This made a tasty dough last night!!
*Skillet Pizzas*
*Rating:*
*Make: *About 4 pizzas
*Difficulty: *Hard
*Time: **Total:* 5 hrs *Active:* 1 hour
*SUMMARY*
This recipe is one of those things I wish I'd learned as a kid,
because it makes the best homemade pizza I've ever had. The reason
this method works so well is that it allows you to blast the pizza
dough with the most heat possible from a home oven, in a really
controlled way, first on the stovetop, then in the broiler. Crazy,
right?
*Note:* This recipe calls for a starter - this is a pre-ferment,
typically made of whole wheat flour, water, and yeast, that can
improve both the complexity of flavor and the keeping time of
bread. Starters can either be bought or made.
from: Josey Baker Bread <http://www.joseybakerbread.com/the-book/>
by Josey Baker
*INGREDIENTS*
*For the dough:*
1 tablespoon (or 15 g) sourdough starter
1/2 cup (or 120 g) cool water (60F)
3/4 cup (or 105 g) whole wheat flour
1 cup (or 240 g) lukewarm water (80F)
2 3/4 cups (or 415 g) bread flour
2 teaspoons (or 12 g) sea salt
*For the toppings:*
1 1/2 pounds heirloom tomatoes
20-25 fresh basil leaves
8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
8 ounces fresh burrata cheese
Good olive oil
1 teaspoon Maldon salt
Parmesan cheese, for garnish (optional)
*INSTRUCTIONS*
Gather your foodstuff and tools.
Make your sourdough pre-ferment. Use starter that is sour smelling in
a good way, most likely between 12 and 24 hours old. Make your
pre-ferment 8 to 12 hours before you want to start mixing your dough -
likely in the evening before you go to bed or in the morning. You want
it to be the consistency of thick pancake batter. Put the sourdough
starter, cool water and whole wheat flour into a big bowl. Mix it up
real good. Cover with a plate or plastic wrap and leave it alone for 8
to 12 hours.
Mix the lukewarm water, bread flour and sea salt and then mix them
into your sourdough ferment. This dough will be a little difficult to
mix. Don't be scared; just proceed as normal, and everything will be
fine. Once you've mixed everything, cover your bowl with a plate or
plastic wrap, and let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour. This dough
uses a touch more flour than regular bread dough, which leads to a
pizza dough that's essentially stronger, making it much easier to
shape into a pizza and also yielding a crisper crust.
Knead the dough. After the dough sits for a while, stretch and fold it
- it will be sweet and gentle yet firm. Once you're done, cover the
dough, and let it sit for 1/2 hour.
Knead a few more times. After 1/2 hour, stretch and fold the dough
another ten times. Cover the dough, and leave it alone for another 1/2
hour or so. Do this another two times, at 15- to 30-minute intervals.
Choose your own path. Now you get to choose your own adventure for the
bulk rise. Do what is convenient for you here. If you want to shape
your dough into balls in 3 to 4 hours, let it sit out somewhere in
your kitchen. If you want to shape your dough into balls anywhere
from 12 to 48 hours later, stick it in the fridge (or just outside if
it's cool out - about 45F).
Shape the dough into balls. After the dough has completed its bulk
rise, flour your counter and dump out the dough. Cut off a piece of
dough about 8 oz/225 g - it'll make a ball that's about 3 in. in
diameter. Use a little flour on your hands to shape it into a ball,
and set it on a plate or in a baking pan, seam-side down. Do this with
all of the dough, placing the balls next to one another.
If you want to bake pizza within a couple of hours, cover the dough
with plastic wrap and leave it on the countertop.
If you want to bake in 6 to 24 hours, cover the dough with plastic
wrap or a plastic bag, leave it at room temperature for an hour, and
then put it in the refrigerator. If you do this, you'll need to let
the dough warm up for 30 to 45 minutes when you're ready to make
pizza.
Prepare the toppings. We're going simple with this pie: tomato, basil,
and cheese (and salt). Heirloom tomatoes are delicious and easy to
find, but if you have a favorite tomato sauce then be my guest -
you'll need about 1/4 cup of sauce per pie.
Preheat the frying pan and broiler. Once you're ready to make pizza,
put your frying pan on the stovetop, pour in 1 Tbsp of olive oil, and
turn that burner on high. Turn on the broiler as well, and position a
rack as close to the broiler as you can. It will take 6 to 8 minutes
for both of these to get screaming hot, and you'll know the pan is
ready when the oil is smoking. Just open your windows and get pumped.
Stretch the dough and toss it in the pan. Toss a tablespoon's worth of
flour on your countertop, and plop a dough ball onto it. Sprinkle a
little bit more flour on top of the dough, and get to work gently
stretching it into a round shape.
Use your fingertips to press the dough ball into a circle.
Lift up the dough and gently squeeze it between your fingers and
thumb, creating a lip around the outer edge.
Lay the dough down on the counter, and hit it with a little more flour
to prevent sticking.
Pick up the dough, lay it across the backs of your hands, and gently
stretch it out to 10 to 12 in/25 to 31 cm in diameter. Once it's as
big as the frying pan, toss it in there.
Build the pie. You've got about 3 minutes until the bottom is baked,
so there's no need to rush this. You can do it however you want, but I
like to sprinkle about 1 tsp of Maldon salt on the pizza, mostly on
the outer edge of the crust, then spread the tomato slices out to
within about 1 1/2 in/4 cm of the outer edge. I then artfully toss on
5 or 6 big basil leaves and rip up the burrata into five or six
pieces, and toss them on the pie, covering each basil leaf so the
leaves don't burn.
Once you're done, use a fork or spatula to lift up the dough, and
check the color of the bottom. When it has some dark brown spots, it
is ready to go in the broiler.
Pop it in the broiler. Use an oven mitt or towel to place the frying
pan in the broiler. It will probably take 2 to 3 minutes to get nice
and speckled, brown with some specks of black. Check it after a
minute, and rotate the pan if it's browning unevenly.
Take it out, and finish the pie. Be careful taking it out of the
broiler, as everything is hot as hell. Slide your pizza out of the
frying pan and onto a cutting board. Drizzle the pie with some
extra-virgin olive oil and grate some Parmesan cheese on it. Cut it up
into slices, let it cool for a minute, and share it with someone you
have a crush on.
<https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/josey-baker-homemade-pizza-31114/>