Homemade Pizza and Focaccia

 The equipment you'll need for pizza is a cast iron pizza griddle and a pizza peel; you'll also need a surface to work the dough--either a counter or a large wood cutting board. A stick blender is handy for the sauce--and a pizza cutter.

Recipe for dough is: 4 cups AP flour (1 cup 00 and 3 cups AP is better), 2t salt, 1 3/4 t yeast, 1 2/3 cup water in the microwave for 30 seconds. Mix, knead a little, and let rise for a few  hours (all day is fine). I cover the bowl with a wet hand towel with a lid over it.

Recipe for the sauce is: get a 28 oz can of good san marzano tomatoes and pour a little juice into a container with tall sides (I use my stick blender container). Mince a clove of garlic and blend with the liquid. Break up the tomatoes with your hands and put them into the container with the garlic liquid. Blend just enough to break up the tomatoes and make a smooth sauce. Then add a little salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar, a little olive oil, and some oregano.

Preheat the oven to 500 and heat the griddle for one hour before baking. Also, slice an 8 oz ball of fresh mozzarella cheese and put the slices on paper towels on top and beneath to drain out the liquid. I put the bowl of dough on top as a weight.

Break the dough ball in half and leave the half you're not using in the bowl and covered with the wet towel. Take the ball of dough you're using and put it on a floured surface--just enough flour so it won't stick. Flatten it into a circle with your hands and let it rest a few minutes. Come back and flatten it some more with your hands into a bigger circle. Let it rest again. Now pick it up in your hands and go around the edges with both of your hands under the dough and stretch the rim. Put it back down on the board and press it down some more. Let it rest again and now stretch the whole thing going around in a circle. The key is not to force the dough but let it rest between stretchings. You should end up with a 14" circle.

Put the circle on a lightly floured peel. Working quickly, cover the dough with 5 big spoonfuls of the sauce, followed by a good sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan cheese, followed by half of the mozzarella. 

Now put the pizza into the oven. The trick is to push the peel forward with enough of a jerk to get the tip of the dough onto the griddle. Once you do that, the tip will stick to the griddle and then you can slide out the peel from under it. Bake the pizza for 7 minutes and then put on the broiler for an additional 1 minute. Use the peel to take the pizza out of the oven and put it on the stove top to cool for a minute before slicing. If you have fresh basil, break it up with your hands and put it on the pizza while it's still hot.

At this point, we sit down and eat and then after dinner I make the second pizza, which makes for good leftovers.

Buon appetito!

For Focaccia:

Use all 00 flour instead of AP for the dough, if you can.

Preheat oven at 500 for one hour.

After the dough rises, pour 1/4 cup olive oil on a cookie sheet and plop the risen dough on top of it and cover both sides of the dough with oil. Gradually work the dough to cover the entire sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for an hour or so and then poke down into the dough with two fingers all over the dough and sprinkle some coarse salt and rosemary on top. Bake for 10 minutes.