Showing posts with label white pizza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label white pizza. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Rosie Makes A White Pizza.



 

As you know, the Hawthornes love their pizzas.
And we have pizza at least once a week.
All from scratch.
After a bit of tinkering,
we have our dough down perfectly.
The sauce is scratch from a can,
except in the heat of the summer,
when I'll make a tomato sauce from the 'maters in my garden.
And the toppings are whatever I happen to have on hand.
As a rule, I eschew any meats,
since I deal with "vegetarians,"  
I do make concessions,
but not when it comes to cheeses.
Because a pizza is not a pizza without cheese.
And I refuse to use soy "cheese."
That is not "cheese."
That is an abomination.
Just NO!

That said, every now and then,
I want a different pizza.
Something ... irregular.
That's when I turn to a white sauce pizza.
Now, don't turn your collective noses up.
Bear with me here.
There's no tomato sauce,
although it does have sliced tomatoes,
but the sauce is cheesy and white and gooey.
And it's good!

But first, let's get started on that dough.
Pizza Dough
1/2 cup warm water
1 packet yeast
sprinkling of sugar

Pour water into medium bowl.
Add yeast.
Sprinkle maybe a tablespoon of sugar over top.
Leave it alone for about 10 minutes.
Enough time for it to "proof."

The yeast must "prove" it's alive
by eating sugar and emitting carbon dioxide and alcohol.
You want the yeast mixture nice and poofy and bubbly.
That means the yeast is working.
Sprinkle a cup of bread flour into the yeast mixture
and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt.
As a general rule of thumb for bread,
it's one part water to two parts flour.
I only used 1/2 cup water as I'm going for a small relatively pizza.

Fork in the flour and salt.
Then gather up the dough
and knead it on a lightly floured surface for a few minutes.
If it's too sticky, sprinkle in a little flour.

Form the dough into a ball
and place in a lightly oiled bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place ...
... until doubled in size.
Those are strands of gluten.
This network structure is what makes the dough
elastic, pliable, and extensible.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface,
knead it a few times,
then place on an oiled pizza pan
and start forming the dough,
pressing outward from the center.
Press and rest.
Don't rush it.
Take your time and let the dough relax and breathe.
While you're pressing and pushing the dough,
start on the white sauce.
When you get the dough pressed out,
place it in a warm place
and let it rise a little bit.

For the white sauce:
I chopped up one scallion, 
one garlic clove,
and some fresh oregano and thyme.
In a small saucepan over medium low heat,
melt one tablespoon of butter with the 
scallion, garlic, and herbs.
Stir about a minute.

Stir in a tablespoon of flour,
and keep stirring and cooking for about 2 minutes.
You want to cook the flour
to get rid of the raw taste.

Slowly stir in one cup of milk.
(I used skim since that's what I have on hand.)

Whisk over medium low heat until mixture has thickened.

Remove from heat
and add in half a yepsen of whole milk mozzarella.

A yepsen, in case you don't know,
is a unit of measurement.
It's two handfuls.
I'm adding in one handful of cheese.
So half a yepsen.

Whisk the cheese in and let it melt.

When the dough has risen a bit,
gently spread on the white sauce.
Be gentle.
You don't want to deflate the dough.

As for the toppings,
that's solely up to you.

I'm starting out with spinach and mushrooms.
I steamed the spinach first, 
then patted it dry before laying the leaves on the pizza dough.
I also sautéed the mushrooms slices in butter and oil first
before placing the slices on the pizza.
There's a reason for this.
Spinach and mushrooms have a lot of moisture in them.
If you just plop them on the pizza dough
and cook the pizza,
all that water will release and create a soggy dough.
So you want to get rid of as much water
as you can before topping the pizza.

Next, I added tomato slices,
sliced black olives,
 sliced green onions,
and sliced multi-colored peppers.


Top with grated mozzarella
and torn provolone cheeses.

And drizzle with a bit of black truffle oil.

Use judiciously.
This is powerful stuff!

Have oven at 500° with a pizza stone in it.
I cooked the pizza in the pan for 7 minutes,
then turned it 180° for 4 minutes.
Then I slid the pizza off the pan 
and onto the hot stone for another 4 minutes.
Out of the oven and onto a wire rack for a few minutes.
Then onto a cutting board and slice.


 
 Toasty crust!
 
 You know you want a piece!
Enjoy!

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Rosie Makes White Pizza.

The Hawthornes love their pizza.
And I make pizza at least once a week.
Crust from scratch.
Tomato sauce from scratch.
Then add assorted toppings.


So today, I wanted pizza.  Again.  But slightly different.
Scratch that tomato sauce.  I want a white pizza!  No tomato sauce, but a white sauce.

First, make the dough for the crust.

Rosie's Pizza Crust

1/2 cup warm water
1 packet yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup + flour
olive oil

Pour water into a bowl and sprinkle yeast in.  Sprinkle sugar over top of yeast and let it proof.  That means the yeast has to "prove" it's alive by eating the sugar and bubbling and getting puffy and foamy as it ferments and releases carbon dioxide and alcohol.  Fork in the flour and add the salt.  Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead it until you have a nice smooth, elastic ball.  Oil a medium sized bowl, place the ball of dough in the bowl, turning to coat in oil.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour.  (This allows the flavors to develop.)
That is if you have the time.
If not, that's OK.
You can turn the dough out onto a well-oiled pizza pan right now if you want and start spreading the dough out.
Working from the center, just start pressing the dough outward.  Let it rest, then press again.  Press and rest.  Don't rush it.  Take your time.
When you get the dough pressed out, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over top and let it rise in a warm place.

Now, here's a Rosie Hint you can use any time you're letting dough rise and you want to give it a little boost.  I wet a towel, nuke it for 2 minutes, then place the covered bowl of dough in the microwave on top of the hot towel, close the door, and let the heat and steam do their magic.

Make the white sauce while the dough is rising.

Here's Rosie's white sauce, camouflaged with the crust, and hidden by my toppings - spinach, mushrooms, red peppers, and onions.

White Sauce For Pizza
2 TB unsalted butter
2 TB flour
1 shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup milk
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
freshly ground pepper

Melt butter in a small saucepan.
Add in shallot and garlic clove and cook about a minute or two, stirring.  Do not brown the garlic - it gets bitter and will ruin the whole sauce.
Add in flour and cook over medium heat, stirring, to cook the raw out of the flour.
Stir in the milk, cooking, until thickened.
Stir in cheese and let melt.  Pepper.  Taste test.  If you want kosher salt, add in a pinch.

Spread white sauce over pizza crust.

Add the toppings.
I used spinach, sliced mushrooms, sliced red peppers, sliced red onions.
Then, for a nice earthy touch, I put a drop of black truffle oil on top of each mushroom slice.

Top with assorted white cheeses, grated.
I used provolone and Gruyère.
Give it a light drizzling of extra virgin olive oil.

Heat oven with a pizza stone to 500°.
Place pizza pan on top of stone for 3 minutes.
Turn 180° and cook another 3 minutes.
Slide pizza off pan and onto pizza stone.  (This is where the well-oiled pizza pan comes in handy.)
Cook for another 3-4 minutes.
Remove from oven and slide pizza onto wire rack.
Let cool for a few minutes, then slice.



Most excellent pizza!

Monday, July 10, 2017

Rosie Makes A White Pizza!

 
Whenever the Hawthornes want pizza, it's just a few steps away.
We don't order pizza.
We don't pick up pizza.
We don't go out for pizza.
We make our own.
And it's better than anything else!















Today, we wanted a White Sauce Pizza.
And that's just what I made.

First I started on the dough.

Pizza Dough
1 cup warm water
1 package yeast
sprinkling of sugar
2 cups bread flour
1 tsp kosher salt

Pour water into a medium size bowl.  Add yeast and sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar over the yeast.  Wait for the yeast to "proof."  That means the yeast must "prove" it's alive.  It'll start eating sugars and releasing carbon dioxide and alcohol.  The mixture gets all poofy and foamy.  It's alive!  When you know the yeast is doing its thang, fork in the bread flour and salt.  Form dough into a ball, then knead it for about 5 minutes, adding more flour if necessary to keep it from sticking.  When the dough is in a nice cohesive, elastic ball, place in an oiled bowl, turning to coat, cover, and let rise until doubled.

Turn out dough onto oiled pizza pan and, starting at the middle, press outward, forming into a pie shape.  Press and rest.  Take your time doing this since the dough likes to rest a bit.  Press some more and let it rest.  When you get the size pizza pie you want, let dough rise while you gather the rest of your toppings and make the sauce.


I picked a few peppers from my garden.

Toppings:
sliced mushrooms
spinach
drizzle of black truffle oil
sliced sweet onion and red onion
sliced peppers
sliced black olives
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Mozzarella cheese, grated
Swiss cheese, grated
Gruyère cheese, grated
torn basil
extra virgin olive oil (I used a Sprinkling of Porto extra virgin olive oil I get from my two favorite chefs down here.   You know who you are...)


Get all the toppings prepared.

Then I remembered the basil growing in the back yard and picked a handful of that.

For the White Sauce:
2 TB unsalted butter
1 TB oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp fresh thyme

1 cup milk (I never have whole milk on hand, so I always substitute with what I do have.  For whole milk, the combination is 1 oz. heavy cream combined with 7 oz. skim milk.)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp dried oregano
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Heat butter and oil over low heat until butter melts.  Add onion and cook, stirring, about 2-3 minutes.  Add in garlic and thyme, and cook, stirring, about a minute.  Stir in flour and cook 1-2 minutes to get the raw taste out of the flour.  Slowly add skim and cream mixture, or whole milk if you have it, and continue stirring until thickened.  Stir in Parmesan cheese.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Wait until the end to season the sauce, since the Parm is already salty.

Now the fun begins.
Spread the white sauce evenly over the pizza.

Place the spinach, leaf by leaf, over top.

Artfully arrange the mushrooms slices.

Drizzle just a little bit of the black truffle oil over the mushrooms
Truffle oil is powerful stuff.  A little goes a long way, so use sparingly.
I drop-by-drop dripped maybe a teaspoon total over the shrooms.

Add the rest of the ingredients.
You can add whatever you want.
We used a bell pepper and a slightly hot yellow banana pepper from the garden.
Sweet onion and red onion slices.
Sliced black olives.
And basil.

Then we started on the cheeses.
Mozzarella, Swiss, and Gruyère.

Then a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil over top.
And it's ready for the oven.
My oven was heated to 500° and I always use a pizza stone which has been heating at 500° for at least 30 minutes.  The pizza pan went on the stone for 3 minutes.  Then I rotated the pan and baked for another 3 minutes.  Then, I slid the pizza off of the pan and onto the stone and baked until the cheese and crust looked right - about 4 more minutes.  Remove from oven and place on rack.


This was a perfect pizza!


Enjoy!



Good pizza!