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Cast iron pizza
- Thread starter JeffreyL
- Start date
The only part of pizza I follow a recipe for is the crust. Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough recipe is an excellent one to start with, mainly because it goes beyond simply being a recipe and goes deep into explaining the process. Link can be found here: http://www.food.com/recipe/peter-reinharts-napoletana-pizza-dough-recipe-371543
I quickly started substituting 1/2 cup of the white flour for 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. It made the dough a lot less sticky at the expense of only being slightly less stretchy. You might enjoy adding 1 TB of finely chopped fresh rosemary or basil early in the mixing part. A clove or two of chopped garlic too. Down the road you might want to try 1/2 cup of corn meal in place of the whole wheat flour, especially for pan style and, if you're brave enough, Chicago style. Also, I've used 1/4 of a batch of this dough to make focaccia bread. Spread a little oil on top, add a few paper thin slivers of onion, coarse chopped fresh garlic, a few hand sliced slivers of parmesan, fresh rosemary if it isn't in the dough, fresh basil... 350 degrees for 35 (I think) minutes in a #8 skillet... but I digress.
When the instructions talk about pizza stones and oven temps, that's where you'll diverge from the recipe. I generally don't preheat the skillet beyond the point where I can hold it in my hands since it often takes a bit of work to get the dough in the pan. Oil the pan, dust it with a little flour if you want, then get the stretched dough on there. Not the end of the world if you have to use a short glass as a rolling pin to get it all the way across. Just don't push too hard and break the glass. Don't be afraid to dust the dough with flour when it gets too sticky to work with. For regular and pan style, I'll start off at 12 minutes in a preheated 425 degree oven. Pan will need more, but I'll decide how much more at the 12 minute mark. Sometimes I kick it up to 450 or 500 and reduce the time accordingly. I'm always experimenting.
I've done pizza on skillets, round griddles, and long griddles. It's all good. I do thin crust exclusively on griddles since it's easier to get the dough really thin on a griddle. A whole batch of the above recipe on a pair of #10 skillets makes a good starting point for pan style. After you've done a few you'll figure out your own style, and how much dough is right for what size and style pizza you're trying to do. I literally hold a glob of dough in my hand and decide the appropriate pan/griddle shape and size based what I'm in the mood for at that particular moment.
Don't go crazy with the toppings. You'll only wind up with soggy pizza. Lately the wife has had me put lots more oil on the pan if I'm doing pan style. It gives the crust a little extra crunch on the outside while still being soft and bready on the inside. I use regular (not extra virgin) olive oil unless I know I'm making some of it into focaccia bread. In that case I bring out the extra virgin oil. For the sauce, I'll either use canned tomato sauce with Penzey's pizza seasoning or I'll mix my own seasoning to taste with fennel seed (crushed with a mortar and pestle), salt, sugar, garlic powder, basil, marjoram or oregano, and a little black pepper. Any store bought seasoning packet or pre-made sauce would do too.
This is a lot to take in, but making pizza is much, much more like honing a craft than it is following a recipe. The best advice I can give is to practice, practice, practice. Fortunately your mistakes will generally still taste good. Soggy, maybe, but tasty. Good luck.
I quickly started substituting 1/2 cup of the white flour for 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. It made the dough a lot less sticky at the expense of only being slightly less stretchy. You might enjoy adding 1 TB of finely chopped fresh rosemary or basil early in the mixing part. A clove or two of chopped garlic too. Down the road you might want to try 1/2 cup of corn meal in place of the whole wheat flour, especially for pan style and, if you're brave enough, Chicago style. Also, I've used 1/4 of a batch of this dough to make focaccia bread. Spread a little oil on top, add a few paper thin slivers of onion, coarse chopped fresh garlic, a few hand sliced slivers of parmesan, fresh rosemary if it isn't in the dough, fresh basil... 350 degrees for 35 (I think) minutes in a #8 skillet... but I digress.
When the instructions talk about pizza stones and oven temps, that's where you'll diverge from the recipe. I generally don't preheat the skillet beyond the point where I can hold it in my hands since it often takes a bit of work to get the dough in the pan. Oil the pan, dust it with a little flour if you want, then get the stretched dough on there. Not the end of the world if you have to use a short glass as a rolling pin to get it all the way across. Just don't push too hard and break the glass. Don't be afraid to dust the dough with flour when it gets too sticky to work with. For regular and pan style, I'll start off at 12 minutes in a preheated 425 degree oven. Pan will need more, but I'll decide how much more at the 12 minute mark. Sometimes I kick it up to 450 or 500 and reduce the time accordingly. I'm always experimenting.
I've done pizza on skillets, round griddles, and long griddles. It's all good. I do thin crust exclusively on griddles since it's easier to get the dough really thin on a griddle. A whole batch of the above recipe on a pair of #10 skillets makes a good starting point for pan style. After you've done a few you'll figure out your own style, and how much dough is right for what size and style pizza you're trying to do. I literally hold a glob of dough in my hand and decide the appropriate pan/griddle shape and size based what I'm in the mood for at that particular moment.
Don't go crazy with the toppings. You'll only wind up with soggy pizza. Lately the wife has had me put lots more oil on the pan if I'm doing pan style. It gives the crust a little extra crunch on the outside while still being soft and bready on the inside. I use regular (not extra virgin) olive oil unless I know I'm making some of it into focaccia bread. In that case I bring out the extra virgin oil. For the sauce, I'll either use canned tomato sauce with Penzey's pizza seasoning or I'll mix my own seasoning to taste with fennel seed (crushed with a mortar and pestle), salt, sugar, garlic powder, basil, marjoram or oregano, and a little black pepper. Any store bought seasoning packet or pre-made sauce would do too.
This is a lot to take in, but making pizza is much, much more like honing a craft than it is following a recipe. The best advice I can give is to practice, practice, practice. Fortunately your mistakes will generally still taste good. Soggy, maybe, but tasty. Good luck.
I have never gone wrong with the instructions on this site... yum!
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archiv...-no-knead-no-stretch-pan-pizza-slideshow.html
Enjoy
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archiv...-no-knead-no-stretch-pan-pizza-slideshow.html
Enjoy