Friday, October 5, 2007
This is my fourth try at pizza using Peter Reinhart's recipe. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. The recipe makes enough dough for six small, very thin-crust pizza; I made one and put five in the freezer. This time I was able to stretch the pizza dough paper thin without making big holes in it (lots of resting time seems to be the key here), and the crust was crispy all over, even in the middle (baking it directly on the pizza stone is the secret for this).
My last box from the Crop Share program brought a plenitude of onions and spinach, so I caramelized four onions, and then, when the onions were brown and very reduced, I added some garlic and spinach, cooking the spinach in olive oil until it too had reduced. I scattered that all over the dough, and topped with oil-cured black olives and diced feta. Then I sprinkled a little pecorino romano on top of that. Instead of the "bake stone" setting, I used "convection-bake." In just eight minutes (550 is very hot!), it was done. In fact, it was almost overdone, and moving quickly toward burnt. But, although it was a little too dark to be truly photogenic, it was the best so far. Jim and I had to fight each other over the last piece. Never mind who won.
4 comments:
wow, it looks scrumptious! was it crispy? the idea of stretching the dough paper thin without holes FRIGHTENS me. no way would i be able to do that. and how spectacular for the convection bake oven!! i so wish i had something like that. everything looks delicious! maybe i'll try making my own dough soon.
ohh, I like the dark edges best! The topping sounds so good too. I haven't tried making Peter's or Rose's recipes yet. I must do that, now I have the baking stone, books, etc.
i would bet that you shared that last piece! :)
it does look scrumptuous!
Pinknest,
The first time I tried to stretch out the pizza dough, it was laughable. It got huge holes in it, and every time I tried to patch them, they got bigger. I've seen pictures of your beautiful pastry--you'd be a natural with this pizza dough! If I make about 100 more pizzas, I'll get good at it.
It was super-crispy and delicious!
Melinda,
You and PinkNest are both better with small muscle coordination than I am--your pizza dough would be great. I grew up with one kind of pizza--pepperoni. Sausage and mushroom if we were really feeling adventurous. Now that I've realized that any combination of good things will be even better on a pizza, it's been very liberating.
Jini,
The sad truth is that I took the last piece. Even though it was practically Jim's birthday, and he's way older than I am. I still selfishly took it for myself.
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