Om nomie pizza margherita
August 24, 2008

Oh my, I made some definitely delicious pizza tonight. It was totally unlike anything that you could get from Pizza Hut or even Green Mill here in St. Cloud. It was light, crispy and totally focused on bringing out the flavors of the ingredients used. There was a heavy focus on using minimal quantities of everything to let all the ingredients stand out in flavor. The basics were an awesome crust, fresh mozzarella & goat cheese, basil, tomatoes and olive oil. Its a surprisingly simple dish to make, but there's a lot of waiting since there's dough involved.

Ingredients

• 4 Tomatoes
• Basil
• FRESH Mozzarella
• FRESH Goat Cheese
• Flour
• Olive Oil
• Water

Method - Dough

This is what will make this an awesome pizza instead of a mediocre pizza. Making dough by hand yields such a totally different and high quality flavor and texture that its more than worth it to make. Its a darned simple process to boot; the only thing you'll need to give it is some time.

To start off with, take some quick-acting yeast and "proof" it. To do this, take about a teaspoon of yeast (at room temperature!!), two teaspoons of sugar and about a quarter cup of warm (80F or so) water and mix 'em together. The yeast is inactive when refrigerated and is totally desiring delicious sugar for food when it wakes up at the 80F point. Its going to start eating the sugar, and pewping out air which will act to leaven or expand your dough.

Your yeast will take about ten minutes to proof, which is just about enough time to start working on the bulk of your dough. Take about a cup or two of flour and plop it in the biggest bowl you have. Now, start adding water (I think about a cup in the end) and incorporating with a fork until it starts getting a bit shaggy all around. Its totally a "feel" measurement on this one since there's so many factors. Bottom line, make sure its all one cohesive piece, but not totally wet and gooey.

Once you've got your flour + water combo set, your yeast should be proofed. It'll smell pungent and the yeast bits should be visibly larger than when you started out. Go ahead and pour it in to the dough, making sure not to make it too wet. If it starts to look wet and separated, add more flour to compensate. You want something wet but not dripping and with visible liquid. I like to mix in some olive oil while working with the dough to make it extra tasty.

Coat your hands in flour and start moving this fella around. You want to make the yeast feel at home and start getting it to breath life into your new dough. Not hard, just push it and start shaping it into a ball then plop it back in its bowl.

Stick this bowl in a warm place (75F did it for me) for about 8 hours or so. This dough is the start of any good bread product. From here, you could spread it very thin and make some naan or make it into a giant loaf for some out of this world bread. But now, we're going to stick with pizza. This. Is your dough.

Method - PIZZA!

This is the easiest part. Preheat your oven to as high as it will go. Mine goes at 450F, but I hear that 500F is the stellar point.

While your oven is heating, take your dough (which should have increased dramatically in size) out of its hiding place and place it on a well floured surface (you floured your hands too, right?). Start kneading it, moving it, spreading it, compacting it, and generally making everything shift around. Don't stir it, you want surface composure, but start making it change shape for about five minutes or so. Keep everything well floured as your working, as sticking will generally suck.

After working your dough a bit (you're getting delicious texture and causing more distribution in the air pockets) you're going to want to start spreading it out to about a 1/3inch thick flat surface. Keep in mind that this will almost double in the oven when determining how thick you want your delicious pizza.

Take the edges and start folding them over to make a little bowl that your ingredients will go in. This will be the container for your condiments which will enhance the awesomeness of your dough. I find that a rectangle pizza is generally easier to work with, just because of American cooking tools.

Once you've got your edges folded and your oven preheated, give the pizza a nice drizzle of olive oil all over. This will add some delicious flavor as well as improve the color.

You're going to bake this at your highest temp for about 20 minutes or so. You're looking for the beginnings of black spots before you remove your crust. Don't be tempted to remove it before then, the best traditional New York and Chicago pizzas have tons of "burn" spots which indicate awesome and complete done-ness.

While this is going, begin slicing your toppings. Slice your tomatoes super-thin, ditto for the onions. Get copious amounts of basil ready and unpackage your cheeses. Don't forget to crack that can of stewed tomatoes!

Once your crust has finished you'll begin adding your toppings. Keep that oven going! Take a spoon and ladle a very small layer of tomato sauce over the entire inside of the delicious crust bowl. This'll make the whole thing moist and delicious. Place your tomatoes in a thin layer and SPARINGLY apply each of the two cheeses. Seriously, leave about an inch between each of the bits of cheese. You're going to want more mozzarella than goat because the goat cheese is overpowering.

Put this back in the oven and let it go for about 10 to 15 minutes. Check it sparingly and once you see some dark spots developing add your basil and coat it with some olive oil. You want black on your pizza, or it aint done. The little spots of black let you know that everything has incurred the high heat wrath of a good oven and will yield the most delicious pizza possible.

Conclusion

Drizzle some high quality olive oil over the finished pizza (if you do it while cooking, you cook out the tasty qualities of a high quality oil - *never* use a high quality oil before cooking as its a waste). Cut it up, and enjoy the delicious!

I hope that this ends up being a delicious pizza for you! Since you're seeking minimalism in the condiments, I believe that this will end up being a very low acid pizza which capitalizes on the flavors brought out by high heat cooking. Om. NOM!

My wife is back from vacation, which means that the camera is back from taking pictures in South Carolina! This means that further cooking posts will probably have some pictures associated with them ala my cabbage rolls.

Tomorrow is fried chicken so look out for some extra goodness!