I make a lot of pizza. Deep dish, grilled, french bread, “grandma,” you name it. But this might be the best yet.
The crust, made with bread flour, is a near perfect combination of light with a tiny bit of crunchiness. And although it may sound simple, getting the cheese right on a cheese pizza is not a no-brainer. If you’ve ever just plopped fistfuls of mozzarella on dough you know what I mean. It’s not that cheese and bread can ever really be bad but small tweaks can result in something much more interesting and nuanced. This recipe is 1 cup whole-milk mozzarella and just 2 tablespoons of parm and it’s a great blend. As great as all that was, my daughter and I both thought it was the sauce that made this so good. And all that is is canned tomatoes pulsed in the food processor with a little olive oil and garlic.
Also, this was actually kind of fun to make.
I had a little trouble getting the dough to the right consistency while it was in the food processor and had to add a couple more teaspoons of water to get it to be a bit sticky but cleaning the bow, as instructed. Once that’s done you just form into a ball and let rise for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
Now the fun part.
The pizza is first cooked stove top to get the bottom of the crust set and slightly blistered. After you roll it out into an 11″ round transfer to a skillet that has 2 tablespoons of olive oil in it. It helps to know your stove well here and I do not (yet) so mine got a little more than blistered. Check yours frequently. I used my All-Clad skillet but anything that can go in the oven will work (that is, nothing with a plastic handle). A cast iron pan would work really well too.
Then it goes into a 500-degree oven for a few minutes to melt and brown the cheese. Then, you know, eat it. Well let it cool off a bit.
As we ate my daughter wondered why anyone would ever order, say, Domino’s when something like this can be made with very few, easily found ingredients and aside from the rising time, pretty quickly. “That,” I replied “is why I have a blog.”
Two questions- I use a cast iron pan and precook the dough in the oven but never get that Lou’s-like crispy edge. Are you saying I can use the stove top to get that highly sought after thin crunch? Have you tried quick rise yeast- I get my dough to rise in the 30 minutes it takes to get veggies cut, shred the cheese and make the sauce. Worth checking out.