I love Pizza and could eat it everyday, although I don’t – darn. The Dough is really what makes the pizza. This is not to say that fresh quality ingredients are not important, but the dough sets the pizza experience. I have tried a number of different recipes for pizza dough. The best, without doubt, is the dough that sits in the refrigerator for 72 hours fermenting and developing flavor, see the recipe below. Yes I know this isn’t a “wrapped” dish, but I do “wrap” the dough, sauce and cheeses into a packet, see below.
Pizza at Home-Peppin Style
Ingredients
- 17 oz King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
- ½ tsp Rapid Rise yeast
- 10¾ oz ice water
- 2 TBS honey
- 1 TBS EVOO
- 1½ tsp Sea Salt
Instructions
- In a food processor bowl, quickly mix the flour, yeast.
- Add the ice water slowly until the dough ball just forms.
- Let the dough rest for 30 minutes
- Add the honey, EVOO and salt.
- Mix until the dough clears the sides of the food processor bowl.
- Empty the dough out onto a clean floured counter and knead for 1 minute.
- Form a ball and with your hands cover the ball with EVOO.
- In a clean EVOO covered ceramic bowl place the dough ball.
- Cover the bowl and set in the refrigerator for 72 hours.
- Remove and let come to room temperature.
- Roll out the dough into the pizza size you wish and make your pizza.
Notes
When I want a pizza, do I want to wait 3 or 4 days? Few have this amount of patience. So I came up with an interesting option. Firstly, making the dough really doesn’t take that much time. And the fermentation is just in the refrigerator, no work at all. Further, fermented dough keeps well in the freezer as do cheeses, so why don’t I freeze the basics for a pizza, then all I have to do is thaw the packet, add some toppings and I have myself a great pizza dinner. So I took dough, marinara sauce (see recipe below), mozzarrella, parmesan reggiano and placed them into a seperate plastic bags. Then place all of them into a vacuum bag and vacuum pack the entire packet. This works amazingly well.
The Pizza Marinara Sauce can be frozen in 1/4 cup portions (see the recipe below). You can use more if you want more sauce, but I find 1/4 cup to be plenty for me. Again, once the sauce is done, just put 1/4 cup in plastic containers, freeze, popout of the container, place in a plastic bag, seal and into the vacuum packet. You want to seal the bag with the sauce firmly squeezing out as much air as possible.. You don’t want the sauce to exit the bag and cover the dough and cheeses. Place the dough and cheeses also in plastic bags, also firmly sealed. Place the 4 bags in the vacuum bag and vacuum pack the entire packet. The Food Saver vacuum packer I use works very well for this (and I use it all the time).
When you need a pizza, take the packet out of the freezer and thaw. Roll out the dough, put on the sauce and spread to cover the pizza, then sprinkle the cheese. Sometimes this is enough, but adding pepperoni, garlic, olives or whatever you wish. Keep the toppings at a minimum, I don’t put on more than 3 toppings, so pepperoni (I use Fortuna, peel off the wrapper before you slice the pepperoni), mushrooms and olives makes a great pizza. But use the toppings you desire.
Pizza Marinara Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 TBS EVOO
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 8 oz tomato paste
- 1½ TBS honey
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
- ½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 TBS fresh basil chffonade
Instructions
- Place the EVOO in a saute pan and fry the garlic until fragrant. Do not cook the garlic too long or it will become bitter.
- Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, honey, sea salt, black papper and chili flakes.
- Mix well and cook on low uncovered until it is reduced to a very thick sauce.
- Stir it regularly to keep the bottom from burning.
- Add the basil and mix.
- I place ¼ cup of this sauce into plastic containers (1 cup size) and freeze them.
- Once frozen you can pop them out of the container, place in a plastic bag and frozen with the pizza packet of cheeses and dough.
The Pizza Packet: For one person.
| Dough | 6 Ounces |
| Pizza Marinara Sauce | 1/4 cup (if you like more sauce 1/3 cup) |
| Mozzarella | 4 ounces |
| Parmesan | 1 ounce (you can use less, but I love this cheese) |
