Today's Recipe Experiment: Foolproof Pan Pizza

You're gonna love this!

Everyone who knows me knows I am a big fan of these two things; America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country and Pizza. I have tried a number of ATK's recipes and methods of making pizza and have had success in most, if not all of their ideas. One of the folks who used to work at ATK, Kenji Lopez-Alt has his own blog now called 'Serious Eats' which is terrific. There are always well thought-out methods and recipes on that site and it is really a must-read for cooks. I highly recommend it. 

Palmieri's slice

While thinking about this recipe I was reminded of when we were kids growing up in Providence, RI we would get pizza strips at most convenience stores, from a bakery called Palmieri's on Federal Hill. These pizza strips would be about 8 inches long and about 3 inches wide, wrapped in olive oil-soaked waxed paper. I think they were about $0.10/each in those days. They were a deep dish style pizza with nothing but olive oil flavored tomatoes on top. No cheese, no veggies, no meats, no nothing except bread and tomatoes and they were the best! I saw on Facebook that they have developed a method for 'Foolproof Pan Pizza' and as I am a fan of a nice pan pizza I thought I'd give it a try. As Kenji was telling us about how his recipe produces a similar crust to Palmieri's I figured if this works out, this will be my new go-to recipe for pizza. 

Anyway, after dinner on Friday night I decided to whip up this dough recipe and make pizza on Saturday as the dough needs to proof for 8-24 hours. It was really easy to make although they warn you to weigh all of the ingredients with a digital scale that reads grams as well as ounces. I mixed it up, covered it up and let it sit. On Saturday afternoon, I got to work on making the pie and sure enough it was very similar to Palmieri's except I put some toppings on the tomatoes as well as cheese. Boy, was it delicious. Following are some photos of the process and the recipe courtesy of Serious Eats. It does take some time but most of it is 'inactive' time, i.e. letting the dough proof for the 8-24 hours. Plan ahead and make this yummy pizza if you like a deep dish pizza. You'll love it! 

Weigh your ingredients carefully using a digital scale.  I did increase the water in the recipe just a bit as they said that the dough's science involves the dough being well hydrated, 60-65% of the weight of the flour. It seemed just a little dry at 275gms of water, so I added about a little less than 2 tablespoons more.

After mixing the dough (by hand with a wooden spoon.. no kneading required!) you'll be left with a very shaggy looking dough. It's OK though, the extra water in the recipe will take care of that. 

AI let the dough sit overnight and by 8am-ish and it had increased in volume, certainly, but not the 4-6 times the volume it's supposed to so I let it go for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. The dough above proofed for about 18-19 hours. 

The method says that this recipe makes 2 10-inch pizzas so you need 2 cast iron frying pans or 2 10-inch cake pans. I have 1 10-inch cast iron frying pan and my smaller Le Creuset braiser is 10 inches so I figured I'd use that as well. Looks like a lot of oil, but it's supposed to glide across the pan easily. 

After the dough has risen, dump out onto a floured board and shape into rounds with well floured hands, stretching the dough to make it smooth on top. Pop it into the frying pans, flip over to coat both sides with oil and move around the pan to coat the pan as well. Cover with plastic and let proof for another 2 hours. After 1 hour of proofing, turn your oven onto 550 or as high as it will go, with the rack in the upper middle. If you have a pizza stone, put the stone on the rack now to heat up with the oven. 

One of the beauties of this dough is that in addition to no kneading, the dough spreads out in the greased pan so there is not a lot of stretching to do. Assemble your toppings at this point. 

More below the fold...

Kitchen Memories: Chef Ruth Eames' Nantucket Oatmeal Spice Cake

Not my photo. (Haven't made the cake yet)

Well, after doing some digging I was able to reconnect with the Pastry Chef at High Brewster, a restaurant where I used to work, who made the most delicious cake called Nantucket  Oatmeal Spice Cake served with Caramel Sauce. Her name is Ruth Eames and through the miracle of Facebook I was able to contact her and get the recipe which I am including below. Let me just say that you will adore this cake so make it right away. Don't wait! And 'Thank You' again to Ruth for sharing this great recipe.

Stuffed Peppers: Appetizer or Main Course

I didn't have enough peppers for the amount of stuffing I made so I decided to stuff some of those little red, yellow and orange peppers you see in bags in the market now. If you cut off the tops and a bit of the bottom (enough to let the air inside the pepper escape when stuffing it) and use a small measuring spoon to clean out the seeds you can stuff them nicely. They'd be great for a 1st course in an Italian dinner, maybe on a little bit of olive oil mashed potatoes. Here are a few photos and  the recipe. Enjoy!

Get your stuffing, cleaned peppers and red gravy together and have fun stuffing peppers!

I was making the appetizer size, so the big ones in the back are for homemade TV dinners. 

Let them sit for a few minutes to relax a bit

As an appetizer with olive oil mashed potatoes. 

What's for dinner: Braised Chicken Thighs

I love braised cabbage and I love chicken, so when I saw this I thought that I'd save the recipe for later. This is one of those 'technique' things where you could, I suppose, sub in pancetta, peppers and onions for the cabbage, or even some pancetta, fennel and dried cranberries. Use your imagination here folks. Here it is for you to try too. 

From the nice folks at Serious Eats: 

Market Basket Love

 is one of the reasons I love Market Basket. This week avocados are on sale for $0.89/each! That means a delicious breakfast of Avocado Toast. Just whole grain bread toasted, mashed avocado, kosher salt and a squirt of lemon juice. Doesn't get better than that! 

Pulled Pork For The Playoffs

Over the summer Shaw's had a terrific buy on country style pork ribs, cut from the shoulder. They were normally $2.19/pound but if you bought 4 pounds or more they were $0.89/pound! A bargain! I bought two 5-pound + packages and popped them in my freezer for future use.

A few weeks ago I was bitching to myself that my freezer was jammed and I needed to get rid of some stuff so I pulled out one of those packages of pork, thawed them out and decided to make a nice French pork stew. Pork, aromatics, white beans, tomatoes,.. you get the idea. Turned out delicious but I was still left with a huge block of frozen pork taking up valuable space in my freezer. I decided to take them out of the freezer and smoke them in the BBQ kettle and make pulled pork for the big game next Saturday.

The ribs needed serious trimming (for $0.89/pound, I expected as much), but they were meaty, had some serious collagen and marbling and would make great pulled pork. What I did is below. No recipe on this one, kids. This is a 'technique' post, not a recipe. Give it a shot.

Pulled Pork using country style pork ribs

Season the ribs with your favorite rub and let sit overnight in the fridge. Build a 2-stage fire in your barbecue (one hot side, one cold side), add some soaked wood chunks to the fire (I use applewood for pork) and add the pork to the grill over the cold side. Put aluminum foil over the ribs while they are cooking. Cover the grille, adjust the vent on top to 2/3 open over the ribs and cook for 1.5 hrs. without opening the cover.  

Once the ribs have been smoked, put them into a heavy pan or casserole. I used my big Le Creuset braiser for this. 

I painted a bit of my favorite bottled barbecue sauce (KC Masterpiece) over the ribs. Not too much! 

Cover tightly with foil. If the foil is going to touch the ribs, put a piece of parchment paper on the ribs to keep the foil from touching the acidic sauce. We don't want a metallic flavor. 

I also added the lid from the braiser so it would be a really good seal. Cook in a 265-270 degree oven for 2-3 hours or until the ribs are 'fall-off-the-bone' tender. 

Use a fork to test that the ribs a falling off the bone. Looks yummy doesn't it? My house smelled fabulous all afternoon too! (New fragrance for an air freshener maybe?) Let cool covered until they are easy to handle but not cold. 

Take a pair of forks and 'pull' the meat from the bones, discarding any fat blobs and cartilage. Don't make the chunks too small. You're not looking for cat food here. 

Once done, add some of your favorite sauce (heated) to this and serve on white bread (traditional) or a nice roll with coleslaw on top and some dill pickles and chips. I took this, before saucing, and put it into 2 zipper lock storage bags, squeezed the air out and froze them until I use one of the packages this weekend for the playoffs. The other one will be a treat to be discovered later. Just remember to let it thaw gently before reheating and don't mix it too much. Again, you want nice chunks of meaty porkishness. Enjoy!

New Product Testing:Wewalka Bistro-Style Pizza Dough

Well, I was at the Stop & Shop yesterday and I was trying to think of something quick and easy for dinner when I came upon this new product, Wewalka Bistro Style Pizza Dough. This is a 'thin and crispy' pizza dough that is all rolled out, put on a piece of parchment paper and rolled into a cylinder and sold in the refrigerated dough section of the market. You simply unroll the dough, top it, pop it into the oven and you get a nice pizza in 12-15 minutes. What could be easier or more convenient? I had some red gravy in the freezer, pepperoni and cheese in the fridge so I bought one.

Now I'm more of a Sicilian-type pizza where the dough has a little more heft to it but as there is plenty of heft to me already, a thin and crispy pizza is probably better for me in the long run. However, the pizza was super easy to make and tasted just fine. Except for the dough, you are using your own ingredients, so as long as the dough is not the star of the show this pre-made dough was just fine. I will probably get a couple of these for the freezer to keep on hand for a quick and easy dinner. Some photos are below:

Wewalka is apparently an Irish company. They also make a rectangular dough that I understand is a thicker style crust. Will try that one too. 

Take the dough from the sleeve and unroll it on your counter. Meanwhile pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees. They recommend using a sheet pan so instead of placing the dough with its parchment on the pan cold, I placed the sheet pan upside down on the middle rack of the oven to pre-heat with the oven. 

This is what it looks like unrolled. I wonder what else you could use this dough for? Hors d'oeuvres?

Top with your favorite toppings

I used my pizza pele to slip the pizza onto the hot sheet pan. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

As you can see the pizza cooked nicely and had a very crisp crust. 

A better look at the crust. I will definitely buy these again. Nice job Wewalka!

This Weekend's Recipe: Stuffies (Stuffed Quahogs)

I've made Stuffies for my sister-in-law this weekend. I had brought some down to her before Christmas and they were a big hit so I decided to make a batch of them for her freezer. It's an easy recipe, not expensive, if you buy your clams at a fish market rather than a supermarket, and a nice afternoon project. I took a few photos but I don't think I've covered the whole process. However, I am including my recipe below as well. Make them... they're pretty tasty.

Note: you can top them with a small piece of uncooked bacon rather than butter before they go into the oven to cook. (Yum!)

Chop and sauté the veggies and add the cooked chorizo that you have chopped in the food processor

Give the quahogs a good scrub and steam with the wine and veggie trimmings until opened. Strain the steaming liquid through a cheesecloth-lined strainer and reserve for the stuffing. 

Take the meat out of the shells, separate the shells into two pieces. Lay out on sheet pans for stuffing.

Mix the stuffing ingredients with the crumbs. Add strained steaming juices to the stuffing.

Give the clams a good chop with a sharp knife and toss into the stuffing. Make sure you add any juices that accumulated in the bowl holding the clams. Watch out for sand or grit though... 

And there you go. Ready for the oven or the freezer. Do not spoil your work by dumping a lot of paprika on them like you see in the supermarket.