Posts Tagged ‘pizza’

Pizza night is such a great tradition! Whenever I see in movies or TV series families that have a weekly pizza night - I want to have one too. It’s such a nice together-time, and when the theme is such a tasty treat - how can one refuse it?

But, back to reality, if I’d let myself eat pizza in the evening once a week, I wouldn’t get very far (cause I wouldn’t be able to pass through the door). But there’s no harm in pizza nights every now and then, right?

So for a while now I’ve wanted to try to make home-made pizza. My childhood memories from home made pizza (not at my home, we didn’t make pizza at home, but at friends’ houses) aren’t so hot - I remember very thick dough (and I like thick dough, but that was too much even for me) that tasted nothing like a real pizza dough, sauce that on a good day would never resemble to the real thing, and some cheese. This held me back from making pizza at home for a really long time (silly me!), thinking that with home kitchen equipment there is no way I can produce pizzeria-style pizza (WRONG!). Lately though, while browsing through food blogs, and watching results of fellow bloggers and fellow food forum members here in Israel, I saw really impressive results.

I also figured that it could be nice to start using that new baking stone that we received among the presents for our wedding. So for the past couple of weeks Avi and I talked almost every night about making pizza at home (actually every time we talked it sounded something like this: Avi: “When are we gonna make pizza?” Me: “As soon as we buy a pizza pan“). Yeah, that’s me, I love to have all the right gadgets before I make any kind of food. It’s really the best excuse I’ve found to buying all sorts of great cooking gadgets!

Yesterday I bought the pizza pan and decided to surprise Avi with a home-made-pizza-night. Boy, am I happy I used the recipe I used! It belongs to Maggie, she is a friend from an Israeli food forum, actually a virtual friend, because I’ve never met her. She is SO talented! Every picture of every dish she ever makes would make your mouth water in a second, and she also tells the story of the recipes she gives so gracefully - I really admire her! Last but not least - she also lived in Italy for a period in her life, and she knows a lot about Italian food.
The pizza turned out delicious! The dough was so great to work with, I almost wanted to crawl into the mixer’s bowl and lie down to sleep on it! It made a superb crust, and eventhough I slightly overcooked it, it still had a wonderful taste. The sauce was also very tasty, and to sum it all up - I really recommend this wonderful recipe. Thanks so much, Maggie!

Place the dough on the pizza pan

Spread a little amount of the sauce on the dough. Notice here that
I’ve put a lot of sauce, because I didn’t read the recipe carefully.
This didn’t produce a wet dough at all, though.

After partial baking add cheese and toppings

And the final result (try to not overcook the margins, as I did)

Pizza / Slightly adapted from Maggie’s recipe
Serves 4-6 people

Ingredients:
For the dough:
500 gr bread flour (I didn’t have so I used all-purpose flour)
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp dry yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water

For the sauce:
1 fresh tomato, grated
100 gr tomato paste
1 flat tsp sugar
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

For the pizza:
200 gr mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1. Put the flour and salt in the mixer’s bowl and stir them well using a spatula. Add the yeast and stir well.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead for 10-12 mins.
3. Cover the bowl and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
4. Place the baking stone in the oven (if using one) and preheat the oven to the highest temperature available.
5.Punch down dough and knead briefly. Form 2 large pizza bases from it, or 4 smaller ones.
6. Place the dough on a pizza pan. Make the sauce, by mixing all the ingredients together and stirring them.
7. When the stove has reached the highest temperature, spread only a small amount of the sauce on top of the dough. Start spreading from the center and slowly spread towards the ends, leaving a small part of the crust uncovered with sauce.
8. Bake the dough and sauce for about 10 mins, or until the margins are half baked.
9. Get the pizza out of the oven, spread more sauce and scatter the cheese and other desired toppings. Put back into the oven until fully baked.

We also made a little focaccia from the dough

פיצה / עיבוד קל למתכון של מגי מפורום מתכונים של תפוז
עבור 4-6 אנשים

רכיבים:
לבצק:
500 גרם קמח לחם (השתמשתי בקמח רגיל)
1 כף מלח
1 כף סוכר
2 כפות שמן זית
1 כף שמרים יבשים
1 1/4 כוסות מים חמימים

לרוטב:
1 עגבניה, מגוררת
100 גרם רסק עגבניות
1 כפית שטוחה סוכר
2 שיני שום, כתושות
2 כפות שמן זית
מלח
פלפל

לפיצה:
200 גרם גבינת מוצרלה

הכנה:
1. מכניסים את הקמח והמלח לקערת המיקסר ומערבבים ידנית. מוסיפים את השמרים ומערבבים טוב.
2. מוסיפים את שאר החומרים ולשים 10-12 דקות.
3. מכסים את הקערה ומתפיחים במקום חמים עד להכפלת הנפח.
4. אם משתמשים באבן שמוט, מניחים אותה על רשת בשליש התחתון של התנור ומחממים את התנור לחום הגבוה ביותר.
5. מוציאים את האויר מהבצק ע”י מכת אגרוף ולשים קלות. יוצרים ממנו 2 בסיסים גדולים לפיצה או 4 קטנים יותר.
6. שמים את הבצק על רשת לפיצה (אם משתמשים). מכינים את הרוטב ע”י ערבוב כל החומרים.
7. כאשר התנור סיים להתחמם, מורחים על עיגולי הבצק מעט מאוד רוטב, עד השוליים שיהיו גבול הנחת הגבינה ושאר התוספות על הפיצה.
8. מכניסים לתנור ואופים כ-10 דקות, או עד ששולי הפיצה חצי אפויים.
9. מוציאים את הפיצה מהתנור, מורחים עוד מהרוטב בכמות הרצויה, מפזרים גבינה ושאר תוספות. מכניסים בחזרה לתנור עד לאפיה מלאה לפי טעמכם האישי(אנחנו אוהבים את הבצק זהוב ושעל הגבינה מתחילות להופיע נקודות זהובות).