much flour.
Add another half a cup - how's it looking? You want to get to the stage that the dough is *very* pliable but starting to loose that glueyness. The dough will start to come away from the edge of the bowl and form a ball. If at any point you think you've added too much flour, quickly add more water - don't keep mixing the dough 'cos it will be hard to add more water once you have.
Keep balancing flour and water until, using a spatula, you can scrape down the sides of the dough and fold it over on itself, creating the beginnings of a ball. If you press the dough it should be very pliable - like one of those squidgy toys filled with water and the dough should stick to your hands. It will be formed but squidgy and sticky. The point is we want a high water content dough.
Leave for 30 mins before...
You can see the gluten strands starting to form - you want the dough to take on a pliable, glossy look.
Kneading your dough is VERY important. You need to develop the gluten strands to allow it to rise properly and form those lovely crusty bubbles as it cooks.
Now Dan Leopard disagrees with this - he knows *loads* more than I - do so feel free to follow his gospel, but all of my bread experiments have benefited from a serious knead. The results goes from stodgy, crumpet like bread, to light, risen, well developed loaves.
So...tip out your dough on to a floured surface and start going for it. Push the dough away from you and fold it back on itself - push, fold, push fold - keep going for a good 10 minutes until you physically see the dough change from a crumbly, biscuity consistency to a stringy, glossy dough. You'll see a shine on the dough - the way it reacts will change - when you get to this point you'll just know it.
Note - the dough WILL stick to your hands (if it doesn't it's too dry) - just keep the surface floured as you go along to minimise this.
Now, form into a ball and drizzle a little oil over the top (a little!) and smear over with your hand. Cover loosely with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise.
Pre-rise, your dough should look something like this
Short and sweet this section. After about 3 hours of your dough sitting in a nice room temperature location, it should have risen nicely.
Now you want to knock it back (get rid of the first lot of gasses that developed) just punch it lightly, it will collapse.
Get your spatula and turn it over on itself a few times, recreating the ball.
Now let it sit for another hour or so, so that it rises back to the same size as before - beauty.
I use a Benjamin & Medwin 10 & 1/2" skillet - it rocks!
Now the fun bit starts. The key to a good pizza is searing heat to get that blistered crust that we crave. A pro pizza oven reaches temperatures of 425°C and you'll be lucky to get your domestic oven to 250°C - simply not hot enough so we need another method.
What I do is take a cast iron skillet (pan) and put it on a high gas flame (on the top of the oven) until it's smoking hot (this can take up to ten minutes). Skillets are dead cheap and they last for ever (if you keep them dry, especially after any cleaning). You'll find loads on ebay and the likes too - get one...
At the same time I whack the grill (broiler if you're State side) on at it's highest setting so that it's pumping out as much heat as possible. I happen to have an electric grill in my oven but gas would work too. I don't bother turning the oven on as it will have little overall effect but no harm if you want to.
Whilst the skillet is heating up we go to the next stage...
A rolling pin is easier than that spinning stuff
So, now we need to form our basic pizza base shape. The dough that (hopefully) you've created will be very elastic and a bit of a bugger to handle - it takes a little perseverance.
The reason you see those pizza dudes spinning their dough's is 'cos their dough is like yours (that's why we went to all that trouble) and it's the easiest way to get the dough to behave - spin, flop, spin, flap - you've seen it.
Problem is that takes a lot of practice, every time I try it, the dough rips and it lands on the floor.
Much better to use a rolling pin to create a base about 5% bigger than the cooking surface of the pan. Making it slightly bigger means the very edge of the crust touches the sides of the pan and as it cooks it rises up slightly to give a pleasing, rustic shape to your pie.
In this picture, you can see a lovely little bubble in the dough - that's a great sign of a well prepped dough. It might seem that by rolling your base you are squeezing all the lovely air out - truth is you are but I'm not sure how much more this occurs than in the spinning method anyway.
The good news is something weird happens when you roll a dough flat and then cook it in a pan - bubbles tend to occur as it cooks in any case - that's how pitta breads occur!
You can see the base of the pizza cooking from the heat of the pan, even as you construct your pie
OK, now it's time to construct your pizza.
Get all your toppings ready to go - slice your mozzarella, your sausage, your artichokes - whatever it is you're using - and have your tomato sauce at least at room temperature (my sauce recipe here coming soon btw).
Remove your pan from the heat (or just turn it off if it's gas) lightly flour the pan and place your rolled base carefully into the center.
There's no need to rush at this point 'cos your base is now cooking and the bottom of the pan wont receive any further heat - so ease into adding your sauce and your other ingredients.
Then, using OVEN GLOVES place the pan under the grill as close to the heat source as possible.
NOTE: if using a gas grill keep a close eye - if things start to burn before the base cooks turn it down - probably no need with electric though.
Every couple of minutes check your pizza - you're looking for the crust to bubble up and start to char slightly. Your ingredients will cook nicely as you go along but if you are including an egg (as pictured below) take care. As the heat source is direct from above, it's easy to think the egg is cooked before it actually is, so double check the white is not completely runny before finishing.
If you've got your dough right and you've heated your pan and grill up properly there's every chance you just cooked the best pizza you've ever tasted.
It truly is a wonderful feeling of achievement and it's a great skill to pass on.
Tell us about your victories and and failures in the comments and here's to great pizza!
One of my favourite topping combos - chorizo, buffalo mozza. and a fresh, free-range egg - yumosa!
Straight outta the oven I drizzle with extra virgin, garnish with basil, salt the egg and crack some pepper...
Oh boy! BTW, Pics taken with natural light using a Canon 350D and the awesome 50mm f1.8 prime.
Look at that crust - all done at home with a little effort. You can thank me later...
The dough method is basically a moist, strong, white bread recipe - with a 12 hour sponge starter.
The crust is produced using a skillet, heated over a flame first and then cooked under the grill (or broiler).
The combo of direct heat underneath from the skillet and heat from above from the grill does a very good job of imitating a pizza oven - read on...
I started my bread obsession about three years ago when I was researching food for a restaurant. I came across Mark Bitmann's coverage of Jim Lahey's no knead bread. If the dough recipe here freaks you out (it shouldn't do btw) try it first maybe, until you get your wings at least.
Then I watched a Chow.com interview with Anthony Mangieri. I love this guy - shame he shut down, lets hope he does come back.
And finally, Franco Manca in Brixton - probably the nearest to someone like Mangieri in the UK, in terms of their single minded dedication to the art.
And finally, finally - thanks to @jamesseddon for the encouragement :)
