This week I made Pizza! I had to follow recipes to make pizza dough (pg. 178) and tomato sauce (pg. 502) from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.
The pizza dough called for:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
I combined the flour, yeast, and salt into a food processor.
Then I turned on the machine and added the extra virgin olive oil and one cup of water.
I processed it until it formed a ball and was slightly sticky to the touch.
Then I turned the dough into a floured work surface and kneaded it by hand.
Then I put the dough in a bowl and covered it with plastic wrap so the dough could rise.
The tomato sauce called for:
- salt
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion
- 2 lbs tomatoes
- ground black pepper
I put oil in a skillet. When the oil was hot, I added the onion and cooked it until it was soft. Then I added the tomatoes and sprinkled it with salt and pepper.
I then cooked it until the tomatoes broke down. After the tomatoes broke down, I added tomato paste to thicken it. I then transferred it to a bowl and added some water to increase the volume and make it more saucy.
After that, I spread the pizza dough onto a baking sheet. Then I put the tomato sauce over it, sprinkled the cheese over it, and laid pepperoni over the cheese.
Then I baked it in the oven at 400F until it was done.
I think it turned out well, but I wasn't very fond of the tomato sauce. It turned out a lot better when I made it in class. The tomato sauce was made differently in class. In class we boiled it in a pot, and for this recipe I used a skillet. Also in this recipe I used onion. I think the tomato sauce may taste well if it was on pasta, but on pizza it didn't taste right...
I received some helpful tips from Rob about how I could make the crust better i.e. make it brown (mine was pretty white), so I thought I would post it on here in case anyone else was interested. His tips were:
ReplyDeleteGive the dough more time to rise (maybe a day),
Stretch the dough really thin (I could have made two pizzas with the dough I had),
and put olive oil on the stretched dough which also adds flavor.