Pizza 101

Pizza dough:

Whole-wheat flour – 1 ½ cup
All purpose flour – 1 ½ cup
Extra virgin olive oil – 1 tbsp
Salt – to taste
Yeast – 1 ½ tsp
Warm water – 1 cup
Sugar – ¼ tsp

Take ¼ cup of warm water in a cup. Add sugar and yeast. Mix with a spoon until the yeast and sugar dissolve. Keep it in a warm place. The yeast will become active in about 5 to 10 minutes. You need to use good quality yeast to get good results. The best tool in the kitchen, your hands, is all what you need to make a good pizza dough. But I used a food processor. Add flour, salt and olive oil to the food processor bowl and run it for 30 seconds. Add more warm water to the yeast water to make it one cup. With the food processor running, pour the water slowly through the opening of the food processor cap. The flour will slowly form dough in a couple of minutes. Once it starts forming dough, turn the food processor off, and pulse it a few more times. Add more water if needed. Take out the dough from the food processor, and press it to a ball shape using your hands. Smear olive oil over the dough ball and place it in a large mixing bowl. Cover it with a clean damp kitchen towel. Keep it in a warm place to rise. After an hour, check the dough. It would have doubled its size. Punch it down and let it rise for another 45 minutes covered in a warm place.

You may substitute whole wheat flour with all purpose flour. But adding whole wheat flour makes it more nutritious and tasty.

Place the dough on a flat surface. Sprinkle the dough and the rolling pin with flour.

Roll out into desired shape and thickness. For me, this recipe will make 3 medium size pizza crust, not so thin, not so thick. If I have leftover dough, I refrigerate in a zip lock bag and use it the next day. I have heard that it freezes well too, but I haven’t tried it yet. You can make focassia or pizza pockets/calzone using the same dough.

Tomato sauce:

You can use a store bought tomato sauce or pizza sauce. Easy cheesy!!
You can also make homemade tomato sauce. I use this recipe of Giada De Laurentiis’ to make a simple tomato sauce. For using in the pizza, you may add dried herbs to this sauce.

Simple Tomato Sauce: (Tomato sauce Recipe Courtesy: Giada De Laurentiis)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
2 dried bay leaves
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, optional
In a large casserole pot or Dutch over, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add celery and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and bay leaves and simmer uncovered on low heat for 1 hour or until thick. Remove bay leaves and check for seasoning. If sauce still tastes acidic, add unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon at a time to round out the flavors.
Add 1/2 the tomato sauce into the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Continue with remaining tomato sauce. If not using all the sauce, allow it to cool completely and pour 1 to 2 cup portions into freezer plastic bags. This will freeze up to 6 months.

Spread the tomato sauce evenly on the rolled out pizza crust.

Toppings:
The variety of toppings you can put on a pizza is endless. Onion, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, pineapple, fresh tomato, fresh basil, minced garlic, sautéed mushrooms, meat cut into small cubes and precooked with your favorite marinade, ground meat, toasted tofu, black olives, green olives, fresh or dried herbs……..try fish or shrimps if you dare. This is the first time I have tried tofu. I marinated tofu cubes in salt and pepper, and toasted it in a skillet greased with olive oil.

Today's toppings: Red onion, Red pepper, Green pepper, Tofu marinated in salt and pepper and toasted in EVOO, minced garlic, dried basil, and black olives.

Add the toppings over tomato sauce.

Sprinkle mozzarella cheese, or pizza cheese evenly over the toppings. You can use less cheese if you are dieting, or make it extra cheesy by adding more cheese.
It is good to have a pizza stone for baking the pizza, a pizza peel for transferring the pizza to the oven and to remove pizza from the hot oven, and a pizza cutter for cutting the pizza. A baking stone will give you a nice crispy crust. If you don’t have one, you can try a big cast iron skillet, or a cookie sheet.
Place the pizza stone on the center rack of the oven and preheat it to 475 degree F. It is important that you preheat the oven at least 30 minutes before baking the pizza. Don’t put the pizza into a cold oven and start it. It won’t come out right. Transfer the prepared pizza to the pizza stone and bake it for 8 to 12 minutes. The time varies depending on the performance of your oven. So watch it carefully while you make it the first time. The pizza is ready when the cheese is all melted, and the crust turns golden brown around the edges.

Pizza cut into wedges, and ready to serve!

A special pizza with just olives for my olive loving(and onion hating) daughter.