My Pie Monday: Simon's Special Sauce Pizzas

D'oh! Apologies to Simon for letting this one slip through the cracks. He sent this MPM entry in after the Memorial Day Weekend. I think I was zonkered from that holiday and forgot to put this up. Here it is ... —The Mgmt.

The first pie was just plain sauce and cheeses. Good, fresh, hand-pulled mozzarella and some grated Parm. [Photographs: Simon]

Attached are some pics from my Memorial Day pizza-making session. As I mentioned in the Talk thread, these were at first intended to be grilled, but I had spent the previous two and a half days grilling and smoking stuff, and I just didn't feel like firing up the grill again. So, these diminutive pizzas were cooked in the oven.

These were topped with a special sauce I made, and also described in that thread. Basically puréed leftover braising veggies and juices from some delicious braised veal cheeks made earlier in the week. The dough was made using yours and Kenji's recipe in the grilled pizzas post.

It was originally 3:1 "00" to AP flour. But for some reason the dough was really wet. And I mean, like pancake batter wet. So I worked in more AP until I got it right, so probably ended up being more like 3:2.

The dough is slightly yellow because I like the flavor of turmeric in my doughs (both in bread and pasta), so I added about a teaspoon of it. Yes yes, this will probably draw some heat, but as you know, I'm no stranger to controversy :)

I left it to rise for two days in the fridge before making the balls. We made six of these mini pies in total (with two left that went into the freezer), one of which was a Nutella dessert pie. For the ladies in attendance, and cuz all the cool kids are doin' it.

Plain cheese pie.

On the stone.

This ended up being the combo of the day: sauce, mozz, mushroom, prosciutto, fresh garlic, creme fraiche, grated parm, olive oil, pepper.

This shows the scale. They were small, thin and very cute.

These pics are all fuzzy because I forgot my camera and shot them with my phone. But here you can see some decent bubbles in the cornicione and some color in the undercarriage. I think if my dough had been a little drier I would have got a little more color.

The Nutella and marshmallow dessert pie.

The marshmallows puffed up and started dancing. Here you can see the large (15") cast iron skillet I placed above the stone in an attempt to get some radiant heat from above. Don't know if it worked but I think it helps the oven retain heat when opening the door repeatedly.

Nutella and marshmallow pie.

Voila! It was a lot of fun, and had been a couple years since I'd make pizza at home. Next time I'll go for a drier, less kneaded dough, and see how that goes. I think the ideal balance to strive for is crisp yet tender. My dough was tasty: yeasty, savory and crisp, but I would have liked it to have been a little softer, "pillowy" as they say.

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