Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Pizza!

I haven’t written in weeks but I have a very good excuse. I’ve been busy making pizza. Many pizzas, and I've stopped using my Dad's dough… Mom is the Italian one but it has always been Dad who is the pizza maker. Growing up he made lovely, square, thick crusted pies that I eventually learned were what other people call Sicilian style. I should point out that my mother’s family isn’t Sicilian, I know next to nothing about where they came from in Italy, but my grandmother has made sure that I know that we aren’t Sicilian. When I was in college he started using a pizza stone to make smaller round pizzas, same dough recipe but rolled out thinner to make a crispier crust. I’ve used my dad’s recipe for years; it’s a good dough, but has to be made the same day as the pizza and it needs to rise, and rest, and rise again. This means that dinner can be very, very late. Recently I saw this recipe from the New York Times.They also have a great video (I want her job!). This dough must be made at least a day before you bake the pizzas, but it can wait in your refrigerator for a week, and even then it bakes up perfectly--chewy and yeasty and far, far better that my old crust. I press out the dough on parchment paper because it makes it so much easier to slide them into the oven.
My new favorite version is something that my Dad’s family in France makes: Cut bacon into bits, cook till just beginning to brown, add sliced onions to the pan and sauté until the onions and bacon are brown. Mix equal parts sour cream and cottage cheese and spread on the pizza dough, sprinkle on onions and bacon. Slide onto a heated pizza stone to bake.
If you are very lucky my dad will make this for you on a day that he has foraged morels from the woods behind the house and he will top the pizza with them…

5 comments:

  1. I am WAY jealous of that last pizza....I so want some fresh mushrooms!

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  2. morels! wow! does your dad charge you $30/lb? also, my new favorite thing on pizza - a sunny side up egg.

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  3. I kept telling my dad that he needs to take the mushrooms to the big city and turn them into cash! But honnestly I'm glad he didn't, they were so, so good! I've heard about having a fried egg on a pizza, what other toppings do you do with it?

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  4. I dont remember dad making pizza with cottage cheese. Ill have to request some next time Im home!

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  5. my favorite toppings beneath an egg are sauteed leeks, mushrooms, and gorgonzola (a little pesto doesn't hurt either). the key is to crack the egg on the pizza after it's been in the oven for a bit - the first time i tried it i put the egg on the cold pizza before putting it in the oven, and after baking it ended up with a wobbly half-cooked white and a hard, browned yolk. sad.

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