Pizza Dough

By request.

Good pizza dough takes a while. There's no help for that. Think of it as a flat bread with toppings. You may think it's all about the cheese and sauce, but the crust--the flat bread--is a crucial flavor component. Bread takes a while. If it didn't, there wouldn't be an entire grocery store section devoted to mass produced (and often additive-laden) varieties for our convenience. It's not always expedient, but it isn't hard to make. Small children were once able to do this. It just takes a little practice, like tying your shoes. Once you get the hang of it, you don't even need a recipe.

That said, this is a recipe for the quickest way I know to make a decent pizza crust... and I've tried a lot of ways. It takes about 2 hours [most of it inactive for you while the yeast is working] and you can start this recipe days before or the morning of and keep it in the fridge, just bring it out a couple hours before you turn the oven on. The flavor comes from yeast development and fermentation, which is why great pizza places have dough going at all times. If you have a sourdough starter, it'll add a lot more flavor and you can still add the instant yeast if you want it to go faster.

If you think you might make pizza or any other bread more than once a year, this is well worth the ~$35 investment for a 14”x16” baking stone. [You can also throw the stone on the grill when it’s too hot to turn on the oven – May to October in central Texas.] A pizza peel is great, but a cookie sheet will work as well. Stretching the dough on parchment paper and removing it once the initial crust has formed (~7 minutes of baking) is significantly easier than flouring the bottom and praying it doesn’t stick when you try to slide it in.
Recipe: Pizza Dough

Makes 1 large, 2 medium or 4 individual pizzas
It's important to heat your stone completely; make sure you heat the oven to 450 degrees for thirty minutes before you start baking.

1 cup water, preferably distilled, warm but not hot (no more than 110-115 degrees)
2 1/2 cups flour, divided use, plus more for shaping crust
[use no more than 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour or more than 1/4 cup of rye flour]
1 teaspoon honey, sugar, or agave nectar
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (1 envelope) or 1 cup starter
olive oil (or cooking spray) for oiling bowl, plus extra for brushing dough
parchment paper
Toppings (below)

1. Turn oven on to 200 degrees for ten minutes, then turn off. You can do this while you’re measuring out things, just be sure to set a timer because you don’t want the oven to actually reach 200 degrees... yeast dies around 117.
2. Mix 2 cups flour, water, sweetner, and table salt in bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook on low speed until no patches of dry flour remain, 3 to 4 minutes, occasionally scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Turn off mixer and let dough rest at least 17 minutes for gluten formation.
3. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over dough. Knead on medium speed for 5 minutes until long strands form from the edges of the bowl to the hook (this is your gluten). Add remaining ½ cup flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until dough is glossy, smooth, and pulls away from sides of bowl, another 2-3 minutes. (Dough may only cling to the hook while mixer is on. When mixer is off, dough may fall back to sides.)
4. Coat a large bowl or stock pot with ~1 Tbs of oil, dump in dough and drizzle another ~1 Tbs oil over top. Flip dough over once so it is well coated with oil; cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place in warm oven until doubled in volume and large bubbles have formed, 40 minutes.
5. Remove dough from oven and turn oven on to 450 degrees. Turn out the dough onto a well-floured piece of parchment paper, dust top with flour and stretch it out to the desired size (or you can roll it out with a rolling pin. I won’t tell.). This will be a sticky dough, handle it gently. For a thinner crust, let it rest 10 minutes, then stretch it out further. If it tears, stop, squish it back together, let it rest, and avoid that area while stretching out the rest. [I also roll the edges over for a thin crust, just for something to hold onto in the final product.]
6. Brush entire crust with olive oil. This is also a moisture barrier to keep the sauce from sogging your dough. Add toppings. Drape with plastic wrap until oven is ready.
7. Slide pizza (with parchment) onto stone, pulling the peel back with a quick jerk. Bake 7 minutes or until crust is set, then insert the peel between crust and parchment and lift the crust enough to pull the parchment out. Continue baking until cheese is completely melted and starting to bubble and brown, another ~5-7 minutes.
Pizza Toppings
JG and I use some combination of the following ingredients; whatever’s on hand.

Pizza Sauce [with variations]:

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced or sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3/4 lb tomatoes
or 3/4 lb tomatillos, husked and chopped,
or one 14 oz can of dices tomatoes or a can of Rotel with chiles,
or a jar of salsa: green, red, chipotle, whatever
salt & pepper to taste
red pepper flakes, oregano, basil, anchovy fillet or a squirt of anchovy paste (all optional)

Saute garlic until golden, add tomatoes or variants and mash with spoon or spatula, add salt and spices. Simmer until almost all of the liquid evaporates.

Or…
Mince garlic fine, sautee in 2 tablespoons olive oil, and use this oil on the dough before topping, sauceless.

Cheese:

Fresh mozzarella and parmesan are our primary cheeses (~4:1) and then maybe gruyere, or cheddar, or crumbles of fresh goat, or dollops of gooey bleu; no more than a cup total… super cheesy pizza is a waste of other good ingredients… but if you want that, use fontina. (Italian is better than Swiss) and a little parm.

Veggies:

The more the merrier!

Caramelized White or Red Onion. During ~20 minutes before kneading dough, thinly slice, toss with olive oil in a skillet over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until rest of pizza is ready.
Roasted Cherry Tomatoes or Bell Pepper Strips. During ~20 minutes before kneading dough, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, throw in a toaster oven at 275 degrees until rest of pizza is ready.
Shake pan occasionally.
Fresh Tomatoes, Onions, or Shallots. Slice them very thin so they’ll cook quickly.
Arugula. Peppery; scatter a couple handfuls on raw. Definitely top with cheese to hold it on.
Spinach. Good raw, better wilted. The leaves glop together, so you have to pull them apart and kind of smear them across the pizza.
Sun Dried Tomatoes. Chop into strips or dice. Use the oil in place of regular oil on the crust.
Mushrooms. We usually saute, but you can just slice them thin. Thyme and mushrooms belong together.
Olives. Kalmata or nicoise meld with the other flavors best, but assertive green olives have their place.
Basil. Whole leaves work if baked with toppings, scatter raw chopped basil after it comes out of the oven.

Meats:

Usually on top of the cheese so it gets a little crispy. Use sparingly if at all.

Prociutto. Our favorite. Keep a hunk in the freezer (a charcuterie no-no) and shave off maybe .5 ounce at a time.
Ham or Canadian Bacon. Slice thin, or dice and pan fry.
Pork, Lamb, or Chicken Sausage. Pre-cook and sliced thin or crumbled.
Pepperoni or Spanish (hard) Chorizo. Spicy. Slice thin.

Brown Rice Risotto

You can make risotto with brown rice. It's delicious. It's healthy. It's harder to overcook than arborio because you'll always have tooth from the bran, but it can be just as creamy. It takes a little longer so it helps to plan ahead a little, but you don't have to actually do anything for most of it... and if you have a pressure cooker* it goes even faster. It doesn't have to look as emphatically brown as it does in the pictures; that's just from my mushroom broth.***
Recipe: Brown Rice Risotto

You do need to find short-grain brown rice, generally Japanese, because long- or medium- won't give off the starches you need. I've been able to buy it at a variety of grocery stores; if it's not in the regular rice section it's usually in the pan-Asian section.

2 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cups short-grain brown rice [I use Nishiki brand]
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup dry white wine or vermouth [don't use Martini & Rossi; their dry vermouth has an off flavor for cooking]
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock or broth [divided use]***
1 Tsb fresh herbs or 1 tsp dried [optional]
1 cup veggies [optional]
1/2 cup good Parmeasan, grated
at least 1 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper or to taste

Saute onions in a large pan, pot, or small Dutch oven over medium high heat until onions begin to become translucent ~5 minutes. In a separate pot or in the microwave, heat 5 cups of stock until steamy [near boiling]. Add rice, stir thoroughly to coat with oil and saute until they start to pop, another 3-5 minutes. [You'd usually cook the arborio until it becomes translucent but that doesn't work with brown rice.] And garlic and stir until fragrant, ~1 minute. Pour in wine or vermouth and scrape up any stuck bits [called "fond"] from the bottom of the pan.

Stir off and on until almost completely evaporated, then add 5 cups of stock and stir until it starts to boil. Add herbs, if using, cover pot, and reduce heat to medium low/low. Cook 50 minutes, checking occasionally to make sure rice is just barely boiling. Meanwhile, blanch or saute veggies, if using, and set aside.

As the time on the rice winds down, heat the remaining 1 cup of broth. Uncover rice. At this point, it should look fairly standard brown rice with a little extra broth... some of this is actually starch. Turn up heat to medium and stir frequently until broth is almost gone, then add 1/2 cup of the remaining stock and, again, stir until broth is almost gone. [At this point you may think you have a lot of liquid left, but most of it is your delicious risotto starchey goo. The way I tell is by scraping the bottom of the pan with a (heatproof) rubber spatula. The rice and goo should fill back in the space as one; if liquid fills the space before the rice, you've still got more to go.]

Add last 1/2 cup of stock, any veggies, salt, and pepper. Stir well, etc. Off heat, add the parm, stir to melt, and check for seasoning. Serve hot, topping with additional grated parm and cracked black pepper.
*If you have a pressure cooker, reduce total stock to 4 1/2 cups. Add 3 1/2 cups to rice after cooking down vermouth. Seal and cook at pressure for 20 minutes. Continue with directions above using remaining 1 cup stock.

**My favorite is to make a mushroom stock by nuking 1/2 an ounce of dried porcini mushrooms in 2 cups of water for 3 minutes. Strain out solids, mince, and throw back into stock. Add a tablespoon of soy sauce for extra umami and use hot water for the balance of the liquid component. This is great base for a variety of earthier risottos, but is fantastic with roasted or sauteed baby bella [cremini], button, or sliced portabella mushrooms as the veggie. Use thyme for this variation. Thyme and mushrooms are beautiful together.

***You can use any chicken/veggie stock you like, just make sure it's something you'd be willing to eat as soup. You can also puree part of your vegetable component and add it to the stock at the beginning of the covered cooking time. This works great with asparagus. I puree the big fat ends for the stock and save the prettier tops to add at the end.

Whole-Wheat Pie Crusts...

...for all your Thanksgiving pie and quiche needs. This uses a great ATK discovery of alcohol for non-gluten forming flour hydration and it evaporates during baking, so you won't harm any children with it; and by completely combining the butter with half the flour, you get more even fat distribution for flakiness. Pro chefs I know look at me like I'm crazy when they see me make pastry this way, but it works. You can roll it out multiple times if you must and it will stay tender and flaky. I highly recommend using bourbon for pecan or pumpkin pie crusts and rum for meringues.

Recipe: Never Fail Whole Wheat Pie Crust


(makes 2 crusts)
I use a combination of whole-wheat flour and whole-wheat pastry flour, but you can use either/or. I also brown half my butter [and I use only butter... I did have olive oil trans-fat free shortening but it went bad. If you have some that's still good, feel free to sub ~4-8 tablespoons.]

16 tsb butter cut into med. dice
1 1/4 cup flour [ whole-wheat or all-purpose]
2 tsb sugar (for dessert crusts; omit for quiches)
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup pastry flour [preferably whole wheat]
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup vodka [or whiskey, bourbon, rum]

2 1-gallon Ziploc-type bags
1/4 cup flour for work surface

in a food processor:
Combine first 4 ingredients and process until it gets very clumpy or forms a ball. Add pastry flour and pulse to distribute. Add liquids and pulse until just combined. Divide evenly into 2 zippered bags and press each with the heel of your palm to form a cohesive disk [or dump into pie plate and pat into place!]. Refrigerate at least 20 minutes.

To roll out: Flour your counter or pastry cloth. Open the Ziploc and cut down the sides of the bag, pull away one side, and flip dough onto work surface. Roll out until at least 1.5” larger than the top of the pie plate. Fold dough over rolling pin to transfer to the dish, and gently push dough into bottom corners of the plate. With scissors, trim excess to no more than 1” and pop it back into the fridge to cool for ~5 minutes. Once it’s firmed up a bit, roll/fold the excess crust underneath, making the edge flush with the plate. Crimp edges or smash with a fork, peanut butter cookie style. Fill or parbake according to your recipe.
or by hand:
Pre-measure all your ingredients and set them around you (your hands will be messy and you won’t want to open any cupboards). In a large mixing bowl, combine first 4 ingredients and squish them together with your fingers until mostly uniform… a few blobs of butter are okay. Break dough into nickel-sized clumps and sprinkle remaining pastry flour over. With the heel of your hand, flatten out most of the clumps against the bottom of the bowl and toss with the dry flour. Sprinkle vodka and most of water over dough. Stir it around with your fingers and lightly squeeze it into the dough until you have a fairly cohesive mass. If the dough is still dry, add remaining water and combine. Divide evenly into bags and press each with the heel of your palm to form a cohesive disk. Refrigerate at least 20 minutes before rolling out as above.
Variations:
Brown butter -- in a skillet until the milk solids turn a nutty brown color. Pour into a small bowl and chill ~ 3 hours to resolidify. This will make for a very tender crust with much smaller flakes.
Spice -- add a tiny pinch of nutmeg and a bigger pinch of allspice to flour for dessert pies or finely ground black pepper and herbs (sage, thyme) for savory pies.