Tag Archives: food

Best Pizza Dough

7 Jun

Among the growing list of foods I can no longer bring myself to purchase because I’d much rather just make them myself (chief among which are both cake and pie), none have brought me as much satisfaction as homemade pizza.  I could credit this satisfaction to my slightly Pollyanna-ish tendency to get all excited about the fact that I can make a pizza at home for roughly one sixth the cost of buying one, but, truthfully, there is simply more to it than that.  More than anything, being excited about making really good homemade pizza is a direct result of spending many, many years making totally subpar and underwhelming pizza at home.

To cut directly to the problem, I am going to go ahead and blame the crust.  Preferring a thin crust on pizza, I was always convinced that making a really complexly flavored, bubbly pizza crust meant that I had to use superfine Italian 00 flour and fresh, not dried, yeast.  I also thought that it meant I was going to have to spend an ordinate amount of time kneading my dough, since most pizza dough recipes that promise fantastic results are really into chaining people to the kitchen with instructions that require you to knead the dough, set it aside, knead it again, shape it, rest it, shape it again, and oh, lord, it just goes on forever.

I should clarify here that, for certain foods, I have no problem being tethered to my kitchen.  I will tackle layered pastry dough and I will baby-sit a dish that requires four hours of braising, but, in my mind, making pizza should be a laid back and casual affair.  It’s pizza, not puff pastry.

So, over the years, I tried out many, many recipes for pizza dough.  I made very complicated pizza dough that required two separate kneading and resting periods.  I made pizza dough that was kneaded once and then simply set aside.  I made pizza dough from semolina flour.  I made pizza dough with cornmeal.  I cooked everything on a pizza stone, and then my pizza stone cracked, so I bought another one and then it cracked too.  Every time, after every pizza, I had the same basic result.  The pizza was all right (it’s bread and cheese, for goodness sake, so how bad can it really be?), but certainly nothing special.

Then, while mixing a sponge for a loaf of bread, I started to wonder if I could apply a similar procedure to the making of pizza dough.  Meaning, if I made a simple pizza dough and then left it in the fridge to proof overnight, would I achieve a similarly deep flavor and chewy texture that I get from making a bread with a sponge that is left to sit overnight?  Intrigued, I mixed up a batch of the simplest pizza dough imaginable, put it in the refrigerator, then went to bed.

The verdict?  I will never, ever make pizza dough another way.  This method is simple, the work is done while you sleep (then head off to work the next day), and the finished product is unparalleled.  Are you looking for crisp, yet with a sight chew?  Are you looking for an incredible artisan flavor?  Are you into pizza that is light, with a bubbly crust?  It’s right here, and it’s dead simple.

Today I’ll post the specific pizza dough we love to use, and throughout the rest of the week I’ll post a few examples of things you can do with this wonderful dough.  Warning: I have been known to use this dough in both savory and sweet applications.  Because if there’s one thing I like to do, it’s turn non-dessert items into desserts.

Best Pizza Dough

Adapted mightily from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

The flavor and texture of this dough only grows better the longer it rests in the refrigerator.  Since this recipes makes enough dough for three large pizzas, we frequently make one or two pizzas at a time, then put the remaining dough in a very lightly oiled, tightly sealed Ziploc bag and leave it in the refrigerator for a few days until we are ready to use it up. We’ve never had leftover dough in the refrigerator for longer than five days, but I’ll bet it will last at least a week and still remain fresh.

4 to 4 1/2 cups bread flour

1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant or rapid-rise yeast

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 1/2 cups very warm water

Pulse 4 cups of flour and the yeast together in a food processor (though ATK recommends you use the dough blade, I’ve always used the regular blade and my results have been just fine) until combined.  Add the salt, then pulse again (adding the yeast separately from the salt will reduce the possibility that the salt will come in direct contact with the yeast and kill it).

Combine the warm water with the oil and honey, and mix to combine.  With the food processor running, pour the water mixture through the feed tube and and process until a rough ball forms, about 30 seconds.  Let the dough rest for 2 minutes, then process the dough for another 30 seconds.  If the dough appears to be too sticky and is clinging to the blade, add the remaining 1/4 cup of flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, and process until the dough clears the blade.

Lightly oil a large bowl.  Remove the dough from the food processor, shape into a rough ball shape with your hands, then place in the oiled bowl.  Cover tightly with greased plastic wrap and place in refrigerator to rest overnight, or until ready to use.

When ready to use the pizza dough, remove from refrigerator while you are preheating your oven and preparing your topping ingredients.  Allow dough to warm from refrigerated temperature for at least 30 minutes before you shape and cook the dough.

Makes enough dough for three large pizzas.

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Six Threes Ice Cream

3 Jun

Dear Summer,

Did we do something to anger you?  I only ask because it seems as though you have been avoiding us.  Here we are, the first week of June, and you are nowhere in sight.  I can’t help but think that maybe you are feeling a bit hesitant about joining us this year.  Maybe you had a great time hibernating during the months you were not with us, making you decide that you’d rather stay asleep a few more weeks instead of prodding your good friend The Sun in the ribs and making a good argument for spending some time with us.  We’re pretty fun, you know.  We like going in the pool and hitting baseballs in the backyard while our skin warms in the heat of the afternoon, and the hammock is all cleaned off and good to go.  Basically, we’re ready whenever you are.

Look, I even made a little something to celebrate your arrival.  My husband’s family has this great ice cream recipe that I had been dying to make.  I first tasted it at a family reunion last summer—remember that?  You were sort of there, Summer, but mostly in name rather than in feel (it was extremely cold and wet last August, as you may recall, but I promise I am in no way holding that against you).  Anyhow, my husband’s family made a huge batch of this ice cream.  They took turns hand churning it, and when it was done they called to all of the children to come and have an inaugural taste of the ice cream straight from the dasher.  All of the children were feeling uncharacteristically shy, so I swiped my finger against the dasher and demonstrated how non-poisonous and definitely delicious the ice cream was.

As you may also recall, the children had a rather difficult time getting to the ice cream covered dasher after that, such was my devotion to gobbling that thing clean before anyone else could snitch a taste.  I wouldn’t say I went so far as to push any children aside while protecting my ice cream sample, but that was only because I happened to be taller than all the children, allowing me to conveniently hold the dasher up much higher than they could reach, rendering unnecessary any sort of pushing or jostling on my part.

So, I decided that, in anticipation of your arrival, I would make some of this ice cream.  It is dead simple to assemble, and it tastes supremely fresh and cooling.  The ice cream is egg-free, but it has the smooth, soft, creamy texture of a custard-based ice cream. Do you know what the secret is, Summer?  It’s the banana.  The banana makes the ice cream so rich and luscious, you’d never know it was devoid of eggs.  I tell you, this is the perfect ice cream to start with if you’re feeling hesitant about making homemade ice cream.  It really is foolproof.  Plus, the taste bears a strong resemblance to that of a Creamsicle, which not only gives it points for childhood nostalgia, but also for maximum enjoyability.

I hope we see you soon, Summer.  Rumor has it you’re going to be making an appearance this weekend, but, quite honestly, I can’t really bring myself to believe that prediction, what with how little we’ve seen or sensed of you thus far.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to see you, but I don’t know if I can handle any more stilted anticipation.  If you do happen to show up, believe me, I’ll be more than happy to eat my words—right along, in fact, with a nice bowl of this delicious ice cream.

All the best,

EM from Savory Salty Sweet

Six Threes Ice Cream

The original recipe, which uses three of each measure of ingredients, makes enough ice cream to fill a very large hand cranked machine.  Since the ice cream machine I own only holds 1.5 quarts of finished product, I had to scale the recipe down by two thirds.  This, technically, does not make the ice cream I made a combination of six threes, but rather six ones.  However, since that name does not have nearly the clever ring to it as the original name, I have decided to just stick with calling it six threes ice cream.  Still delicious, just not as abundant.  If you have a larger ice cream maker, you should, by all means, scale the recipe up to make as much ice cream as you can.

Note: Be sure to follow the directions and keep the dairy and citrus ingredients separate until the dairy has been partially frozen in your ice cream machine.  If you add the citrus to the dairy beforehand, the acid in the citrus will cause your dairy to curdle.

1 ripe banana

1 lemon

1 orange, the zest finely grated or chopped

1 cup milk

1 cup cream

1 cup sugar

In a medium bowl, blend or mash the banana.  To this, add the finely grated or chopped zest of the orange.  Squeeze juice from lemon and orange, and combine with the mashed banana and orange zest.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine milk, cream, and sugar.  Whisk steadily until sugar is completely dissolved.

Add cream mixture to your ice cream maker, and allow to churn until it reaches the slush stage.

Add the fruit mixture to the slushy cream mixture, then churn according to manufacturer’s instructions (until, that is to say, you have ice cream).

Makes about 1.5 quarts of ice cream.

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Orecchiette with Grated Garlic and Tomato

28 May

When the sun comes out, we leave the house.  Not to, for the one millionth time, make mention of the abysmal weather we suffer through in the Pacific Northwest, but when May begins to draw to a close and June starts to creep up on us, we all start to feel a little cooped up from the previous seven months we’ve just spent trapped indoors by unrelenting rain and gloominess.  You can understand, then, why a rare glimpse of the sun during the month of May (or June, for that matter, because here summer likes to hang out in its pajamas and nurse a few beers on the couch for a while before it finally decides to emerge from its extended time off and finally get to work) will cause people to take to the streets of Portland in a pasty parade of boisterous revelry.

Because you’re contractually obligated to own a bicycle if you live here, we, not surprisingly, spend a lot of our outdoor time traveling by bike to various locations.  We bike to the park, we bike to the baseball field, we bike to the science museum, and we bike while running errands.  If the weather is truly wonderful, we pack a picnic and head downtown to have a picnic on the waterfront.  If the weather very suddenly stops being wonderful and forces us back home before we find ourselves biking through a rainstorm, we unexpectedly unload ourselves from our bikes to face dinnertime totally unprepared.  On the rare occasion that I don’t want to break down and just order Thai food (okay, so I always want to break down and just order Thai food, but budgetary constraints dictate that ordering Thai food several times a week is a ridiculous and ruinous financial strategy), I head into the kitchen and prepare what has become our quickest last minute dinner.

When the summer months actually arrive proper and the garden is bursting with tomatoes, this pasta dish sees a lot of action in our house.  More a handful of ingredients than an actual recipe, the technique (and I use that word very, very loosely here) of making this dish should serve as a nice base for creating a quick tomato pasta.  You boil your pasta water, throw in your pasta, then start on the sauce.  You put some fat (butter, olive oil, both) in a pan, allow it to gently melt, then grate in some garlic.  While the garlic simmers and melts into the fat, you grate up as many tomatoes as you can find, then add them to the garlic.  You simmer the sauce while the pasta cooks, you add some pasta water to the sauce, you drain and the pasta and combine the two, you stir in a bit of Parmesan, season everything, then you’re done.

If you think you’d want the sauce to be more garlicky, use more garlic.  If you want a looser sauce, add more pasta water. Add herbs, add red pepper flakes, add a sharper cheese–no matter what you want to do to this base recipe, it’s pretty difficult to render it inedible.  And, depending mainly on how fast your pasta water can come to a boil, you can have this dinner on the table in around 20 minutes.  Which will leave you plenty of time to, weather permitting, hop back on your bike after dinner and head out for some ice cream.

Orecchiette with Grated Garlic and Tomato

1 lb orecchiette, or another pasta of your choice (I find that the shape of orecchiette is perfect for cradling little bits of this sauce in each bite)

2 tablespoons of butter or olive oil (I like to use a mixture of both)

2 or 3 large cloves of garlic

3 or 4 large ripe tomatoes (or more, if you have them), cut in half and seeds removed

salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese

fresh herbs

Cook pasta in salted water according to package directions.  While pasta cooks, heat butter or olive oil (or both) in a medium-sized pan over low heat.  When the butter/olive oil is heated, use a small grater or rasp grater to grate the garlic directly into the pan.  Gently saute the garlic over low heat, stirring occasionally, until it starts to melt into the butter/oil and become translucent (about 1 to 3 minutes).

Using the large holes on a box grater, grate all the tomatoes directly into the pan with the garlic.  (You can grate the tomatoes onto a cutting board the add them to the sauce, but, accounting for the juiciness of the tomatoes, it is actually easier and less messy to just grate them directly into the pan.)  Grate the cut side of the tomato, so you end up holding the empty skin of the tomato after all the flesh has been grated into the pan.  Discard the tomato skins.  After you have grated all the tomatoes, simmer sauce over low heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and browning.  Right before you drain the pasta, scoop out 1 cup of pasta water and add it to the tomato sauce, stirring to combine.

Drain the pasta, then return it to the cooking pot.  Add the tomato sauce to the pasta and stir to combine.  If desired, stir 1/2 a cup of grated Parmesan into the pasta while it is still in the pot, or reserve Parmesan to add later, when serving. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Top each serving of pasta with chopped fresh herbs (I used basil here, but any combination of fresh herbs is nice–basil, parsley, thyme, chives) and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

Serves 4-6 people.

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