tercestisi

So I just made this last night; a staple food in the household. I hand make the dough and sauce. All ingredients are Organic and as fresh as possible; I make it in a standard oven with two baking stones, one below and one above the pizza. This pizza will come out similar to a deep dish pizza you'd find a local pizza parlor but 20x better!

Dough/Crust:
1 c. warm water (100F)
3g cake yeast or 1 tbsp dry active yeast
2 tsp sugar (for the yeast)
2-3 c. flour
1 tbsp oil (I use olive oil or safflower oil)
1/2 tsp fine sea salt

So, if you've never made bread or pizza dough before I'll give you a quick run through. First find a large bowl, I use a wooden bread bowl but a stainless steel bowl will work well. In that bowl add the 1 c. warm water (100F), do add slightly warmer water than this if using a stainless steel bowl as the metal will absorb some of the heat. To this water add the yeast and the sugar and mix; let stand for 10 minutes. After the wait, add the oil and 2 c. of flour and mix, adding the salt while you mix. After the 2 c. are added, continually add small 1/4c. amounts of flour until the dough is solid enough to scrape out of the bowl. Once out of the bowl start kneading the bread with your hands whilst adding 1/8 cups of flour. We want to get the dough to a point where it's soft, firm and well... like they say: a baby's bottom. We do not want the dough too dry... so be careful adding the flour and err on the side of being too sticky. There will be a point where the dough just barely sticks to your fingers while kneading the dough... do not go any further than this. Pizza dough only needs to be kneaded for a short time.... 5 min tops. After kneading, lightly oil a bowl, put the bread in the bowl and cover it with a damp towel or parchment paper or whatever, as this is just pizza dough and not artisan bread. Now while it rises a bit we will make the sauce.

Sauce:
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 6 fluid ounces warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2-1/2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes or 2 fresh chili peppers
• 1 diced large tomato
• salt to taste

Just mix this all in a bowl and let sit for 1/2-hour to develop flavors. While you wait for the sauce and bread to finish their timed duties, it is a good time to get your toppings together. I typically chop up a few onions, shallots, garlic cloves, peppers and the like and throw them on. Sometimes I'll fry up some spinach and eggplant in a butter sauce and add those too.

Now we're ready to assemble the pizza. Take the dough out of the bowl and punch it down. Take a rolling pin, add some flower to the pin, and roll it into a irregularly round pizza shape. What I do next is add corn meal to one side of the pizza dough as I make the pizza on a pizza peel so that I can slide it into the oven easier. If you're using a normal pizza pan, just lightly grease the pan instead. After I add the corn meal, I flip the pizza over onto the peel, corn meal side down. Next I butter the entire other side of the pizza dough; this will greatly help you achieve that crust bottom to slightly doughy top effect of a deep dish style pizza. Next sprinkle sea salt all over the butter, focusing on a moderately heavy amount of salt around the edges to give a nice salty crust. Now spread your sauce on the pizza, add some cheese, add your toppings, add some more cheese and cook! I slide my pizza... which weights a good 10 pounds by now... onto my baking stone in the oven and let it cook at, yes, 420 for about 20 minutes.

Yum! Any questions, let me know.