Olive Oil Crackers with Sesame

People tend to be surprised that I make my own crackers, but they're easy, they're fresh, and they contain only what I put in them... and I can put all sorts of things in them, depending on my mood. Crackers are great on their own, but if I know I'm going to serve them with a specific cheese or dip or pate, I like to tailor the flavors to match.

Right now, JG and I have some amazing cheeses from Houston Dairymaids. My favorite is a creamy semi-ripe from grass-fed cows with a rich color and out of this world earthy flavor that merited a cracker with a little extra crunch.
Recipe: Olive Oil Crackers with Sesame
You can use a pizza wheel or fluted pastry wheel to make evenly-sized crackers. Be sure to cut all the way through the dough. They'll break easily along the score lines after they're cooled.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup bread (high-protein) flour [you can sub all-purpose or more whole wheat]
3/4 cup water

additional flour for rolling
1 egg
1/8 cup water
1 tsp white sesame
1 tsp black sesame
1/2 tsp brown mustard seed
cracked black pepper

Turn oven on to 400 F. In a large bowl, combine 1 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Drizzle oil over and squeeze through with your fingers until evenly distributed. Add remaining flour, stir briefly to distribute, and water. Stir, scraping sides, until dough ball forms. It's a pretty wet dough, so it'll be a little sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest 17 minutes. [The rest, called autolyse in baking, is crucial for gluten formation.]

Coat two cookie sheets with flour [or parchment paper and flour]. Divide dough in half, sprinkle with flour and roll out as thinly as possible, adding more flour when necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin. Repeat with second sheet. Whisk together the egg and water and brush over the dough [this makes the toppings stick. I just pour it on and smear it with my hand if I can't find a pastry brush]. Sprinkle seeds and pepper over dough and bake 15-18 minutes or until edges brown. The crackers will harden as they cool and they're easy to burn, so keep an eye on them. Once cooled, break apart into desired size.

Variations:
Use the oil from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in place of olive oil and add the tomatoes, chopped small, to the dough.
Use the brine from a jar of olives in place of water. Reduce or omit salt.
Use all whole-wheat flour and top with wheat germ.
Reduce water by 1 Tbs and replace with 1 Tbs soy sauce for more savory crackers. Reduce salt by half.

Xoconostle Jam

I base seasonality by what's available at my favorite Mexican-centric grocery store around the corner. Apples may be all the rage in New York right now, but I'm pretty pumped about the sour tunas from central Mexico. I'm going to be living in Boston by the next tuna season, so I'm going to can a bunch of my favorite tuna jam to take with me. Also known as prickly pears, tunas are the fruit of the nopale catus. The sweet ones that grown in Texas are a deep magenta (like red beet juice) and lovely, but I'm really in love with the sour ones, known as tuna agria in Spanish or Xoconostle for former Aztec region in Mexico where they grow. They're pale yellow and pink and not overwhemingly sour, just perfectly tart.

Tunas are high in soluble fiber and may help stablize blood sugar. Their pectin is being studied for its ability to lower bad choloestorol while leaving the good alone... I'm not saying this jam will cure what ails you, but it's great on toast or pancakes, so why not give it a shot?


Recipe: Xoconostle [Sour Tuna] Jam
Makes 4 half-pint jars
You can use other tunas (prickly pears) in this recipe. The sweet magenta ones have a beautiful color and much smaller/softer seeds, so you don't even need to scoop them out. All are rolled in big tumblers of sand after they're picked, but a few tiny spines may remain, which is why I always peel and rinse.

1.25 lbs tunas (prickly pears)
1 Meyer lemon, zest and juice
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar

Peel and halve tunas, scooping out seeds. Roughly chop or pulse briefly in a food processor [don't puree as this will break down the pectin]. Combine tunas, lemon, water, and salt in a large saucepan over high heat until water begins to boil. [The saucepan may look too big, but we'll get to that.] Lower heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until water is mostly evaporated and tunas are soft.
Mash with a potato masher or ricer until the pulp is a fairly uniform consistency with only small chunks. Add 2 cups of sugar and raise heat to medium-high. Once sugar reaches a full rolling boil [it may look like it's trying to escape the pan], stir frequently for 10 minutes, scraping the bottom. Turn off heat.
Spoon a small amount onto a plate and stick in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes to cool. Check the consistency. It won't be perfectly smooth, but if the syrupy component is too loose for your tastes, continue boiling a few more minutes. If it's too thick, stir in a tablespoon of water [or tequila!].

Ladle into glass jars and refrigerate once cool.
or
Ladle into canning jars, being careful to wipe any jam from the rims before sealing. Bring water to boil in a 3/4 full large stockpot. Carefully lower the jars into the water with tongs, cover the pot, and boil for 7 minutes. Pull out and allow to cool. Lids will make popping sounds as they depress and seal. Store in a cupboard.

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.