Pizza

I seldom order pizza to go.  Some aren't worth ordering and the better stuff has gotten oddly expensive.  I think that is because the pizza places decided they had a captive customer base during the Covid pandemic.  Some kept their prices and reduced the quality, and some places kept the quality and raised their prices.

I've also bought some frozen ones and some are "OK" but having a pizza stone, I'm helping them out considerably.  Plus I tend to add more toppings.

So I go through cycles where I make my own.  It's not really THAT hard.  You need some equipment though.  I have a pizza stone, a paddle, a bread machine, and a roller pin.  And you need toppings of course.  Well, gee, who DOESN'T have pepperoni and shredded Italian cheeses sitting in the fridge?  LOL!  And I do always have green peppers, mushrooms and a can of crushed tomatoes around (I make spaghetti about once a week).

But I'm not really talented at rolling out dough in a nice circle, and crimping the edges to raise them a bit never works well for me.  And you've seen that tossed the dough in the air to spread it out?  Fugetaboutit!

OK, so I decided to make a pizza Saturday.  It came out of the bread machine "dough cycle" so wet and sticky it was more like I had dough gloves on than a ball of manageable dough.  As a former friend used to say about anything that went wrong "ITS NOT MY FAULT".  But, of course it was.  The dough didn't mix itself...

After slowly scraping the dough off my hands and getting most of it onto the sticky-ball (there is a lot of "ME" in this pizza), and washing my hands free of the rest, I started adding flour and folding several times.  I let it sit in the fridge overnight for gluten-development and rising.  Be aware that doing that also makes the dough a bit sticky again, so when I turned it out onto my silicon mat, I had to add more flour.

But it was OK for rolling out then, but I had a couple of rips in it that didn't want to hold together when pinched and it wasn't uniformly flat.

So I had an idea (and this is actually the point of the post, I suppose).  I have various pans.  A couple of nonstick, a couple stainless steel, and a surprising number of cast iron pans.  The cast iron pans are well seasoned over the years and nearly non-stick.  Most are standard-shaped skillets ranging from 4-12", one is a 10" wok, and one is a 10" griddle with 3/8" raised sides. 

That was when I had a Grand Idea!  First, the griddle was perfect for flattening the pizza dough uniformly while it re-rose from the warmth of the house.  I set it on the rolled-out dough and let it sit for 30 minutes.  Voila', when I lifted it the rips were healed and it was flat.

And the 2nd part was also good.  The barely raised edge of the griddle would also provide a sufficiently-raised edge to the pizza crust!  But I wasn't sure about constructing the pizza on a heated pan.  

Normally, I construct the pizza on the paddle with corn meal sprinkled on the paddle for sliding it onto the pre-heated 500F pizza stone.  But the griddle had to be 500 and set on the cooktop for constructing the pizza this time.  (I set it in the oven at the start)   I was worried I would touch the hot griddle.

But the whole idea was an experiment, so I tried it.  Granted, experiments CAN be painful or fatal (this one was not; I was VERY careful.

I had all the ingredients lined up in bowls on the counter.  Then when the oven said 500 I waited 15 minutes (air heats faster than cast iron).  Took the 500 griddle out of the oven wearing both an oven mitt and folded washcloths (wet) and set it on the cooktop.

Lifted the crust from the silicon mat easily and set it on the griddle (perfectly centered and with the edges "just" to the top of the griddle lip), quickly brushed some olive oil on the crust, spooned some of my reduced tomato sauce on, spread around self-sliced pepperoni evenly, sprinkled onion/pepper/mushrooms, added more tomato sauce (I like that), and sprinkled shredded Italian cheese mix all over it.

And got it back into the oven ASAP.  About 2 minutes I think.  The usual time I need to cook a pizza on the pizza stone is 15 minutes and a crisp but chewy crust.  It took 20 minutes this way.  

But it was WAY worth it.  OK, many people like their pizzas some different ways.  Some like "thin&crispy", some like "chewy".  Some like a crust with a topping or two, some like a lot.  

I tried to make what *I* like.  And it worked out GREAT!

So, finally a picture...

A simple salad goes well with pizza, as does a standard Zinfandel wine.  I cut the pizza into 6 parts; ate 3.  The others are in the freezer to be re-heated in a hot covered pan in a few days.