Pizzumentary

Today I’m documenting my Sicilian pizza. Here is the pan. Seven bucks at Gordon Food Service. I seasoned it with lard before I used it for the first time, but it stuck a little. Since then I’ve been adding layers of baked-on lard, and you can see how much has accumulated. It’s very clean. There is no oiliness to it. The baked fat is like varnish. I’m hoping to build up a nice thick layer over the years.

Here is the dough. That’s four cups of flour. I was low on bread flour, so I used regular all-purpose flour and added around a tablespoon and a half of gluten. I’m sure it will be great. I used the small plastic blade in the Cuisinart, because this load of dough was really too big for the main blade. I want to get a Robot Coupe commercial food processor with a bigger bowl, but maybe it would be smarter to get a stand mixer. It would be a lot slower, but what’s an additional four minutes?

There is no oil in the dough, but I oiled the outside. The outside of the crust on a Sicilian pizza should be fried, more or less. When the pan gets hot, it fries the crust a little, giving a little crispness to it. I plan to oil the pan pretty heavily. Worked last time.

I don’t want this much pizza, but the small pans I ordered aren’t here yet. I can freeze the excess. I suspect you could get a good result with a disposable aluminum pan and PAM, but I don’t feel like experimenting.

I’m using Saporito sauce, plus water, vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic powder, and oregano. Fresh garlic is too good! The cheese: COSTCO! It really works!

More as the pizza develops. I hope I don’t do something stupid and ruin it.

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The dough rose like crazy, so I oiled the pan and spread the dough out. This may be too much oil.

Here’s the dough in the pan. I think this stage is called “proofing,” but I know more about cooking than jargon.

Here is the cheese I love. I know pizza snobs will sneer, but I use what works, and this is it.

I used 6 ounces (weight) of Saporito sauce. I don’t know if I’ll apply all of it, but I mixed it. I have a pound of cheese weighed out. This should be spectacular. Assuming I can pry it off the pan.

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Here’s the dough with sauce. You could eat that sauce as an entree. Stanislaus tomato products are incredible.

Here’s the dough with sauce and cheese.

Have to run.

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I’m an honest man. I admit it; I still have a little work to do. The sauce is perfect. The cheese is perfect. The dough is perfect. But I need to fine-tune the cooking technique, and I need to use more sauce and cheese. I think the magic numbers are 8 ounces and 24 ounces. This pie was a marvel, but the crust was not done as well as it should have been, the ingredient balance wasn’t optimal, and the cheese got browner than I like.

Here’s the pizza. I had no idea what to do with it, so I cut it right on the stove.

Here’s the underside. It’s done, but just barely.

The answer is probably to give up the stone and bake on the rack. That will get the bottom done faster. Right now I’m going 12 minutes, and I need to be down around 8 or 9. I thought the stone would bake the bottom faster, but it doesn’t. If I can bake the dough faster, the cheese will not be as brown.

I could throw foil over the top after a certain amount of time, to prevent browning while the bottom cooks, but that’s stupid, if I can just remove the stone.

I’m surprised how much cheese and sauce this thing needs. You can’t just use the same amount you put on a thin pizza with the same area.

The flavor is right on the money. No pizzeria could do better. And the parts of the crust that are fully done are sublime, so I know the rest of it will taste the same, once I get it to brown more.

One other interesting thing: I need to form the dough into a large rectangle before it rises, so I don’t have to stretch it so much. I stretch the dough and then flip it and stretch it some more, and this gives desirable finger indentations in the bottom of the dough. They improve the texture and flavor. But if you stretch it too much after you flip it, you end up pressing a lot of these indentations out. Much better to start with a sheet of dough that doesn’t have to be worked as much.

Anyway, the best Sicilian you ever ate can be made in your home oven with great consistency and no special equipment. That’s news the whole world should want to hear.