it has to be said, that when my passion for something gets reignited, it gets reignited big style. so, even though i have been delving into sourdough, and in the process trying to cultivate patience and structure in my life (not to mention endeavouring to set up a kind of legacy narrative in my cooking for the future) i haven't been able to keep myself from playing with yeast in other areas.
do you ever wake up in one of those moods where you just want something to do, to occupy your time, but you're not sure what because you're pretty much bored with everything? i do. all the time. in fact, when it comes to days off my default states are either having loads of things to do and being really excited about them all to the point of just not feeling like there's enough time in the day, or a kind of listless 'oh god, i just wish i had something to DO' state. when i get into one of these states i tend to latch on to the first thing i can think of to do, which usually has something to do with my kitchen. and given that all my reading and idea-collecting recently has been to do with yeast, it was bound to be something to do with dough.
i decided to make pizza. now, this is not the first time i have made pizza, my pizza making career stretches from being a tiny tot putting toppings on pre-made bases with my little brother at my childminder's, to making my dough according to the recipe of theo (bloody) randall, when his collaboration with pizza express was feautured in delicious magazine (something i perused avidly throughout my university life, and would still recommend now to those not of the herbivorous persuasion). now, while there are definitely such things as wildly inauthentic pizzas, let's face it, unless we're talking plastic-wrapped supermarket monstrosity, it's pretty hard to create a bad pizza. nonetheless, in my attempt to become Yeast Queen Of The Universe, i turned to my personal flour-covered bible, the river cottage bread handbook, for my dough recipe. and unless something comes along that subsequently blows my mind, i'll be sticking with this recipe in future. it needs to be noted however, that because i was just cooking for myself, as is normal in a house full of inadventurous carnivores (no one ever suffered from lisa simpson syndrome as much as me, i swear it), i halved the recipe, which still left me with leftovers. but since leftover pizza is absolutely a good thing, i'm not going to complain.
so, here is what i gone done and did:
pizza dough
(makes about 8 small pizzas)
250g strong white bread flour
250g plain white flour
5g powdered dried yeast
10g salt
325ml warm water
about 1 tablespoon olive oil
a handful of coarse flour (rye, semolina, or polenta) for dusting.
mix the flours, yeast, salt and water in a bowl to form a sticky dough. add the oil, mix it in, then turn the dough out onto a clean work surface. knead until smooth and silky. shape the dough into a round, then leave to rise in a clean bowl, covered in a plastic bag, until doubled in size, which should take an hour.
while this is going on you may as well make your tomato sauce, which i also got from the river cottage bread handbook:
roast tomato sauce
500g tomatoes (i used a mixture of cherribelle and sungold)
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and black pepper
preheat the oven to 180 degrees c. halve the tomatoes and lay them, cut side up, in a roasting tin. mix the garlic with the oil, pour over the tomatoes, and shake the tin a little to distribute the oil. season with salt and pepper. roast for 30-45 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and slightly charred. rub through a sieve into a bowl. you'll end up with something that looks a little like this:
do you ever wake up in one of those moods where you just want something to do, to occupy your time, but you're not sure what because you're pretty much bored with everything? i do. all the time. in fact, when it comes to days off my default states are either having loads of things to do and being really excited about them all to the point of just not feeling like there's enough time in the day, or a kind of listless 'oh god, i just wish i had something to DO' state. when i get into one of these states i tend to latch on to the first thing i can think of to do, which usually has something to do with my kitchen. and given that all my reading and idea-collecting recently has been to do with yeast, it was bound to be something to do with dough.
i decided to make pizza. now, this is not the first time i have made pizza, my pizza making career stretches from being a tiny tot putting toppings on pre-made bases with my little brother at my childminder's, to making my dough according to the recipe of theo (bloody) randall, when his collaboration with pizza express was feautured in delicious magazine (something i perused avidly throughout my university life, and would still recommend now to those not of the herbivorous persuasion). now, while there are definitely such things as wildly inauthentic pizzas, let's face it, unless we're talking plastic-wrapped supermarket monstrosity, it's pretty hard to create a bad pizza. nonetheless, in my attempt to become Yeast Queen Of The Universe, i turned to my personal flour-covered bible, the river cottage bread handbook, for my dough recipe. and unless something comes along that subsequently blows my mind, i'll be sticking with this recipe in future. it needs to be noted however, that because i was just cooking for myself, as is normal in a house full of inadventurous carnivores (no one ever suffered from lisa simpson syndrome as much as me, i swear it), i halved the recipe, which still left me with leftovers. but since leftover pizza is absolutely a good thing, i'm not going to complain.
so, here is what i gone done and did:
pizza dough
(makes about 8 small pizzas)
250g strong white bread flour
250g plain white flour
5g powdered dried yeast
10g salt
325ml warm water
about 1 tablespoon olive oil
a handful of coarse flour (rye, semolina, or polenta) for dusting.
mix the flours, yeast, salt and water in a bowl to form a sticky dough. add the oil, mix it in, then turn the dough out onto a clean work surface. knead until smooth and silky. shape the dough into a round, then leave to rise in a clean bowl, covered in a plastic bag, until doubled in size, which should take an hour.
while this is going on you may as well make your tomato sauce, which i also got from the river cottage bread handbook:
roast tomato sauce
500g tomatoes (i used a mixture of cherribelle and sungold)
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and black pepper
preheat the oven to 180 degrees c. halve the tomatoes and lay them, cut side up, in a roasting tin. mix the garlic with the oil, pour over the tomatoes, and shake the tin a little to distribute the oil. season with salt and pepper. roast for 30-45 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and slightly charred. rub through a sieve into a bowl. you'll end up with something that looks a little like this:
when your dough is risen, you can get on with shaping and baking your pizzas.
preheat your oven to 250 degrees c or as high as it will go, with a baking stone or tray inside.
to shape your pizzas, take a lime-sized piece of dough, and roll it 5mm thick on a surface dusted lightly with coarse flour, keeping it roundish, but not worrying too much (unless you can do the fancypants twirling the dough thing, there's no structural benefit to a round pizza gluten-wise, so if you're anything like me, the unnecessary aesthetic fiddling is so beyond not worth it it's not even funny). lay the dough on a rimless baking sheet which you have dusted with coarse flour, add your toppings, and slide onto the hot baking sheet in the oven.
the pizzas are done when the dough is blistered and the cheese is lightly bubbling. which in a domestic oven takes about 7 minutes. i could get two on a baking tray at a time, and therefore did, so i cooked my four little pizzas in two batches. they came out looking a little something like this:
the toppings i chose were mushrooms fried in oil and lemon thyme from my garden, finely chopped rosemary, also from my garden, finely diced taleggio, vegetarian parmesan, pine nuts, and, after they had come out the oven, a scattering of rocket leaves, also from the garden. i'm going to leave you to guess how much i ate, and how many were left over.
these pizzas were made all the better in the eating by the fact i used produce grown by my fair hand on them. i'm already dreaming up other combinations with the stuff that's currently growing like the dickens. i'm thinking a garlic and sharp young goats cheese pizza bianca with a scattering of lightly blanched broad beans after baking, or a feta, spinach, red onion and pine nut combo. authentic? no. likely to taste amazing? yes. i'm also going to experiment with how well this recipe translates to the genius that is the calzone, so expect reportage on that endeavour sometime in the near future. especially given the regularity with which i keep waking up restless and annoyed and seeking kitchen activity at the moment.
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