Food Strut Volume 12, Issue 5
G_Balliando
3,916 Posts
Ok, hip me to the realschitt pizza dough recipe, folks. I made some dough last night, it came out pretty good for a first try although I put too much salt in and not enough flour so it was salty. I got the texture close to what I like, but it was still a little bland. It went something like this:1 cup warm water with one TB olive oil, one tsp sugar, and 1 packet active dry yeast, activated.(I don't have an electric bowl mixer, so I use the manual method)3 cups of flour on a flat surface with a hole dug out the middle (like mashed potatoes with a hole for the gravy), poured yeast/water mixture into the whole and started stirring the flour into the water creating the dough. Kneeded by hand about 5 minutes, set the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let rise in a warm spot with plastic wrap over it. After about an hour and a half, I divided the dough and let it rest another half hour. Then I stretched it, topped it, baked it at 425 for about 18 minutes. What can I do to make the dough a little softer and a little more flavorful (but not like a flavored dough, just something to give it a little something more)? More olive oil and a little more sugar? Anyway, I topped this bad boy with some bootleg sauce (basically jarred pasta sauce force through a siv with some onion powder and oregano added), roasted red and orange bell peppers, fresh green bell peppers, caramalized onions, garlic, and hot italian sausage. And some mozzerella. It was quite tasty, aside from the dough being salty, a little tough, and a little lacking in flavor aside from the salt.Also, made a variation of a Stuffed Bell Pepper that was really fuckin' tasty. sauteed some onions and browned some ground italian sausage, added both in a large saute pan, added diced bell peppers (green and red), a little fresh garlic, and a can of diced tomatoes with hatch chiles. While that was simmerring, I made some long grain jasmine rice. When the rice was done, I added it to the sausage/veggie mixture and mixed it up and let it cook on low for a few minutes to allwo the rice to soak up a little flavor. Cut the top off some red bell peppers and blanched in lightly boiling water for about 3 or 4 minutes. Stuffed the pepper with the sausage/rice mixture, topped with mozzerella, baked at 350 for about 15 minutes. The whole thing took less than 45 minutes fro mprep to eating. Really tasty. It tastes like the equivalent of an italian sausage sandwich. Totally crushes the regular ground beef stuffed pepper, in my opinion.
Comments
Couldnt you just go to your local pizza parlour and cop some dough from them?
Or your local supermarket has frozen balls of dough. Not the packaged crust bullshit.
Do u want that "made from scratch" EXP?
For both first and second rise, I wait until the dough doubles in size before punching it down. I fold it over onto itself as many times as I can before the second rise, and then knead well before stretching it out to go on the pan. I cook it at 500 - the highest my oven goes. I cook it on the thinnest cookie sheet we have, which I leave in the oven while it heats up. This works for my tastes, but it does take a long time. I dont use too much sauce/cheese or extra ingredients, outside of some proscuitto, fresh basil, or other herbs. I dont know if this helps you very much, but maybe there is something in my method that will help yours.
There are worse things than doing trial-and-error with fresh pizza dough.
A girl I know is into the no-knead bread method of making pizza dough - the recipe for that is all over the intertubes. While I've baked bread with it, I've never tried using it for pizza dough. Might be something else to look into.
They say its the New York water which makes the bagel.
Sandwich the dough between a sheet of plastic wrap (top) and a sheet of parchment (bottom). Roll it just as thin as you want with a rolling pin, and then peel off the plastic wrap. Dress and bake the pie without ever removing the parchment from the bottom (on a pizza stone if you got one). When the crust turns golden brown around the edges, the parchment will magically release. The parchment that isn't covered by dough will turn a little brown along the way, by it's nothing to worry about.
This is real science that will elevate your game.
If your in Portland, you should try Bagel Land on 42nd & Fremont.
I heard there was a place here that imports NY water for their bagels but the name escapes me.
But about the dough, the toughness you speak of could be from over kneading. I'm not really positive of that but pastry gets tougher the more you work it so I assume quick breads might be the same. I've never added sugar , but I'm all for the cornmeal bottom.
the most important thing is handling the dough carefully and letting it grow.
mixing it up with your hands for at least five minutes will lead to superior results. at least for Italian style pizza it's unusual to let it grow two times.
however, the most important thing for excellent results is the oven, not the dough. If you don't have the possibility to heat it up to at least 300 degrees celsius or more, so that the pizza is ready in under five minutes, you will not achieve restaurant like results.
They close around 2-3pm depending if they have any left or not. They make excellent Challah as well.
I got to a point where I had to stop going for awhile because of the carb situation.
They make mini bagels for people like me, but no fancy flavors.
This is what I've been told too. Plus you I think you need to mix the regular flour with a bit of durum flour to get the crust just right if you are going for Italian style pizza. Or at least this is what I've been told. I never make pizza at home, because I know I don't have the proper oven for it.
Thanks, this interests me, will have to check it out. Always looking for a good challah too. Yeah Noah's are the best bagels I've found here thus far, but they are not as good as back home. Now the lack of decent pizza is another matter, I have yet to taste anything worthwhile, and I've been to Escape from NY or whatever it's called, but it was a letdown. A friend of my cousin's from Jersey is planning to open up a pizza shop in North Portland, maybe she'll nail it. No big deal, every area is different and the Northwest excels in other areas of food & drink, that's for sure.