awesome by proxy
sophonax, aka The Fabulous Baker Babe, who has some seriously mad skillz-with-a-zed when it comes to baking them breads.Pizza Frodymargherita
KC's take on the classic Neapolitan vegetarian pizza. KC was feeling emboldened here tonight, and who am i to say no to pizza?
first off, you need some gear for this:
Pizza Stone
this is a wonderful addition to your oven because you can bake all kinds of stuff right on it. particularly good for bread. if you dont have a stone, well, you could theoretically do this right on the rack, but it works better with the stone. even baking all around.
Pizza Peel
another useful tool for fetching hot foods from the oven. takes some practice to learn how to use it. neither KC and i have quite mastered it yet. we're still making a mess. if you dont have a peel, you can actually use an inverted baking sheet, or a flat sheet. you need something flat, basically.
this recipe makes 2 pizzas. so feel free to halve it if need be. or, just make more!
Crust!
2 pkg. active dry yeast
2 1/4C warm water
2 tsp sugar
1/4C olive oil
5 cups flour + extra for kneading, etc.
1 T sea salt
1. dissolve yeast in water, let stand 5 mins.
2. add sugar, oil, flour, salt and stir together until a rough ball forms.
3. scrape onto a floured surface and knead! knead! knead! 8-10 mins until dough is smooth.
4. form into a ball, transfer to light oiled ball, cover bowl w/ wrap or paper towel and let dough rise 1 1/2 hrs. it should double in bulk.
5. put pizza stone in oven, preheat to 500°. do this 30 mins before you bake to warm the stone.
6. take out happy risen dough, drop it onto floured surface, cut in half, roll each into a ball.
7. cover again in a bowl, let it rest 10 mins.
8. dust with flour, roll out with your giant 47 lb. rolling pin to about 12-14" in diameter.
9. flour up your pizza peel, transfer your pizza dough to it.
Toppings!
1C parmesan, grated
1C basil
2 lbs. Roma Tomatoes, diced
8 cloves garlic, diced
sea salt and fresh black pepper
1 lb. mozzarella, grated
10. add the toppings in that order, then drizzle 1T of olive oil over the top.
11. slide the pizza onto the stone, bake 10-15 mins.
SNARF! wow, that was good. basil and tomatoes has to be one of the happiest pairings in all of food. this turned out beautifully.
well, beautiful except that it wasnt quite a circle. our peel-and-stone technique needs some practice. but we only made one of the pizzas tonight, we'll save the other one for tomorrow after we get back from the deYoung.
my girlfriend rules. when i make my first bazillion dollars, my dream house is gonna have a rock oven in the backyard that gets up to like 900° so KC can bake everything. we'll put the rock oven right by the BBQ pit. when that happens, dinner will be at our place pretty much every night for the rest of time.
