Pizza Pizza

For about the last five years, I've been working on trying to master the art of pizza dough. I'm still working on it, but I think I've worked out a pretty good recipe.

The most important thing about cooking pizza is heat. You want to get the oven as hot as you can. Mine only goes to 550 F, but if you can get yours to go higher, that's better. Turn the oven on an hour before baking. It sounds like a lot, but you want to get the over REALLY hot before putting the pizza in. A pizza stone helps to retain heat, distribute the heat, and pull moisture from the crust. If you're going to make pizza with any regularity, get a stone. (Be careful you don't spill anything on your stone. Otherwise it will stink up your whole house when you turn the oven on. Trust me, I've been there and it's not pleasant.)

One hurdle to cooking pizza is sliding the pizza off the peel on to the stone. Because the dough is sticky, it will stick to the wooden peel. This can result in a mess in the oven when the pizza toppings spill off the dough as you're trying to slide it in. (As you can probably tell, this has happened to me.) My solution to this dilemma is to use parchment paper. (At the store, it's with plastic wraps and aluminum foil.) I put the parchment paper on the peel and put the flattened dough on top of that and then top the pizza. The parchment paper will slide easily on to the pizza stone and carry the pizza along with it. If you want, you can pull out the parchment paper after about a minute of cooking. To save paper, I reuse the paper from the first pizza for the second pizza.

Now for the recipe:

1.5 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast (or 1.5 teaspoon active dry yeast)
1/4 cup crumbled Parmesan cheese
2/3 cup warm water
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt (optional, you can use less or none at all to make it healthier)
1 teaspoon sugar

Mix the flour, yeast and Parmesan thoroughly with a whisk in a large bowl. Add sugar and salt. Add water and oil and mix until its smooth and soft. I usually let the MixMaster run for about 5 minutes to for a strong gluten. If you like a more light flaky pizza dough, mix it less. Keep adding flour until the dough is soft and smooth. Think: your ear lobe. It should be a little sticky, but shouldn't stick to your fingers like glue. Place in a glass bowl sprayed with olive oil and cover lightly with plastic wrap sprayed with oil. Let rise.

Because San Francisco is cold almost all year, I usually rise my quick breads in the microwave. No, DON'T microwave the dough! Instead, boil water in a large mug and then place the dough in the microwave with the hot water. Leave the door cracked open for the first few minutes and then close it. Using this method, the pizza dough should rise well in about an hour or so. But if you have the time, a slower rise in a cooler environment produces a better taste.

Sourdough Alternative
If you have sourdough starter (if you want some, just ask me) you can make an even better pizza dough. I use the recipe above, but add about 1/4 cup of sourdough starter and decrease the yeast to about 1/2 teaspoon instant or 3/4 teaspoon active dry. I dissolve the the starter and yeast in the warm water and then add the flour, Parmesan, sugar, and salt mixture on top and then mix it up. I usually let the sourdough dough rise for a little longer, but if you're short on time you can add a little more yeast and you'll be fine with about an hour of rise time using the microwave method.

Toppings
This is where you can get really creative. I usually start with a basic homemade tomato sauce base. My favorite pizzas are: (1) sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, mozarella, (2) mozarella, basil, buffalo mozarella chunks, and fresh heirloom tomatoes, (3) salami, mozarella, blue cheese. But you can use pretty much anything.