Peregrino
Senior Member
Hi everyone, my first tentative venture into posting on the forum, so please be gentle on me!!
Pizza dough seems to be a never ending circle of different ingredients, quantities, techniques, and sometimes myths that seem to take on an aura of the mysterious.
I certainly do not profess to be an expert on the subject myself, but I have a treasured note book that has lots of hand written recipes that my late mother wrote during her lifetime in the UK, and given that she first arrived here in 1947, rationing somewhat created problems for her cooking skills, but certainly not to be beaten, improvisation with what ingredients were available became her speciality.
This leads me on to the pizza dough recipe, where the flour she used throughout her life, was cheap plain flour, not even bread making flour, being unable to source Italian flour, (not even heard of in the UK until the late 50's) this was what she used, the yeast she obtained from a small corner bakery who would give her a small crumbling of granules in a cup for a half penny! This was later substituted for the granular dried yeast.
So after the history comes the recipe, but before I begin can I please emphasise that the ingredients as shown must me strictly adhered to on your first attempt, if afterwards you decide to tweak the ingredients to your own taste that is fine, but please give my mum's recipe a try first.
INGREDIENTS:
180 grams warm water.
340 grams plain white flour (I use Aldi or Lidl).
1 Teaspoon dried yeast granules.
1 Tablespoon granulated white sugar.
1 Teaspoon salt, any fine salt is okay.
1 Tablespoon Olive oil, preferably extra virgin.
METHOD:
[1] In a deep mixing bowl add the yeast, sugar and all the water, and about 1 quarter to a third of the flour, and whisk to a creamy texture, cover and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes or until it begins to bubble and froth.
[3] Once the froth is evident add the remainder of the flour, the salt and olive oil, mix together and knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic, about ten minutes (do not be tempted to add any more flour).
[4] Form the dough into a ball and rub with olive oil and place back into the bowl, cover and rest in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size.
[5] After the dough has doubled in size remove from the bowl and gently knock down and shape into a ball and divide this into two portions, each will make a ten inch pizza base.
[6] Lightly brush olive oil on two pizza trays, or just flat trays and roll out each portion of dough to the approximate ten inch circle, and lay these on the tray's, then allow them to rest for an hour to allow a very gentle second rise.
[7] Top dress the pizza's with a tomato salsa of your choice, then add the cheese, mushrooms, peppers, onion and any pre cooked meat of choice and finally a sprinkling of oregano and a very light drizzle of olive oil and the pizza's are ready for cooking.
NOTE:
With the mushrooms, onion and peppers, these are best gently pre fried in olive oil to remove the excess water that they contain, this will stop the pizza base from becomes wet.
Should you prefer to use a stand mixer with a dough hook then step one and two will utilise the mixing bowl, however when you start the mixing process only allow the stand mixer to knead the formed ball of dough for 5 minutes.
COOKING:
This is where my mothers improvisation came in, she had a large unglazed quarry tile on the top shelf of the oven, this was pre heated to 220c. The technique she adopted was to slide the pizza on its tray on to the tile for about 5 to 7 minutes, then she would open the oven and slide the pizza from its metal tray directly on to the quarry tile, then continue cooking, opening the oven every minute or so to lift the pizza to check on the base and turning the pizza, as in a traditional wood oven until she was satisfied that the pizza was cooked, and believe me they were always delicious.
OBSERVATIONS:
Today I use a 14 inch square unglazed ceramic tile to the same purpose, these can be purchased from any tile stockist, I bought 12 of these that were old stock for about £5.00 some years ago, and my original tile from this batch though almost three years old is still doing good service, so please do not buy a pizza stone at extortionate prices that will do no better a job than a 50p unglazed ceramic tile!!
Apologies for the history lesson and the long winded recipe, it is my hope that some forum members may try out the above, and from the many hundreds of people that I have passed this recipe to down the years, I have never heard a complaint yet.
I am attaching some photographs that I took recently of my converted 3 burner BBQ into a pizza oven that has led so many of my friends to follow suit, that they have been pestering me to create a photographic presentation showing the step by step process outlining the art of the of pizza making on a gas BBQ.
I hope you all find the thread of interest.
Ciao
Pizza dough seems to be a never ending circle of different ingredients, quantities, techniques, and sometimes myths that seem to take on an aura of the mysterious.
I certainly do not profess to be an expert on the subject myself, but I have a treasured note book that has lots of hand written recipes that my late mother wrote during her lifetime in the UK, and given that she first arrived here in 1947, rationing somewhat created problems for her cooking skills, but certainly not to be beaten, improvisation with what ingredients were available became her speciality.
This leads me on to the pizza dough recipe, where the flour she used throughout her life, was cheap plain flour, not even bread making flour, being unable to source Italian flour, (not even heard of in the UK until the late 50's) this was what she used, the yeast she obtained from a small corner bakery who would give her a small crumbling of granules in a cup for a half penny! This was later substituted for the granular dried yeast.
So after the history comes the recipe, but before I begin can I please emphasise that the ingredients as shown must me strictly adhered to on your first attempt, if afterwards you decide to tweak the ingredients to your own taste that is fine, but please give my mum's recipe a try first.
INGREDIENTS:
180 grams warm water.
340 grams plain white flour (I use Aldi or Lidl).
1 Teaspoon dried yeast granules.
1 Tablespoon granulated white sugar.
1 Teaspoon salt, any fine salt is okay.
1 Tablespoon Olive oil, preferably extra virgin.
METHOD:
[1] In a deep mixing bowl add the yeast, sugar and all the water, and about 1 quarter to a third of the flour, and whisk to a creamy texture, cover and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes or until it begins to bubble and froth.
[3] Once the froth is evident add the remainder of the flour, the salt and olive oil, mix together and knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic, about ten minutes (do not be tempted to add any more flour).
[4] Form the dough into a ball and rub with olive oil and place back into the bowl, cover and rest in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size.
[5] After the dough has doubled in size remove from the bowl and gently knock down and shape into a ball and divide this into two portions, each will make a ten inch pizza base.
[6] Lightly brush olive oil on two pizza trays, or just flat trays and roll out each portion of dough to the approximate ten inch circle, and lay these on the tray's, then allow them to rest for an hour to allow a very gentle second rise.
[7] Top dress the pizza's with a tomato salsa of your choice, then add the cheese, mushrooms, peppers, onion and any pre cooked meat of choice and finally a sprinkling of oregano and a very light drizzle of olive oil and the pizza's are ready for cooking.
NOTE:
With the mushrooms, onion and peppers, these are best gently pre fried in olive oil to remove the excess water that they contain, this will stop the pizza base from becomes wet.
Should you prefer to use a stand mixer with a dough hook then step one and two will utilise the mixing bowl, however when you start the mixing process only allow the stand mixer to knead the formed ball of dough for 5 minutes.
COOKING:
This is where my mothers improvisation came in, she had a large unglazed quarry tile on the top shelf of the oven, this was pre heated to 220c. The technique she adopted was to slide the pizza on its tray on to the tile for about 5 to 7 minutes, then she would open the oven and slide the pizza from its metal tray directly on to the quarry tile, then continue cooking, opening the oven every minute or so to lift the pizza to check on the base and turning the pizza, as in a traditional wood oven until she was satisfied that the pizza was cooked, and believe me they were always delicious.
OBSERVATIONS:
Today I use a 14 inch square unglazed ceramic tile to the same purpose, these can be purchased from any tile stockist, I bought 12 of these that were old stock for about £5.00 some years ago, and my original tile from this batch though almost three years old is still doing good service, so please do not buy a pizza stone at extortionate prices that will do no better a job than a 50p unglazed ceramic tile!!
Apologies for the history lesson and the long winded recipe, it is my hope that some forum members may try out the above, and from the many hundreds of people that I have passed this recipe to down the years, I have never heard a complaint yet.
I am attaching some photographs that I took recently of my converted 3 burner BBQ into a pizza oven that has led so many of my friends to follow suit, that they have been pestering me to create a photographic presentation showing the step by step process outlining the art of the of pizza making on a gas BBQ.
I hope you all find the thread of interest.
Ciao
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