Give Pizza Some Justice!

About this series "Gourmet: Homemade Bread Pizza Pasta":
I do almost all the cooking in our home, I love it. K's interest and expertise in cooking lies in dough-related food only. So when making bread, pasta, pizza from scratch (no bread machine), K and I do it together- and I love it too. This series is about "dough-food" we made together.

My Pizza Revolution
1995, Pizza Hut, Beijing, that's when and where I had the first bite of pizza in my life. It was an exotic and interesting experience with two take-aways: pizza was similar to some Chinese pancakes except pizza put everything on top, and except Chinese pancakes tasted better.

1997-2001, my first 4 years in the U.S., I probably had less than 10 slices of pizza in total, and they ranged from chains like Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Pizzeria Uno and local pizzerias. They were ordered by friends/colleagues for parties or group/business meetings. I never liked pizza.

2002, somehow I was tempted enough by a review and tried a pizza at "New York Pizza Factory" restaurant in Ridgewood, NJ. It was really good! Thin crust but with spongy and chewy body, interesting and tasty toppings. Each pizza was named after streets & sights in Manhattan. I went there a few times later. This restaurant pivoted my opinion towards pizza.

2003, I met my husband K and he is a BIG pizza fan. I took him to the Ridgewood pizza place once, he was very impressed by the food and also by me-- that I not only knew about fancy gourmet restaurants but also great pizza joints :-) (Sadly, when we went for the second time, the restaurant disappeared!) Since then, together we visited and revisited many iconic "pizza institutions" or restaurants with good pizzas, like Lombardi's, Grimaldi's, John's pizzeria, Di Fara's, Adrienne's Pizzabar, Olives in NY; Sally's, Pepe's and the Bar in New Haven; American Flatbread in Vermont. We also tried Roman style pizza while in Italy. We prefer the NY/New Haven style crust over the Roman style. After many and many enjoyable slices of pizzas at restaurants mentioned above, my personal most memorable pizzas are:
Pork sausage with maple syrup and herbs @ American Flatbread in Sugarbush, Vermont
Steak Tartare @ Snake River Grill in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Prosciutto with fig jam, rosemary, Gorgonzola cheese @ Olives in W Hotel (Union Square), NY
Mashed Potato, pickled Jalapeno @ The Bar in New Haven, CT

Sometime in 2004, I became a fully converted pizza fan and we started to make pizza at home from scratch.

Give Pizza Some Justice!
Now I want to defend for pizza, defend it against the accusation of "unhealthy food".

Pizza is a wonderfully healthy food to me, it provides lots of nutrition in one-- carb (from the dough), proteins (from the meat), vitamins (from the vegetables) and calcium (from the cheese). Yes, there are many unhealthy pizzas out there. But if you know the right places to get it and the right toppings to choose from, pizza is a tasty healthy food. If you can make pizza at home, even better. (It's not difficult actually. And tossing and swirling the pie in the air is not a must.)

Make Pizza from Scratch at Home
The slide show shares pizza we made from scratch from our "L&K Pizzeria" :-). You'll find no pepperoni, no sausages there (although we did try replicate American Flatbread's pork sausage & maple pizza once, and successfully). You'll find toppings like caramelized onion, mushroom, roasted & spiced squash, kale, fig, clams, prosciutto, potato, Jerk chicken, Thai spicy chicken, Buffalo wings, etc. Pizza toppings are about what's fresh and seasonal in the market and what's left in the fridge. You'll also notice that our pizzas are not cheese-heavy, but trust me, they are tasty nonetheless. You'll also find our dessert pizzas with chocolate, with fruits (like apple, peach, plum and even kiwi). For these dessert pizzas, we like to roll out the dough Roman style thin.

As mentioned, for dough-food, K & I make it together. K developed a wonderful pizza dough recipe (see at the end). He usually is the one that mixes (with KitchenAid Mixer) and rolls out the dough and I am always the one that creates the toppings. We'll watch the pizza baking in the oven together, often over sips of sparkling apple cider.


Pizza Dough Recipe:
"Must Have" Tools: pizza stone, pizza peel
Highly recommended tool: KichenAid Mixer

Serving: This amount is good for pizzas for two adults over three meals. Save leftover dough in a sealed container (we use recycled 2Ibs yogurt containers) in the fridge. Fill the container only halfway because the dough will continue to rise. Finish within 2 weeks. (When you open the container of leftover dough, it will have fermentation smell--this is fine.)

1 cup water, heated for 1 min in microwave
1 cup cold milk

Combine water and milk, it should be lukewarm to the touch

Add:
4 tbs sugar, dissolve
1 tbs active yeast, sprinkle on top

Let stand 10 mins

Add 3.5 cups of flour*
1/2 tsp salt
Start mixer on "stir"

You'll probably need to add an additional amount of flour* (less than 1 cup), but don't add at once. It's a bit of judgement how much additional you need and also depends on the humidity in air. You want a soft consistency to the dough but not too soft-- enough so that thee dough bunches up around the mixer. The dough will be a little sticky to the touch.

(*You can also use flour-whole wheat flour mix in proportion you like. Add a couple more tablespoonfuls of honey if mixing whole wheat flour. Honey masks well the grainy texture of whole wheat.)

Mix on KitchenAid setting "2" for 5 mins or so. Stop. If the mixer gets too hot on top, wait till it cools off a bit.

Continue to mix on setting "4" for 5 mins or so. (You need to hold mixer so it doesn't move around during this time.)

It's done when you can stretch a small piece of dough thin enough to let through light without ripping it (this is called the windowpane test).

Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temp for 2 hours.

Baking:
Put pizza stone in middle rack of oven. Heat the oven @500F for ONE HOUR. (High heat on the stone makes the pizza pie nicely crisp on the bottom.)

Depending on the thickness and size of the pie and the toppings, it takes about 6-10min total to bake. (Turn the pizza around after about 4 min.) Check, after 6min. It's done when the edge is browned.