I’ve Got a Little List

A reader says he’s going to try my Sicilian pizza recipe. Think I’ll hit the highlights, because there are certain points that are of special importance, and it might be hard to pick them out of my ramblings.

1. Use a thin steel pan, preferably seasoned. At the very least, use a generous amount of olive oil.

2. Let the dough rise very high before punching it down, and let it rise again after spreading it in the pan.

3. When you stretch the dough to fit the pan, turn it at least once so you’ll have finger indentations on the underside. This improves the crust.

4. Use at least 0.11 ounces of cheese per square inch of pan.

5. Use twice the amount of sauce you’d use in a thin pie.

6. Bake low in the oven, with no stone, at 550°. After 8 or 10 minutes, start lifting a corner to see how done the bottom is. Pull it when it’s brown.

7. If your broiler is coming on, put another rack in the oven up high, and put foil or a cookie sheet on it to keep the broiler from browning the cheese.

8. Use light olive oil, not the green stuff.

The more fat your cheese has, the less likely it is to get too brown. The risk is that too much fat will give you a greasy pie. Costco mozzarella is perfect.

I put oil on my dough, but not in it. On my next pie, I plan to bias the cheese toward the outer edges of the pan, because it tends to drift inward as the pie cooks. It seems like it’s impossible to put too much oil under the pie.

It may be that you can get a better result at a lower temperature, but I haven’t tried it, so I can’t tell you.

This method isn’t good. It’s perfect. It’s unbelievable.

Good luck.