Cooking For Engineers

[Dilbert]

Based on Jamie Olivers recipe, reduced in quantity. A stand mixer is quite useful as this calls for a 10 minute kneading.

Home made pizza is a real treat. All the various toppings one can use - cheese, pepperoni, onion, green pepper, sausage, black olives, crimini / mushroom, cauliflower, broccoli, etc - are typically pretty much "the same."
So what is it that sets really good home made pizza from the rest? imho - it's the tomato sauce.

Commercial pizza joints almost all use 'bought' tomato sauce. And, plus/minus, it all tastes pretty much the same. For our home made pizzas I use more of a thickened stewed tomato concoction. If tomatoes are in season, quarter them, cook down, process very lightly with a stick blender for consistency, add to pizza while still hot. In mid-winter, canned stewed tomatoes (no added salt/sugar) makes a very good substitute. heat, use the stick blender as needed, strain to remove excess water. Over cooking the tomato results in the same old same old blah ketchupy tomato paste taste.

The one crust amount of this recipe will be too much for super thin crust style (bread sticks!) - too little for deep dish thick style. The crust is about 0.25" / 6-8 mm thick.

165 grams bread flour - King Arthur Unbleached Bread flour
115 gram Semolina - Bob's Red Mill; widely available
1 teaspoon / 5 ml / 3.5 gram Active Dry Yeast
1 teaspoon / 5 ml / 5 gram coarse/kosher salt
combine dry ingredients in the mixer bowl, add
148 gram warm tap water
15 ml olive oil

Begin mixing, the dough should pull away from the bowl after 2-3 minutes of mixing; if the dough continues to stick to the bowl, add flour by the teaspoon allowing 1-2 minutes for the additional flour to work in before any further adjustments.

Continue to mix/knead using dough hook for 10 minutes. When done, cover bowl and allow to rest one to three hours until roughly doubled. The rising time depends on the ambient temperature - takes longer in a cool winter kitchen, less in a warm summer kitchen.

Pre-heat oven; I use a one hour pre-heat time.

When ready, remove dough to a floured work surface, roll or press out to final shape. Add toppings.
I bake on a pre-heated round pizza stone - 14" / 38 cm diameter. I make the dough, roll it out, transfer to parchment paper, then add toppings/etc, using a one sided only aluminum cookie sheet as a pizza peel. Bake at 425'F / 220'C oven in the upper top rack position.

Looks like:


requires 12-18 minutes bake cycle; depends on toppings quantity included.

Notes:
Oils/fats make a dough softer. For maximum crispness, omit oil entirely.
After removing from oven, slide pizza onto a baking rack without parchment paper and rest minimum 5 minutes prior to moving to a solid surface for slicing/cutting. The crust/pizza will continue to cook - if placed on a solid surface the escaping steam is contained under the crust and will make the crust soggy.

[Alice carter]

Hey! So I wanna make this pizza crust, but with cauliflower thats been riced. Ive always been afraid of cooking cauliflower rice to make this kind of crusts, because it all new to me so could you tell me how you did it?
How do you bind the crust?

[sensiblewall]

Geez!!!!! That pizza is damn delicious. I wanna eat it all hahaha. I will bookmark this! THanks Dilbert