Homemade Pizza
June 26th, 2007 by
Chef Mom
Violet is having a friend spend the night tonight and rather than worry that Sami won’t like Petros and will go hungry or having to fix something else for her, I’m going to switch Petros to Friday. I know Sami likes pizza - we’ve had it before when she’s been over.
This pizza dough recipe is the result of years and years of searching to find a pizza crust that is similar to the crust made at Frank and Pat’s Pizzeria in Green Bay. We like ‘em really thin and really crispy. This comes pretty close.
This recipe uses lard and at first I was like OMG! Lard! But it turns out that tablespoon for tablespoon, lard actually has a couple fewer calories than olive or vegetable oil. So this isn’t too bad calorie wise. The lard is essential to the taste and texture of this dough. I’ve made it with the olive oil and it’s not quite the same. I know lard isn’t great for your heart but a little bit every now and then isn’t going to kill you - at least I don’t think so.
I let the dough rise twice and then cut it into 4 portions and roll it out very thinly into a rectangle (about 9×13). Each crust has about 429 calories - yeah for the whole crust! Put on 1 cup of mozz, 1/4 cup of marinara and veggies and, if you could eat it all, the entire 9×13 pizza would be less than 900 calories. After trying numerous pizza and pasta sauces, we’ve pretty much settled on Paul Newman’s Marinara sauce for our pizzas.
Black Pepper-Lard Pizza Dough
Chef2Chef
1 cup warm tap water
1 pkg Active dry yeast
3 cups AP Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp coarsely ground Black Pepper
2 heaping tablespoons naturally rendered pork lard
Pour water into a medium-sized mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Stir gently with a fork until the yeast has dissolved and the liquid turns light beige in color.
Add 1 cup of the flour, the salt, pepper and lard. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
Add a second cup of flour to the bowl and mix well. After the second cup of flour has been mixed in, the dough should start coming away from the sides of the bowl and should begin to form a soft, sticky mass.
Measure out the third cup of flour. Sprinkle some over the work surface and flour your hands generously. Remove all of the dough from the bowl and begin to work the mass by kneading the additional flour in a bit at a time.
Knead the dough, adding only as much flour as it takes to keep the dough from sticking to your hands and work surface. When the dough no longer feels sticky, push the heel of your hand down into the dough and hold it there for 10 seconds. If your hand comes up clean, the dough is done. If it sticks, more kneading is necessary. Do not overwork the dough by adding more flour than necessary. The kneading process should take about 5 to 10 minutes.
Lightly oil a 2-quart bowl with vegetable oil. Roll the ball of dough around in the bowl to coat it with a thin film of oil. Tightly seal the bowl with plastic wrap to trap in the moisture and heat from the yeast’s action - this will help the dough rise faster.
Place the bowl in a warm, draft-free place. Let the dough rise for 30-45 minutes.
Once the dough has doubled in bulk, punch it down by pushing your fist into it. The dough will collapse. Remove dough from the bowl and knead it again for about 1 minute. The dough can be used at this point or undergo additional rising.
Raise the dough a second time and repeat the punching down procedure. Then the dough is ready to be shaped and rolled into pizza.
Add sauce and toppings and bake in a very hot oven (475-500 degrees) until done, about 15 to 20 minutes. If you are going to put on a lot of toppings (or want a crisper crust), prebaking the pizza crust for 3-5 minutes will prevent a soggy center.