WOPping Delicious Pizza

Like cake, I believe that pizza is the perfect food.  It is extremely versatile and can be made for everyone to enjoy.  I have yet to meet a person who does not like a good pizza.  I personally like a nice spicy pizza with some sort of hot peppers on it, some artichoke hearts, and some basil.  Said picky illiterate friend from the previous post will probably opt for cheese or pepperoni, sausage, meatball, turkey, hotdog pizza and my twin bearing sister will probably choose a pizza chock full of chocolate sauce, pickles, beets and hamburger.  Point being, pizza is a wonderful and ever expanding food that will generally always be delicious.

Now since pizza can pretty much be anything with some bread like thing, sauce and toppings, it will be difficult for me to cover them all.  So, I'm going to give you a recipe for a nice traditional Napoli pizza.

How about a nice lesson in pizza?

Pizza is from Italy.

Italy is a country in Europe.  It houses many "catholics" and the pope.  You can also find Mt. Vesuvius there and other such historical places that may or may not bore you to tears.  If you are feeling rowdy, you can hop on over to Africa and take your pizza hatin' chances there.

While Italy is many many many years behind the rest of the world, their food is far better quality and much better tasting than anything you will eat here.  Hence, PIZZA.

Now, there is traditional Napoli pizza which swam over to the east coast and is now reflected in America as being New Haven or New York style pizza.  Don't be fooled, there is really no such thing.  Since most people on the east coast are too busy styling their blowouts, trickin' out their sweet rides and spending their trust funds, they did not have time to create their own pizza so they stole it directly from the Italians and called it their  own.  Since they are the closest direct descendants of Christopher Columbus and his crew, stealing and culture annihilation seems to be in their blood.

There is also traditional Roman pizza, which tastes like shit and is now served to you in squares around the globe by places like Dominoes and such.  Again, don't be fooled because, while the pizza may represent something from Italy anything that contains mostly plastic and soybeans cannot be considered a pizza.

But I digress.  Lesson over.

PIZZA


For the dough, I use Peter Reinhart's Napoletana recipe, which I find very satisfying:


4 1/2 cup flour chilled
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast--this I often do not have, but usually  have active dry yeast, which you can also use
1/4 olive oil--this is said to be "optional"  but let's be nice and Italian and opt in
1 3/4 cup water, ice cold--about 40 degrees


Now, everything else is entirely up to you.  I have three things that I find incredibly important when making a good pizza:

1.) You need to dust your pan with cornmeal, which will add a nice light crunch and texture to the bottom of the pizza
2.) You never roll the edge of the crust, but always leave it flat like the rest of the pizza.  You then rub on some olive oil or, as I do, warm up some olive oil and butter in a pan with some garlic and wipe in on the crust
3.) Use fresh fresh fresh mozzarella and don't shred it.  That's disgusting.

On this particular day, I made two pizzas, one with fried seitan on it and the other with caramelized onions.  People are always prone to putting a lot of toppings on their pizza, but with a thin crust like this it is best to be sparse and simple.

First the dough:

This will have to be made ahead of time.  I usually make this on the weekends and use the dough throughout the week.

Here's what you do:

Stir the flour, salt and instant yeast together.  With a metal spoon (or if you are using a mixer, on low speed with a paddle attachment) mix in the oil and cold water until it is absorbed.  Then, you can either mix by hand by dipping your hand in water occasionally and mixing the dough like a bread hook would or you could just use a mixer with the hook attachment and put on medium speed.  I suggest the latter if you have the means.  Do this for about 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is mixed well, does not stick to the sides of the bowl but still sticks to the bottom of the bowl a little bit.  Take the dough and transfer it to a floured surface, cut the dough into 4-6 chunks (this will make 4-6 pizza doughs) and make them into balls.  Rub some olive oil around the balls, put on a pan, cover and throw it in the fridge over night.  You will be able to use these the next day and for many days after that.

Usually when I make this recipe, I end up eating pizza 4 or so times a week.  Which is delicious.

When it comes time to make the pizza, grab a chunk of dough and throw it on a floured surface.  Like so:

From here, you can either toss or roll it out.  Whichever is easiest for you.  Get this dough nice and thin (I mean THIN).  Then, toss it on a pan that has been sprinkled with some corn meal, like so:

For a wonderful crust, preheat your oven to as high as it goes.  The best pizza is made at a very high temperature.  If you can get it up to 800 degrees, DO IT.  My oven goes up to about 500 degrees, which is acceptable, but it's hard to find a decent oven here in the ghetto.

You can put whatever you want on your pizza.  I like to use anything that's old in my fridge.  Don't get too wild and put a lot of toppings on your pizza--that is left for a good deep dish.  This dough requires a scant amount of toppings, but will nonetheless be delicious.  I just put a vegetable or two and some mozzarella.

Throw it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes or until the pizza is done to your satisfaction and then BLAMO, you got yourself a pizza.

As expected, I have no AFTER picture because--as you might have noticed from my ripped pants of previous posts--I'm a hungry lady.

Either way, you'll know when it's done and time to eat pizza.

You'd make a wop, proud.