the IDIOT

in my early 20s i was a dough fanatic, which fit in nicely with my italian food fanaticism. started out making pizzas, then switched to stromboli because i couldn’t get the pizza crust exactly how i wanted it, despite 2 or 3 different trend-o-gadgets and plenty of advice. used to make 6 or 8 in one shot, then fridge or freeze them. quit messing with the dough when i lived in the woods w/o running water (too much cleanup), but i kept making sauce from scratch, for spaghetti.

over the last couple of years i’ve had plenty of time and opportunity to mature my sauce methods. on another front, a few days ago i got the sourdough bug bad. i’ve never made it, but i first read about it last fall in montana. if you’re not familiar with sourdough, you may be surprised that many sourdoughs out there are direct, continuous descendents (allegedly anyway) from decades-old batches. you keep growing the yeasties and bacteria, taking half for a new batch of bread, and replacing it with fresh flour and water that quickly feeds the multiplying horde and replaces what was taken. this constantly feeding source is called sourdough starter. regularly-used starters may be left unrefrigerated, apparently because standard food rot is repelled by the alcohol the yeasties make (and probably some other microbe-inhospitable stuff, but i think alcohol’s the main one).

perhaps one of the most noted of the ancient starters is “carl griffith’s 1847 oregon trail sourdough starter“. it’s said to have been kept alive since 1847. you can send an SASE for a free portion to continue the family, or you can try making your own starter from scratch (what i intend to do).

not being much of a kitchen wiz since those early days, i figured starting with pizza would get me back in the groove, followed by maybe a couple of other plain breads before tackling sourdough. bought a pile of baking staples this evening, then set to flinging flour.

these days i have a better idea of what makes a good pizza sauce. i base it on my latest spaghetti sauce recipe, but tilt the spice balance in favor of oregano, and thicken it up just a bit. threw in tons of fresh cilantro for tonight’s batch. man, did it light the fire! easily one of my best sauces.

a note about pizza dough: yesterday i looked on the internet for classic pizza dough recipes. found i already knew the classic recipe, but i also noticed a strange thing about much of the discussion at bread places. there will be 3 or 4 pizza recipes with catchy names, and then people review them after trying. i read the reviews before the recipe, so i was getting all excited, thinking i’d stumbled onto the magic pizza dough deal. these people were going crazy about these recipes! then i look at it, and it’s just your standard pizza recipe, maybe with a little wheat flour or some similar brainless tweak thrown in here and there. what a bunch of bunk. same thing happens with standard breads.

and some reviewers will be talking about “it was stickier than i’d like, blah blah blah.” what kind of cooking schlubb measures stuff out? i don’t measure a thing — you just make it like it needs to be made for your mood and the atmosphere. the constant changing of it is one of the best parts of cooking. anybody who makes dough from scratch knows that the water/flour proportions are really ballparks, especially since you’re usually adding flour when kneading, punching, and molding.

in the same way, i’ve learned that recipes don’t always need to be mixed to consistency. variation in bites can be a great aspect of a dish. years ago a friend of mine was eating crabs in our friend’s garage. right in the middle he bellowed, “that there… was the best damn bite of crab i ever ate.” i knew what he meant, and i say the same thing sometimes. isn’t it great when a bite comes out of nowhere and knocks you on the floor? happens a lot with sandwiches, since they often vary from bite to bite.

i used to make my pizza and stromboli with mostly wheat flour, but i changed it tonight to see if i could mimic a standard pizzeria pizza. there’s something about bright white dough that bugs me though, so i tossed in some flaxseed to break it up. sure was nice to get back in the saddle, smelling that yeast fill the kitchen, then later the same smell mixed with gobs of olive oil. two good rises, and i had that springy, badass pizza dough of the ages.

in my 20s we didn’t have the presto pizza pizzazz, something i picked up when it first came out about 5 years ago, since i was living in a garage with no oven or stove. had only made frozen pizzas until this week, but i checked on the internet and people have reported good results with fresh. the pizza pizzazz is one of those gimmicky-looking deals that turns out to rock steady. i just love it. even though i’m living in a house with a good oven now, i still was using it to cook rising crust frozen pizzas. much better than what you get from a regular oven. one of the best things about the pizza pizzazz is that you can turn on the bottom heating element, the upper, or both, which is essential when dealing with a unique thickness of pizza. hard to blow it when you can put your face right up to the pizza while it’s cooking. i even picked off some of the crust while it was cooking, to make sure it wasn’t raw dough, but just on the border as dough freaks adore.

so here’s my first fresh pizza in many years, and my first on the pizza pizzazz. it turned out exactly
how i wanted. told one of my housemates that if a local restaurant made pizza like that, i’d go bankrupt. so few restaurants make pizza i like anymore. i love a huge, undercooked crust, sauce with big chunks of tomato, not so much cheese, and a healthy dusting of flour around the crust. as i’m typing this, i just realized i left off the onions i’d planned to add, but it’s all for the best. couldn’t have been happier with this batch. going to have another slice shortly.

will probably make pizza for the house in a day or two, and that will mean i have to ease up on the dough, cook it more thoroughly, and glob on the cheese (or else listen to people bitch about how it “should” be, as they’re downing multiple slices of free pizza).
i’ll continue with the seasoned ground beef, which is one of my fave toppings. maybe with the thinner crust i can slap a mess of onions on there without hitting the upper element of the pizza pizzazz. tonight’s pizza took it right to the edge.

probably nothing can cook like a real pizza oven, but this gizmo has me in pizza nirvana anyway. the key is variation, i think. next time i might slow down and also grate in some pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano. what to grate with? this, this, or this. can’t beat ‘em.

Tags: montana, pizza, spaghetti

Posted 20050721 23:26 under food, hints from pigloise. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are closed.