Making Pizza: Looks Lousy…Tastes Great
Some people are really good with handling dough and making it do what they want it to do. I’m not one of them. Perhaps I will get better with practice so, for now, I’m concerned less about aesthetics and more about taste.
After making a pletzel, I realized that it wasn’t difficult to get a good crust that could be used to make other things like…pizza. Purists may turn their nose up at the ingredients I’ve used to make pizza but…the result is great and if you are pressed for time, it doesn’t take long to put this all together. You need about 15 minutes preparation and cooking time is 15-18 minutes.
Ingredients
- Shredded Mozzarella cheese (you’ll need about 4 ounces)
- Tomato Sauce (the Barilla marinara sauce has a good consistency for pizza sauce)
- Dough (many stores sell either fresh or frozen pizza dough)
- Pepperoni or whatever other topping you like (mushrooms, sausage (should be precooked), etc.)
- Other items: baking pan or stone. If you use a baking pan, use parchment paper.
Ingredients for the Pizza: cheese, sauce, dough and pepperoni
Instructions
- Struggle with the damned dough (which will fight you) to get it into a shape that will work for you. Since I’m using a baking pan I sort of aim for a rectangular shape.
- Pizza dough often requires that you use a lot of flour to keep it from sticking to everything. You’ll want to make sure you sprinkle a nice amount of flour on the dough, on your work surface, rolling pin (if you use one) and a bit on your hands.
- I use a rolling pin, at least initially, to get it to stretch out but the final shaping is done by hand.
- The dough may become easier to work with once it comes to room temperature.
- You need to create a ridge along the outside of the pizza. It can be very small but enough of a “bump” that cheese and sauce won’t dribble out during the baking process. I create the bump by pinching the edges of the dough and, well, making a little bump/ridge.
- You’ll bake the pizza at 450 degrees F for about 15 -18 minutes. Important: after it has been in the oven about 10 minutes, grab a sharp knife, open the oven, and stab any bubbles that are forming. They can get to be VERY large.
For GREAT looking pizza, see this post!
Remember...I'm worried more about good taste and LESS about good looks.
Once I got the dough on the pan, I shaped it a bit more.
My kitchen helpers. Always Alert. Ready for anything that may fall off the kitchen table or counter top.
So...here's the sauce on the pizza. I put about four to five tablespoons of sauce and spread it out thin using the back of a soup ladle.
Can ya guess this one? Yes...it is the cheese.
Then, finally, the pepperoni. I cut the pepperoni into little pieces.
Voila! All done! Takes about 15-18 minutes.
A nice slice! You'll need to let the pizza cool down for about five minutes and PLEASE purchase a high quality pizza cutter.
If you are ambitious you may want to check this out on Foodista.
Interesting article from the NY Times: The Slow Route to Homemade Pizza
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