Kool-aid and not frozen pizza

Notes

  • Before anything else, this is an at minimum twelve hour job.  On and off, but you won’t be eating this pizza right away. If you want this for dinner, you best be getting up early.
  • Al Taglio pizza is the large square or rectangle pizza you’d find in Rome and all throughout Italy. Sold by the slice out windows or storefronts, it’s solid for carrying toppings as well as being carried around. But you can of course just sit at a table and gobble away.
  • I learned this dough recipe from Mastering Pizza: The Art and Practice of Handmade Pizza, Focaccia, and Calzone by David Joachim and Marc Vetri. Verti, one of the best pizza and pasta chefs on the Eastern Seaboard, and Joachim, a prolific cookbook author, wrote an incredibly in depth book. If you’re into old school pizza making, or just looking to learn about doughs, I highly recommend the book.
  • Originally I made this for dinner. But after running it through I’ve decided it would be better for breakfast. And who doesn’t love pizza for breakfast. So throw an egg or two on top, some fresh chopped green onions, call it a morning.
  • This dough can be room temperature rested, aka fermented, for about twelve hours, or about forty-eight hours in the fridge, maybe sixty. The longer rest time the greater the air bubbles in the dough, but keep it to sixty hours max, otherwise it will turn.
  • I steamed my potatoes to cook them down a little as the oven pizza time would not have cooked them through. I recommend you do the same, if not steaming, simply baking would suffice.

 

Dough

One large pizza

one and one thirds cup of warm water, plus one third cup

one and one half teaspoon of active dry yeast

three and two thirds cups of bread flour

two and one half teaspoons of salt

Allow the yeast to blossom in the one and one thirds cup of warm water for about ten minutes, until it is nice and bubbly.

Slowly add in the flour, mixing with a spoon until the dough starts to form and all the water is incorporated. It should be a “shaggy mess.” Cover bowl with cling wrap and let rest for ten minutes.

Uncover the dough and fold into itself. To do this, wet your hands, reach under a single corner of the dough, pull it out from under itself and press into the middle of the dough. Do this with the other three or four “corners” or the dough ball. Cover and let rest at room temperature for two hours.

After two hours, mix the salt and one thirds cup of water until salt dissolves.  Add the water to the dough. Fold into itself again, twice. Cover and let rest for another two hours.

After these two hours, fold two or three more times. Now either cover allow to rest for eight more hours in a warm place in the room or cover and all to rest in the fridge for twelve to forty-eight more hours.

If using the fridge method, pull the dough an hour and a half before you expect to use it so it can reach room temperature again.

Preheat an oven to five-hundred degrees for at least forty-five minutes.

Once the dough has fully rested, roll it out of its bowl onto a well floured surface.

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This is the dough expanding technique. Flip the dough ball twice so it picks up flour from the surface. Pull each “corner” of the dough ball slightly, one at a time, until the ball begins to flatten out a bit. Once it is slightly flatter, lift the dough and place one hand under the center of the dough. Bounce it up and down so the gravity pulls the corners down farther, stretching the dough around your hand. Now use both hands to continue to do the same thing, allowing the dough to stretch farther. Return to the floured surface once the dough has stretched enough, should be about one and a half inches thick still.

Bp9dogPlace the dough in a flour baking sheet. Pull the corners of the dough to the edge of the sheet. You don’t have to hit each corner, but they should be close.

Top with pizza toppings and bake.

Steamed Fingerling Potatoes

Six, two-to-three inch fingerling potatoes

Steam in a pot steamer or bake at three-hundred-and-fifty degrees for about ten minutes. Until slightly soft, not fully cooked through.

Slice into quarter into pieces.

 

Dill Pesto

Two and a half teaspoons of fresh dill

One bunch of parsley

Half a bunch of cilantro

Half a cup of walnuts

Juice from one lemon

Juice from half a navel orange

Two shallots, sliced thin

Two cloves of garlic, whole

Half teaspoon of salt

Half teaspoon of pepper

Half a cup, or more depending, of olive oil. Plus three tablespoons

Saute the garlic and shallots in three tablespoons of oil. Once caramelized, reserve the oil in a separate bowl.

In a food processor, process all the the ingredients minus the half cup, or more, of oil, for about ten seconds.

Keeping the processor on low, slowly pour in the oil, add more if needed, should be slightly more liquid than a paste.

 

Build The Pizza

Steamed potatoes, sliced

Orange zest from one navel orange

Parmesan cheese

Dill pesto

Three or four eggs.

Reserved shallot and garlic oil

Al taglio dough

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Brush the entire pizza with the reserved oil. Lay the potatoes across the pizza.

Bake at five hundred degrees for ten minutes on baking sheet. Turn the sheet one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, if adding eggs add now, bake for another ten minutes. Dough should be golden brown.

Remove pizza from oven.

Top with pesto, zest, and however much cheese your heart desires.

Eat eat eat eat eat.

bp9side

 

Yes, I know I have no cheese or eggs on my pizza. I was eating with a vegan and I try to be considerate.