Demon dishes - mine is pizza

"Raise your hand if you never get pizza right when you make it at home" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen

Those words began one of Deb Perelman's recipes on her website Smitten Kitchen - a recipe for Lazy pizza dough and favourite Margherita pizza. She had me hooked right there, because that's me. On the left is her finished Margherita for that post, above is a world-beating pizza from Anatica Pizzeria Port'Alba in Naples, so I don't think many of us are going to taste that anytime soon or, indeed make a close copy. Not even Deb Perelman. Let's blame it on not having the right oven shall we?

But back to Deb Perelman and her thoughts on home-made pizza. Herewith her opening paragraph:

"Raise your hand if you never get pizza right when you make it at home — that the dough doesn’t rise in the time the recipe says it should or it’s impossible to roll out; or that you get it rolled out but once baked, it tastes less like a good pizza crust and more like a tough cracker. Or maybe the opposite happens, that it’s so thick and bready, it reminds you more of a bagel, and sadly, not in a good way. Raise your hand if it never resembles the stuff from your favorite wood-wired pizzeria, all bubbled and crisp but stretchy within, with charred spots throughout and slices that don’t flop like overcooked spaghetti once lifted, sauce and cheese sliding away from you just when you need them in your mouth the most."

I'm talking about this today because I am indeed having another go at pizza tonight. Always a disappointing exercise. Yes, of course, it's eatable, but no it's not great. So what follows are more words from Deb on why we just don't seem to get some things right, and yet, perhaps foolishly we persevere instead of giving up and going to your nearest really good pizzeria. Ordering in is not the answer as I truly believe you have to eat pizza straight from the oven. Even the greatest pizzas are not so great when you get to the last bites, and by the time Uber gets it to you it's only mildly warm and chewy.

It's her next paragraph which answers the 'raise your hand' point:

"Me, me, me, me, me. I suspect that all home cooks have a few demon dishes, things they make a million times and are never fully satisfied with, but are still so obsessed that they can never resist a new angle or tactic that promises to bring them closer to their ideal. However, they’re usually normal things, common plagues like roast chicken, perfect buttermilk biscuits or brownies."

She is certainly right about that. There are indeed a few things that we never quite get right, but perhaps foolishly persist in trying. She is also so right about it often being pizza. I have tried several different recipes for pizza dough. I have cooked them on pizza stones in ovens at various heats, and with heat coming from different directions. I have fried them, and finished them under the grill, I have rolled them out to varying degrees of thickness and topped them to a greater or lesser degree, using different cheeses and tomato options. I have even completely chickened out and used bought pizza bases from here and there, used bought naan and pita bread ...

I do suspect that my main error is overloading the toppings - tomato sauce, softened onions, lots of salami and ham, peppers or other similar things, anchovies and lots of cheese. Less is more is, I'm sure, so very, very true in the case of pizza. But I can never resist.

However, it's not my only sin. My dough tends to be - well - doughy. And in spite of sitting them on a sprinkling of polenta or semolina, the bottom is never crunchy and it never puffs up like the really good ones.

And yet I keep trying. Never remembering, of course, which dough works better than another, as well as all the other stuff.

But back to Deb's Smitten Kitchen. She goes on to tell us how she watched the experts in Rome where she recognised:

"the gaping space between what you thought you’d been cooking fairly passably at home and the ideal specimen in front of you that bears no resemblance to what had previously been your victory."

But she carefully watched them making their pizzas and here she learnt a few things:

1. Don't use fresh mozzarella because it's wet - use the dry plastic wrapped stuff - and I conveniently have a half used ball going mouldy at the edges in the fridge. I'll cut off the mouldy bits and it will be fine, although I shall have to bolster it with cheddar in a similar state.

2. The tomatoes are puréed canned tomatoes, possibly flavoured with garlic, salt and pepper, maybe even sugar - but she thought they maybe strained it as well because it looked drier than what she used. Isn't this passata?

3. The dough is made with less yeast and proves over a much longer period.

Well the first two I can manage - well her recipe uses canned tomatoes that she strains before puréeing, but I think today I shall grate some fresh tomatoes, flavour with garlic and perhaps some herbs, but perhaps not, cook them up a little bit - possibly with a bit of tomato paste, then strain the sauce - or boil it down until thick. Maybe purée it. I'll see what it looks like.

I've already mentioned the mozzarella, but what does she say about the dough?

Fortunately the dough that she recommends comes with three different proving times - and one of them is for those who, like her:

"tend to realize around noon that I have no groceries for dinner and don’t feel like buying more. It can be started at lunchtime and will be ready at dinner (this is ideal for weekends, too)."

Well it's now 1.00, so I had better go and make it!

And I did but already I am a bit nervous. The two photographs on the left are from the Smitten Kitchen website. On the right is mine. I had to make half of course, because there are only two of us not four, and I am already an hour behind her 'quick' schedule, so I'm just crossing fingers because I'm committed now.

Her later photographs of the dough when it has risen, show a much stickier and looser kind of dough so I added more water than she recommended but it still didn't look as loose - see below what it's supposed to look like when it's risen:

And now I see - having scrolled down to the end of her article (they do tell you to read a recipe right the way through!):

"Updated with extra water: Early commenter[s] fairly consistently said they found the dough drier than they expected, and this is my fault. My doughs were so soft with 1 1/4 cups water that I dropped it down to 1 cup + 3 tablespoons when writing this, obviously this was incorrect."

Now she tells us! Well I think I added more water than she recommended, so perhaps I'll just pray. Besides she said it will be alright. We'll see.

And note - no kneading.

I

I should say here that she also has another, possibly even simpler pizza recipe - Simple crispy pan pizza which could be even better. So if today's attempt fails, I'll try that I think.

I won't be as mean with the toppings though. There will be some salami - and anchovies for me. But generous with the tomato sauce I think.

We'll see. If it doesn't work I'll try somebody else. Or go back to Jamie and Gennaro. And yes I shall keep trying.

YEARS GONE BY

March 8

2025 - Again

2024 - Butter chicken cheats

2023 - Nothing

2022 - 4 common leftovers - no. 2 - bread

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Nothing

2017 - Is pinot noir worth all the fuss?