Today for lunch, we made pizza. Everything turned out mostly OK.
Dough Recipe
- 6 cups flour
- 3 cups lukewarm water
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon yeast
Mix together sugar, water, and salt (which I forgot) and sprinkle yeast on top and let it bloom. Dump or sift the flour into the largest bowl you have access to (or straight onto your counter if you don't mind making a mess) and make a hole in the center of the flour. Slowly add the water/yeast mixture into this well, mixing thoroughly. When the dough starts to come together, knead by hand until it's smooth.
Cover the dough with a little olive oil, to keep it from sticking to everything, and leave it to rise in a warm place for 15 minutes to half an hour. You should pre-heat your oven to 500 F, so I used the counter next to the oven.
(For those of you who don't get Jonathan Coulton references ... my kneading theme music.)
Pizza Fixin's
Wil helpfully provided bell peppers and onions. I wanted a Margherita pizza, so I had fresh basil and slices of mozzerella.
Sauce
- small (213ml) can of general-purpose tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- salt and pepper
MIx it all together, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and let it simmer for 5 minutes or so. Then take it off the heat and let it cool down a bit before putting it on your pizza.
Prior to adding spices.
Prep Work
We had enough dough for 5 small pizzas. It probably could have been 6. Or two medium sized. Or one really large.
Cooking
Bake at 500 F for 15 to 20 minutes. Or, as we discovered, for 40 minutes if you've put too many pans in the oven at once preventing hot air from getting to the top of the oven where it can properly brown your pizza. Switching the pans to different levels sped things up ... but the crusts ended up a bit tougher than I'd like.
Not the best pizza I've made, but they still turned out pretty delicious. It took far too long to make this a regular thing, but cooking at work can be pretty fun.