Pizza. Pizzapizzapizzapizzapizza. It’s the bee’s pajamas or whatever the saying is. Love for it is practically compulsory. Like most people (ones that don’t suck), I need a steady supply. I like to eat it, roll in it, rub it all over myself, wear it as shoes, fashion it into forts and form it into the besieging armies and then save the people who are trapped inside by feeding them with even tinier pizzas. Yeah, it’s real good.
The problem is that in America we have this Little Debbie pizza culture where, for the most part, we have traded flavor and texture for consistency and convenience. Not that there isn’t something to be said for the extra greasy mega-cheese-chains; they’re perfect after a few beers and a sapping of motivation.
Regardless, there is plenty of good pizza to be found, but the really tasty stuff around Madam Pants’ and my place is hidden in fancy-shmantzy restaurants which is by no means pizzas’ natural habitat. So whatever is a boy to do? Apparently the solution is to make it ourselves.
Unfortunately, I have seen many earnest home pizza attempts thwarted by ovens that aren’t hot enough and retain heat about as well as Michael Jackson retains his skin tone. But I figured if this was the biggest challenge, it was worth a try. So with the help of my local Habitat Re-Store, I lined my home bakery hole (don’t be nasty) with eight or so large, foil wrapped paving tiles. Voila, instant pizza oven.
I used a standard Napoletana dough recipe (this particular one provided by Peter Reinhart) with just AP flour, water, salt, and yeast. I let it rise over night in the fridge and got six lovely starter balls.
Three I froze for later, one I indiscriminately mangled with my sausage-fingered man paws, and two I actually turned into some surprisingly delicious pizza.
I made the sauce out of a can of San Marzano tomatoes and some dried herbs and lemon juice. Then I made one Pizza Margherita with scrumptious mozzarella di bufala and fresh basil
and one with mushrooms, red onions, and arugula or rocket for you dirty Brits out there.
You could put toenail clippings and your neighbor’s underwear on this pizza and it would still be awesome.
So despite my trepidation the work was well worth it. Sure I’ll still buy pizza, but now when I really need a hardcore fix, I’m going homemade all the way. Oh yeah.
L. Pants
