Pizza!

We’ve been making home-made pizza since the girls found out what pizza was.

Tomorrow night I’ll be cooking a couple home-made pizzas for Savannah’s birthday. This is following YEARS of tradition of making pizzas for sleepovers and almost always a gaggle of girls for a birthday sleepover. Big difference is that this will be Savannah’s last pizza sleepover, as she turned 18 a few days ago and will be heading off to college next fall. Good news is that we still have Ginny for at least two more runs!

This is better than any delivered pizza we’ve had. And we’ve picked up that phone a lot. Granted, it’s a lot more work, but for sleep-overs, the key is that the kids make their own pizzas (we do the sauce and the dough, they do the toppings) so it’s fun.

It may be obvious to some, but pizza is a 3-part animal. The dough, the sauce and the toppings.

Prepare the sauce while the dough is rising, work on the toppings while the sauce is cooking and the dough is rising. Got it.

Dough.

In a small ceramic bowl, pour 1 cup (exactly) with warm water. If your bowl is cold, warm it up. This water needs to stay warm. Dissolve 1 tbs of sugar and 1tsp of kosher salt. Then put in two packs of yeast and stir. Let it get nice and frothy. Frothy is good.

Meanwhile  mix two cups of flour, a tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon  of kosher salt (all eye-balled in the palm of the hand) in a bowl. When the  yeast is frothy, I pour it in and kneed the whole thing until I’m bored.  Kneading is key. I coat my hands with olive oil and pour about a tablespoon  into the mix. Then I keep kneading. I put the result in a ceramic bowl coated  with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap and put it into someplace not cold  for about an hour. I used to use honey instead of sugar, but when we were out  I used sugar and nobody seemed to care. I still use honey if I have it in the  house.  A mix is fine too.

Sauce

I have the world’s simplest sauce.

Big can of Crushed Tomatoes, pour it  into a sauce pot. Put the heat to medium. If a regular can is 12 oz, I’m  guessing the big is 24. Likewise, if a regular is 16 oz…the big is 32.  (note, the big can is 1LB)

Sprinkle in the Oregano. I go kind of heavy, I’m guessing a tablespoon  or two. Most likely somewhere in-between.

Dried basil, about a table  spoon. We grow our own basil, but for sauces I find that the dried ‘Publix’ is  better. Those little flakes carry the flavor to every bite.

Minced  garlic (we buy it by the big jar) a full fork full.

And, I hate to  admit it, but…two tablespoons of sugar. When I started putting in sugar, it  got more popular. I started doing this when the girls hit their teens.  Actually, it is good.

I don’t add any salt  because I think the tomatoes are salty enough. Ergo, don’t add salt.

Bring to a low boil  while stirring, and then to a simmer while the dough rises.

That’s it.  If there’s a key to it, it’s using nothing but crushed tomatoes as a base. I  like the thickness. I used to use sauce, but it was runny. If the kids weren’t  eating it, I’d probably toss in a can of ‘roasted’ diced tomatoes. I love  those.

Toppings

Toppings ALL need to be well drained. If you’re putting on meat-stuff (hamburger, sausage, ham, pepperoni) heat it in the microwave with paper towel and drain off any grease. Wet stuff kills a pizza. Other than  veggies, anything must be heated/cooked and drained first. Favorites of ours include red bell peppers, black olives, mushrooms and Canadian bacon.

Best pizza I ever made was with a smoked Boston Butt, it took 8 hours the day before, but MAN  was it great.

Great thing  about the smoked meat is that there isn’t a lot of grease left.

Cheese  is greasy, but I’ve noted that the Sargento Mozzarella doesn’t mess things up.  So we use that and fresh grated parm (from a jar is fine).

Cooking

Knock it down and divide the dough. This should be enough for two large pizzas.  ALWAYS use a brownstone slab coated with olive oil. I usually divide it in  two, so the bottom rack has the crispy crust and the top, not so much. 400  degrees for about 20 minutes. Less if you use a metal pan. Much less I’d  guess, haven’t cooked one that way for two decades, but some might like a  thinner, crispy crust.

Twenty years of pizza cooking experience here. Enjoy.