aixcentric

My preferences for pizza have changed over the years. I didn’t used to mind a slightly chewy, doughy crust or a Chicago-style pizza. I have tried all sorts of combinations of toppings. But it really has come down to simplicity. Sure, Wolfgang Puck has done pizza with caviar and smoked salmon, and it’s a really interesting take on the idea of pizza. But is it a dish that does anything apart from actually make the chef look good? 

Here’s the thing with pizza, at least for me: the crust has to have the taste of the bread oven, with that slightly sour yeasty smell that comes from slow risen dough. There shouldn’t be too much of it and what there is should be crisp, with some scorch marks from the oven (a little charcoal is good for the digestion, or at least that’s what our mothers always used to tell us). 

I make my own pizza dough. For years I used ‘The Joy of Cooking’ recipe, and because flour in the US pretty much only comes in one grade – all purpose, I couldn’t quite get the crust I wanted. Occasionally I would find good Italian pizza flour which would cost me $4/kg for imported, or $6/kg for King Arthur speciality pizza flour. Here at Carrefour their T45 Tipo 00 Mon Fournil Farine de Pizza is 1.28€/kg. I’m making a lot more pizza since moving to France. 

You don’t need special gear to make pizza, though once you start you may well find that to ‘up your game’ there are things that will come in handy. I have three things that are very useful – a stand mixer to make the dough, a pizza stone which insures a really crisp crust, and a wooden pizza peel for putting the pizza into the oven and and getting it out when done. 

The stone is by ‘Crispr’ and I leave it on the floor of my oven. It works as a heat bank even when I’m not cooking pizza. I found a wooden pizza peel here in France at a speciality cooking store, but they are easy to find. It’s a very useful tool to have in the kitchen because you can use it to slide tart pans in and out of the oven as well as pizza.

Again, you don’t have to have these tools, but they are useful. 

Occasionally I will make the dough for the same day, but I have found that to get the flavour I want, it’s best to let it rise slowly in the refrigerator overnight. Or I make a batch of dough, let it rise once, then divide it, wrap it, and freeze it. There are always at least three balls of frozen dough in our freezer. 

People get intimidated by bread and pastry making but if you take your time you’ll do fine. Bakers use scales – they don’t use measuring cups because cups measure volume and ingredients differ in volume. So, use a kitchen scale! It will make recipes easier to ‘scale’ up or down. 

You also need to remember that the ambient temperature and humidity are going to effect how your dough behaves. As with bread, the more you make pizza the more feel you will get for this. You may need to add a bit more flour or a bit more water depending on the weather. 

Recipe

To make the dough, weigh out 500 grams of type 00 flour into a large bowl. Sure, you can use regular flour, but if you want to really impress your guests, pizza flour is the way to go. Mix in two teaspoons of a good fine sea salt. 

You need 320 ml of liquid – 160 ml of warm water and 160 ml of whole milk. Add to the liquid one packet of levure boulangere – dried yeast. Stir in two tablespoons of flour. Let this sit until it gets foamy on top, maybe 10 to 30 minutes depending on the temperature of the water/milk mixture. Then mix in one tablespoon of olive oil. I like to use a really flavourful oil, as it give an extra dimension of taste in the crust. 

Make a well in the center of your flour, and pour the liquid in. With a wooden spoon, mix the dough until it forms a ball and comes away from the side of the bowl. Then knead it for 15 minutes. If you have a stand mixer use the dough hook to mix the dough. Put it on low and slowly add the liquid. Eventually the dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl. When it does set your timer for 15 minutes and let the mixer do its thing. 

Place the dough into another bowl coated with olive oil and turn it over to coat both sides. Cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough rise for an hour or until it has doubled in size. Punch the dough down, divide it into three, form into balls, wrap in plastic wrap and put in the freezer. If you’re going to make pizza immediately take one ball, coat with oil, put into a bowl, cover with a towel and let it rise in the kitchen. Or put it into the fridge. 

If you’re not going to wait to make your pizza, get your toppings ready now. Make a simple tomato sauce and add fresh basil to it. Let it cool. Grate about 300g of mozzarella or use slices of fresh mozzarella.  

When the dough has risen again, turn it out onto a floured work surface and push it gently into a circle shape about 31 cm/12 in diameter. You can roll it out or just use your fingers. 

Take the circle of dough and put it on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. If you have a pizza stone and baker’s peel dust the peel generously with flour and put the dough on that. Pinch the edge of the dough to form a lip. Let the dough rest on the peel for several minutes. Make sure that the dough slides back and forth on the peel.

Spoon the sauce onto the circle of dough and spread it out gently. Add some more basil leaves, and then sprinkle the grated cheese or slices evenly over the entire pizza. 

Slide the pizza off of the peel onto the stone or baking sheet in your pre-heated oven (250ºC or 475ºF – or the highest temperature you can set your oven to). If you have a convection/fan oven, make sure that is on. Depending on the oven temperature your pizza will be done in 8 to 10 minutes though it might take longer. Watch it closely so that it doesn’t burn and possibly turn it slightly so that it browns evenly. 

When it’s done, slide the peel under it and take it out. Let it rest two or three minutes before slicing. Serve and enjoy!