Posted by Adam Kuban, November 22, 2011 at 8:45 AM
This stuffing is based on the mighty fine Classic Sage and Sausage Stuffing (or Dressing) recipe that J. Kenji Lopez-Alt dropped on us all last year. Same basic technique, but with CLASSIC PIZZA FLAVORS subbed in for the seasonings and sage sausage.
Garlic knots are available at most NYC-area pizzerias. If your local pizzeria doesn't offer them, sub in a loaf of grocery-store garlic bread.
Last, this recipe is halved from Kenji's original. It should stuff a couple small birds or one 18- to 22-pound turkey.
When chatting with Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman last week before her new Food Network show premiered, we didn't just sit around sans refreshments. Ha, like that would ever happen. Ree provided this pizza (and chocolate chip cookies, can't forget those) from her not-yet-published cookbook, Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier, which comes out the spring of 2012.
Many of you have probably tasted the fig plus prosciutto combo before. It's sweet, salty, and peppery all at once, and a fun way to change up the pepperoni or sausage routine.
Posted by Carolyn Cope, August 16, 2011 at 12:45 PM
I find myself suddenly a resident of London, where August means crisp 65-degree days and chilly nights instead of sticky, sandy, lingering afternoons on the Jersey shore. Because my lizard brain will forever associate a snap in the air with snappy new back-to-school clothes and the optimistic ambition of new beginnings, I've had an unusually industrious end to the summer. It's a good thing, because I'm having to relearn everything from how to tell time and temperature to what to call zucchini and eggplant at the farmers' market.
It's not exactly a hardship. Far from it. But while I'd like to think of myself as all about the shiny new adventures and total cultural immersion, I've noticed a funny countervailing trend in the dinners I've been cooking in our new kitchen. There's been a ton of pizza, two tons of pasta, and a volume of vegetables that would certainly have broken my kitchen scale if my kitchen scale had arrived yet. Ah, well. You can take the girl out of Jersey. It's a good thing a Jersey shore kitchen in August is a fine, fine place to be.
This pizza clearly originated in the mind of a Jersey girl. But now I can vouch for the fact that it tastes just as good no matter where you are—and no matter what you call a zucchini. Like many pizzas, it's a flexible recipe. Just make sure you slice the zucchini as thin as possible so it will be tender by the time the pizza is done.
About the author: Carolyn Cope is the voice behind the popular food blog Umami Girl. A recent transplant to London, she's trying her best to act nonchalant in the company of courgettes and aubergines. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.
What's better than pizza? Fried pizza. Or this is the thought that popped into my head when I took my first bite of the montanara pizza at Forcella in Williamsburg (reviewed here). It was one of those hit-you-over-the-head good, oh, man, I need more sort of reactions.
Giulio Adriani is the mad creator of Forcella's montanara pizza, which he deep-fries in vegetable oil and then finishes in the oven to achieve a light and airy crust with the perfect chew, and a crispness only achieved by frying at 375°F. He tops the montanara simply with crushed San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella that he makes in house, grana padano cheese, and fresh basil leaves.
The thing is, Adriani isn't really a mad scientist of pizza at all. Neapolitan grandmothers have been making fried pizza for ages, frying the dough in a pan filled with hot oil and then topping it with a scant film of tomato sauce and a sprinkling of Parmesan.
There is something alluring about a golden egg yolk running all over your pizza. At Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Greenmarket-inspired ABC Kitchen in New York, Chef Dan Kluger takes breakfast pizza to new heights by placing an oh-so-runny egg atop his earthy wild mushroom, Parmesan, and oregano pie. Did we mention that he throws a little homemade ricotta and tangy Tomme-style cheese in there for good measure? It's a pizza I'm definitely going to want to make at home. Luckily, the slideshow above will help all of us recreate this sumptuous masterpiece.
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As an equal-opportunity pizza lover, it's always exciting to me when a style that's been heretofore outside of my personal pizza sphere enters into it. It happens with increasing rarity these days, which is both a good and bad thing. Bad, because like my marriage, I never, ever want things to become routine (not that they've started to yet, dear), but good because it means whenever I do manage to try something that's both novel and stellar, it's all the more exciting.
Recent mind-blowingly good pizza experience: the bar-style pies at Star Tavern in Orange, New Jersey.
It's usually very thin-crusted to (I'm guessing) leave plenty of room in the eater's stomach for beer. It's baked in a gas oven that may have replaced a coal oven if the bar is old enough. Bar pizza is made with decent, commercial, aged mozzarella and comes topped with canned mushrooms, standard pepperoni and, if you're lucky, house-made sausage.
But that doesn't begin to describe the awesomeness of the crust, which, as with most pizza, is really what the bar pie at Star Tavern is all about.
Potatoes on pizza: way or no way? The mere thought of upping the starch on pizza might send some people scrambling for their lettuce wraps, but for the rest of us who aren't clinging to the Atkins diet, it can be a pleasurable topping choice. At Flying Squirrel Pizza Co. in the Seward Park neighborhood of Seattle, owner Bill Coury spits in the face of carb-counters (figuratively, of course) with his popular #6, a New York–style pie topped with chive oil, Maytag blue cheese, spinach, garlic, mozzarella, and lemon-herb roasted potatoes.
Think of blue cheese potato gratin you can eat with your hands and you're on the right track. But it makes for a rather light, balanced pie, and no one topping overwhelms another.
Want to make this pizza at home? We'll walk you through it! Since the pies at Flying Squirrel round out at about the 15-inch mark, leave your Neapolitan dough recipe on the shelf and go for The Pizza Lab's New York–style dough instead. A wood-fired oven is also unnecessary, making this an ideal pie to bake in your home oven.
During the ten years I've taught gluten-free baking classes, two questions are asked more than any others: "How do I make bread?" and "How do I make pizza?" Bread and pizza. My favorites. In this column we've already covered sandwich bread—it's time to make pizza!
You want a great, easy pizza crust, right? Here's what to do: start with a Chebe bread mix. My students have never gasped but, I can tell, they've come close. They know that I bake from scratch. This recipe is the exception to that rule.
Why a mix? Because of the modified tapioca starch it contains, Chebe makes an excellent pizza crust with the "chew" that's so often missing from gluten-free baked goods. Since buying modified tapioca starch is a pain, I use the Chebe mix.
I'm not a food scientist. So, honestly, I don't fully understand the process of making modified tapioca starch. My research proved somewhat futile, likely because modifying tapioca starch is a proprietary process. All I've been able to glean is that when an inorganic material is added to the starch, the characteristics of the starch change. In the case of tapioca starch, we are left with a super-stretchy starch.
How stretchy? Gluten-like stretchy. You could almost toss this dough over your head like they do at pizzerias. Prepared as the package directs, I find Chebe unpleasantly chewy. Slightly doctored, however, it makes a great pizza.
Add white or brown rice flour, baking powder, and salt to the mix. That's right—baking powder. Telling pizza-savvy SE'rs that this crust can be made without yeast makes me a little nervous. But it's the truth: this crust is excellent without yeast. Since restaurants serving safe gluten-free pizza are still hard to find, it's great being able to make this last-minute crust without having to allow it to rise.
If the thought of a yeast-free pizza is anathema to you, no problem! Replace the baking powder with one packet of active dry yeast. When leavened with yeast, the dough needs to go through about an hour of bulk fermentation (rising in the bowl) and about 45 minutes of pan rise. The baking powder dough? Just mix it up, place it into the pan and bake.
Speaking of baking, no matter which version you use, yeast or baking powder, bake the crust beforebefore you top it. Topping the raw dough and then baking makes for one really soggy pizza. I like all types of pizza, but soggy crust pizza isn't one of them.
Variations: As written, the recipe makes a New York-style pizza crust. Here are a few variations that I really enjoy.
Whole Wheat-style
1 cup brown rice or sorghum flour
1/4 cup ground flax meal
Whisk brown rice (or sorghum flour) and flax meal together with Chebe mix, baking powder, and salt. Prepare as directed below.
Garlic and Herb Crust
Add one or two freshly minced garlic cloves and two teaspoons of your favorite dried herbs to the crust. Dried basil, rosemary, oregano are nice.
Parmesan Crust
Add 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese to the dough
Yeast Leavened Crust Works with either New York-style crust or Whole Wheat-style crust.
Replace baking powder with one packet active dry yeast. Whisk yeast into warm (100 to 110°F) water. Knead dough as directed. Roll dough into ball and place into greased bowl. Lightly grease the top of the dough. Allow to rise for about one hour. Punch dough and roll into greased 18-Inch-x-13-Inch. Cover lightly with greased plastic wrap. Allow to rise for about one hour. Preheat oven and bake as directed below.
About the author: Elizabeth Barbone of GlutenFreeBaking.com joins us every Tuesday with a new gluten-free recipe. Elizabeth is an alumna of the Culinary Institute of America and Mount Mary College. With her solid professional baking background, Elizabeth is known for creating gluten-free recipes that taste just like their wheat counterparts. She is the author of Easy Gluten-Free Baking.
At their James Beard nominated outpost in Culver City, Pitfire Artisan Pizza bakes tantalizingly topped pizzas. Using local ingredients from the Santa Monica Farmers' Market, each pie is made with the best produce the market has to offer. Here, executive chef Michael Ainslie walks us through the Pumpkin Pizza, a seasonal special. Comprising roasted butternut squash, wilted swiss chard, brown butter, and three cheeses and finished with toasted pumpkin-seed oil and pepitas, this customer favorite is a velvety smooth bite, with a nutty crunch and salty finish.
When picking your dough, don't be discouraged by Pitfire's wood-burning oven. This is not Neapolitan pizza, nor do they want it to be. Pizzamaker Paul Hibler's crust was born after a life-changing encounter with Al Forno's grilled pizza in 1992. Further influenced by the rustic baking techniques at Chez Panisse and Tartine, Hibler formulated his pizza over the next 15 years, resulting in dough made from three types of flour and aged 36 to 72 hours. Though the actual pit fire is long gone—replaced with a wood-burning oven 10 years ago—the pizzas retain the smoky char of real fire. The dough browns into a crisp bakery-loaf crust that can support hearty but balanced toppings with no limp-tipped slices.
For this pizza you'll need a substantial dough like Rustic Country Pizza Dough ... or, in the Pitfire spirit, this can be the perfect time to work on your Grilled Pizza.
Williamsburg's Best Pizza has been getting a fair amount of attention for its pizza (oh, and these guys liked it, too). But head pizzaman Frank Pinello says he doesn't listen to the hype. He says that if he's doing something right—or something wrong—his customers will tell him about it personally. Seeing how we can't get enough of the Pickled Vegetable Pizza—and everything else served at Best Pizza—I'd say he's doing something very right. So right, in fact, that I raced over to Best to learn how to make the pickled veg for this awesome pie. This is a pickling recipe and pizza recipe in one—the best of both worlds!
Monkey bread. Because kids go ape over it. You know what else they go ape for? Pizza. Let them help you make pizza monkey bread and they'll go positively King Kong in the kitchen. Making this stuff is way easier than making pizza, too, since you don't have to worry about stretching the dough or about precise cook times. All you'll need are the following two recipes and 8 ounces grated mozzarella, a handful of Parmesan cheese, and a few leaves of fresh basil.
You may know that the motto of the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen empire is "Recipes That Work." This one does.** Like a charm. But you grokked that from the title above, right?
Inspired by last week's semi-dried cherry tomato Daily Slice from Di Fara, I made my own slow-roasted, tiny-tomato topping for our weekly "Pizza Night" at home. This really couldn't be more simple, and, like last week's sausage topping, you can do the roasting while you make dough or let it come to room temperature after a cold rise.
If the store-bought sausage you've been using on your pizza is a little limp in the flavor department but you've been hesitant to make your own, this concoction couldn't be easier to pull together. You don't need a meat grinder, casings, or sausage stuffer. You probably have most of the ingredients on hand, too, if your spice drawer is stocked. Most of the work involves a trip to the butcher.
This recipe comes from Mark Bello of Pizza a Casa. Bello makes a batch of this intensely flavorful fennel-studded pork sausage as a topping option for each session of the pizzamaking class he teaches at the "Pizza Self-Sufficiency Center."
I've made it for my own "pizza nights" a couple times now, and I have a hard time not using it on every pizza in the evening lineup.
I first had hot oil on pizza at the Colony Grill in Stamford, Connecticut, and I loved the stuff. Less a true "topping" than a condiment, it nevertheless has the power to transform a plain pizza into a just-spicy-enough affair. Its slow burn is satisfying on an, ahem, chilly day but not overpowering enough to keep you from tasting the rest of your slice.
After the jump, a quick take on making a quick chile-infused oil.
I used to think that flour was the most important ingredient in bread. I've since changed my mind. While flour (wheat or otherwise) provides the bulk, without yeast there would be no lift. Okay, you can make quick breads with baking powder, but when people think of bread, they're usually thinking of yeast bread.
When I'm bored, sometimes I think about what foodstuffs I'd bring along to an alien planet. Of course I'd want to bring along plenty of flour to make cakes, cookies, muffins, and breads. I'd have my chemical leavenings in my suitcase, too, but what about yeast? It's a living thing. Would they let me bring that to my new homeworld, or would the alien version of customs police stop me at the border? And if I couldn't bring my own, would there be an alien equivalent that would allow me to culture a sourdough starter? Because without the help of yeast, my breads would be pretty dense.
Yeast is such a common thing here on Planet Earth that we don't give much thought to how amazing it is, and what a boon it is to bakers, brewers, and winemakers. And yeast is such a fun guy. Or, more accurately, a fungi. It converts the fermentable sugars in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol, and those bubbles, trapped in the matrix of gluten, are what causes bread to rise. When the dough is baked, the yeast dies but the pockets of air remain, giving the bread its unique texture.
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[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]
New York pizza is my favorite style of pizza. Sure, I love me a neo-Neapolitan, sit-down-with-a-fork-and-knife on occasion, and grilled pizzas are fantastic in the summer. Even chewy, Roman-style pizza bianca has its place. But the pizza I find myself most often craving is of the simple, by-the-slice, medium-thin, crusty and lightly chewy style.
Luckily for us, it's also the variety that seems most easily adaptable to the home kitchen. Unlike, say Neapolitan pies which require wood-burning, 1000°F ovens (or at the very least a reasonable workaround), the modern* New York pie is baked in gas ovens that don't often go north of 500 to 550°F or so—a temperature range not out of the pale of even the most bog-standard home oven fitted with a pizza stone.
This recipe results in a 66% hydration dough and makes enough for two 12-inch pizzas. If you don't have a mixer, don't worry. The batch is small enough that it's easy to mix by hand.
Be sure to keep some "bench flour" on hand to dust your hands and prevent dough from sticking to them.
