Pizza dough

Making pizza is as much about the cooking method as it is the dough.  So that's the caveat with which I share this not very special prep.  The baking of the pie is a little different as many will attest to.

But, many still ask for the dough prep, here's mine - and sorry, it's in grams, get an Escali [Note: this is not an affiliate link] for $20 and get over it.  Weigh things when you cook, you'll be surprised how much better your intuition becomes in cooking and in everyday interactions with the world when you know a few common weights.

In addition to a balance, get a bread machine to be a dedicated kneading machine.  These things are about $5 in a thrift store and they are ALWAYS in stock, the kneading is all the same and it's better than a Kitchen Aid, way better.  Oh, and they absolutely suck at baking bread, hence the abundant supply in thrift stores.

To the bread machine pan add in any order:
unbleached white flour, I am dedicated to Montana Sapphire, 575 g
water, 400 g
Adriatic sea salt evaporated from the shell of a tortoise, 10 g (kidding, any salt)
olive oil, 50 g
sugar, 10 g
a pack of INSTANT active dry yeast.  Don't use the bottle, don't worry about price, you're making 4 pizzas worth, don't use the bulk bottle, don't use it no matter what, instant active dry yeast, not the bulk bottle.  Got it?

Set to spin on dough cycle, remove when it looks like the video:


When it's kneaded about 5-10 minutes, dump on counter, flour the ball so it won't stick and store in fridge.  I cut off 1/4 of the ball, about 250 g for a 10-12" pie.  This will stay in the fridge for a week or keep in the freezer for longer.

Enjoy

Firedome refinements

A while back I outlined a few goals for the Firedome project. I want it to behave so I can feed the masses. Ideally, I'd like to be able to use downed wood from my lot (cheaper for long cooking sessions and little residual ash) and I really needed it to be charged on the fly.

I live by the tagline on this blog, yet I'm not a perfectionist. Developing an idea, for me, is a practical matter. Get the job done as good as I can given the timeframe. 80% of ideal is good enough - time to move to another project. Sometimes I wish I were a perfectionist, but life's short. Anyway, I think I'm finished with this. I'll cut one more dome out - no hinged door - Kate's generously donated Weber dome, your time has come, meet my angle grinder, you two go have fun.

So, here it is. Note the door stays open throughout the cooking. This enables a nice constant temperature and prevents the neighbors from being smoked out. A dancing fire prevents one from determining the headspace temperature accurately. All I could do is measure surfaces. The clay base was steadily in the 950°F range, ca +/-30F, the inside of the dome surface, about 700°F. It was windy so the heat wicked off the surface, but the base was pretty stable. All I needed to do was toss in chunks of wood from the front to maintain a fire. I only had little pieces and they burned quickly, so I'll be repeating this with bigger chunks (see bottom image).

This is one of two test breads I ran today. The first came off the grill and I tossed it straight to the neighbors for their breakfast. I think they liked it.

Before the next run, I went through our neighborhood and dragged back a bunch of fallen wood, chunked it down and am ready. But, not this weekend. I'm too ecstatic to face any irreproducibility. I'm taking a break to bask in the glory.

Superbowl Pita

The night before the superbowl, I made 4 kg of pizza dough for the big day.  I stored it outside in a loosely  covered container on my deck.  I used about 3/4 of it on the day of the superbowl and the remainder has sat in there for 11 days now. Since the raccoons decided to pass on it, I had to find a use for it.

Some time ago, Andrew convinced me a yeasted dough would last much longer than I expected.  I now believe a lump o dough has approximately 4-5 full rises before the dough is spent; eventually it gets too sour and needs to be refreshed with more flour.  The weather's been cool enough so the entire 11 days has been a long retarding period and it was ready to go tonight.  I made pitas for our hummus tonight.  They had a hint of a sourdough flavor and were great with the hummus.

The dough was scaled to ca. 200 g pieces, squished into circles and allowed to rest about 10 minutes uncovered.

I baked them in a 500°F oven on a preheated baking sheet. The sheet was enamel on steel. A new favorite baking surface of mine.

Pizza on cast iron

Some time ago, Bethia asked if I used cast iron for cooking pizza a la Heston Blumenthal.  Blumenthal's pizza may be good, but the method is too clumsy for me to consider when cooking for a crowd.

The valuable nugget I did glean from this is the possibility of baking pizza on cast iron.  What a wonderful, buy-it-once-per-lifetime cooking surface.  While there exists a 15" round cast iron pan at Amazon that makes me salivate excessively, I found a cheaper griddle for a few bucks the other day at the thrift store to experiment with.  My first pizzas on this were going to be wispy thin pizzas inspired by California Pizza Kitchen (love their pies - think CPK will give me ad money now??).  Made some dough [water 300 g, salt 5 g, sugar 10 g, olive oil 30 g, yeast 1 pkg, unbleached white 300g, kneaded in a machine, placed in fridge for the week].  A few hours later, I pulled 100 grams of the dough to make a couple afternoon snacks.

Preheated oven to 450F, rounded the balls and rolled them into 8" diameter shells (click image to make larger).

50 g rounded dough rolled to a ca. 8" shell

Here's a shot of the cast iron griddle in the oven.

Topped the shells with a bit of tomato paste, thinly sliced, roasted cauliflower, ham, sprinkle of parmesan and a drizzle of oil and baked it about 12 minutes.

In conclusion, the cast iron was awesome.  I'll be getting a nice round for the Firedome.  In the meantime, for these 8" personal pies, I may make them a tad thicker, but this thinness was pretty nice.  And, califlower is pretty nice as a pizza topping.

Firedome: A new and easier fuel configuration, indirect - still a work in progress

Warning:  Long post (with water balloons)

What seemed correct with the Firedome to date was a symmetrically placed ring of fire about the cooking surface.  It's served me (and friends) well for over a year now, but a few lingering flaws forced me to persist in its development.

1. briquettes are good, but lots of byproducts and I could not boast "wood fired" to a more discerning crowd. I wanted to switch to wood. Something easier and cheaper to use and recharge on the fly without a mid-burn disassembly.
2. A wood fire would be hard to maintain in a circular configuration.
3. Any good pizza oven I've observed has the fuel source "indirect," not directly below the food, but in a pile offset.
4. I have a continuous stream of wood on my property.  Oaks give it up every time it's windy (remember Ike?).
5. One pile of fuel is trivial to start; a ring is often a pain.
All modifications must still result in uniform cooking top and bottom of the dough.

Today the wood fuel vision begins to come into focus; I think we might be hitting the oven that was intended in the first place.

A chilly morning seemed the perfect time for a fire and it's always a good time for lightly smoke-infused flatbread.  Made some dough, fired up a chimney of briquettes (briquettes are a killer starter for any fire by the way).  After  a few clumsy reorganizations, I placed the fuel on one side of the lower grate of the Firedome, placed the cooking surface on the upper grate and positioned the clay cooking surface on the opposite side of the grill.  On top of the briquettes, I placed several pieces of oak, they started immediately, a kick ass fire in minutes.  I capped the dome, lifted the door, positioning the opening so the blazing fire was on the right and the cooking surface to the left.

Here's how the morning progressed in a few frames and a few movies:

The circle of fire is ok, but laborious to maintain. Also!.. note the decorative chimnea stand I scored in someone's trash. Elegant? I think so.

This was shot after I moved everything to either side.  In this way, I could add to the fire by pitching wood right through the door as I need.  The flames would swoop around and I'd be cooking "in the tube" of the firewave.  It also tolerates water balloons tossed in when you need that extra bit of humidity.

Final product.  To be eaten with tonight's roasted red pepper hummus.

I'm waiting for a replacement thermocouple or this post would've been oozing with temp data.  However, a pita cooked in about 90 seconds.  I'm guessing the oven was about 750°F while the flames were up, maybe a bit higher.    There will definitely be more to come on this.

Final notes for those following along with your own pet Firedome:
1. one chimney full on one side of the lower grate
2. add small, ca. 8" logs of wood, on the briquettes
3. place upper grate in place with one side of the grate open in a way you can toss wood in
4. place Firedome on top of roaring fire with the hatch open, wait a few minutes and cook away
5. getting some wood this size might require a chainsaw