illdothedisheslater

Wow where HAVE you been, Dishes?  Sorry for the long period of silence guys.  I had my  20th (OMG!) high school reunion this past weekend, and guess who was in charge?  (Or rather, guess who was the last to say “Not it”.)  So needless to say I’ve been busy.

But I know I never followed up on the New York thin crust pizza, and I will do so presently.  It was good but not great.  The dough rose gloriously as shown here:

(Glowy halo effect provided by the cooking gods, I guess.)

I made the sauce, once again following J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s recipe on Serious Eats, which (kinda) calls for:

1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes pureed with an immersion blender/food processor/blender

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2 medium cloves garlic, minced or grated

1 teaspoon dried oregano

pinch red pepper flakes

Kosher salt

1 teaspoon dried

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and split in half

1 teaspoon sugar

Heat the oil and butter, then sauté the garlic (gently – remember!) and herbs’n’spices.  When the garlic gets yellow and fragrant add the sugar, tomatoes, and onion.

I like that with this recipe you get the  flavor of onion without any actual chunks.  Aaaannd simmer.  Now they said to simmer for half an hour until it’s reduced by half, but an hour later it had only gone down just a touch.  I gave up and resigned myself to a thin, but well-cooked sauce.  Fish out the onion and discard.  Or eat  it.  It’s your life.  If you wanna eat an onion, then go for it.  Be happy.

Then the dough gets floured and stretched.  This was not easy.  Not easy at all.  It looks easy and fun, but I felt like Lucy Ricardo in that one episode where she makes pizza, only far less hilarious and well-coifed.  I did manage to turn this very wet sticky dough into roughly circular shapes on a pan, so win, I guess?  I’ll take it.

Then it’s just assembly, using the 2/3 cups of sauce, leaving a half-inch border.

(This border has an actual name – isn’t that cool?  It’s called the cornicione), grated whole-milk mozzarella (hard to find!) and pepperoni.

This pizza is half-and-half because my sainted brother has given up all of the most delicious animals and no longer eats mammals.  I would like him to eat this, so I sacrifice.  Bake at 500 degrees (wow!) for ten to fifteen minutes, or until the crust is golden brown, cheese bubbly, blah blah blah.  It looks fantastic right out of the oven.

So yeah – It’s good.  It’s not great.  Despite the very long rising time, the dough didn’t develop as much flavor as I’d hoped and tasted a little too flour-y.  The sauce was a garlic bomb (in a good way), but lacked the fresh sweet taste of plain crushed tomatoes with spices.  I’m starting to think I won’t ever find a sauce I like as much.   It somehow wasn’t greasy enough, which is an odd complaint to have.  It lacked the floppy, fold-y quality of good NY style.  I might make this again sometime, but the dough is a bitch to work with, so I’ll probably stick to a quicker, less messy one.

Here’s a terrible picture of the finished product mid-meal:

Songs stuck in my head as a result of the high school reunion, where yours truly was the budget-friendly DJ:

– Back To Da Hotel

– Whoomp! (There It Is)

– Two Princes

– Nuthin’ But A G Thang

– Joey

– Hey Jealousy