Archived entries for pizza

More Pizza: A Few Toppings

I don’t have exact measurements for you today, or much of a method beyond what I mentioned earlier in the week, but I wanted to share two more pizzas we made and loved.

The first was more or less a margherita…a smear of sauce, a few coins of fresh mozzarella, and a scattering of onions and red chilies. Throw fresh basil on after you remove it from the oven so it doesn’t scorch and you get the full flavor.

Nothing wrong with a classic. But at some level, the point of making pizza at home is to experiment with toppings, to put things on your pizza that you might not be able to get at your local pizza joint.

Hypothetically, if you happen upon the mushroom man at the farmer’s market, and he happens to have cute little half-pints of fresh chanterelles, you should probably pick them up. Buy an ear of corn, too, and when you get home, slice the mushrooms up a bit and sauté them. In butter. We’re not messing around. When they’re nicely cooked, add the kernels cut from the raw ear of corn and remove from the heat.

After you’ve spread out your dough into a nice round, thin circle, brush with a little garlic oil, then add your mushrooms and corn, sprinkling with fresh goat cheese, thyme leaves, pepper, and a little parmesan. Cook until the crust is crispy, which melts the cheese and roasts the corn a little.

Three pizzas in two days? “But Maggie,” you say, “isn’t that a lot of pizza?”

Oh, that’s not even the beginning. Shiv will take care of you next week—I’m off to Italy!

A Tale of Three Pizzas, Part One

It seems like everyone has pizza on the brain. Out in Seattle, new restaurant owners Molly (of Orangette fame) and her husband, Brandon are throwing Padron pepper pizzas into a wood fire at Delancey. Another one of my favorite couples-with-blogs just posted a three-part series of tips for grilled pizza that’s certainly worth a look. And here we are with a brand-new pizza crisper pan.

I was eager to try a crust recipe that the writer of Everybody Likes Sandwiches claims is “The Easiest Pizza Dough in the World.” It’s pretty straightforward, and quick enough to make after work with no advanced planning (as long as you have a packet of yeast in your fridge.) Seriously, I mixed the yeast with warm water and honey (accidentally adding a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon, though that was no disaster) and left the kitchen to take a shower. (It’s muggy in New York in August, in case you didn’t know.) Then I stirred in the flour and salt, olive oil, and a bit of fresh rosemary, and set it aside while I got dinner ready. The dough process literally takes about five minutes of active time—less than it would take for use to beg a ball of dough from our local pizzeria, which is literally on the ground floor of our apartment building. And certainly less than the time it would take to wait in the interminable lines at Whole Foods, or, God forbid, the Union Square Trader Joe’s. Suburbanites, you have no idea how we suffer for our TJ’s fix.

There’s a lot of yeast in this recipe, puffing it up just enough while you fix a salad and prep your pizza toppings. I didn’t feel like the dough benefitted from a longer rising time or wait in the fridge overnight—in fact, it developed much more gluten and was a little tricky to shape the leftover dough a day later—it kept bouncing back into its original form every time I tried to stretch it. Even without the long rise, even without any kneading, this was a terrific crust. I’m not sure I need to try any other.

I know a lot of you are devoted to pizza stones preheated for a long time in the stove. There may be a reason to have one. But this pizza crisper pan with holes across the bottom worked great for me, and is much easier to store in our teeny kitchen. It yielded a crisp, chewy crust that was totally easy to slide off the pan.

And the toppings? Delicious. I started with a spread of pumpkin purée that I spiked with a sprinkle of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. After the pumpkin, torn fresh sage leaves, crumbles of intense Bucheron cheese, and a sprinkling of smoked salt. It was a savory and satisfying vegetarian meal.

Want more pizzas? Coming right up.

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