Butter. Flour. Eggs.

Archive for the ‘Pizza’ Category

Olive Rosemary Focaccia

Okay, I’ll grant you that my headline is, perhaps, a bit overly dramatic. But for folks who like to cook, it can be fun to find a new product that promises to shake up the game a bit. I imagine fly-fishermen feel this way about new lures (you laugh, but a new lure can make a big difference when you’re standing mid-stream in your waders.)

(What is this: Field and Stream?)

A few months ago I wrote about how much comfort I get from having a stock of pizza dough waiting in my freezer. Go ahead, make fun of me. Chalk it up to some odd food-related neurosis.

A few days ago I went to the freezer and realized that not only was the pizza crust cupboard bare, but I had also run out of yeast. Later, at the supermarket I blindly reached for the yeast in its usual spot and my hand landed on a packet that just didn’t feel right. Upon closer inspection I realized that I had picked up a packet of Fleischmann’s Pizza Crust Yeast – a new product.

I use the term “new product” very loosely to describe any yeast. Even the freshest package of yeast purchased from any supermarket contains the progeny of yeast strains that could be hundreds of years old. (Fleischmann’s dates back to the mid-19^th century.) It’s not tough to propagate yeast. It is a very robust single-celled organism.

A few years back a chum bequeathed to me a baggie full of goo. (“Michael, my cherished friend, I present you with this baggie full of goo.” Ahhh, friends!) The bag of goo was actually the “starter” of a yeast coffee cake that was going around like the baking equivalent of a chain letter. I remember that it came with very detailed instructions which required me to feed the starter every day by opening the bag of goo, throwing in some flour, sugar, and water, closing the bag, and then squeezing the bag of goo to mix in the flour, sugar, and water. I had to do this every day for at least a week – I’ve forgotten the actual length of time – and it used to make me think of throwing meat to the lions the Romans kept under the Coliseum that chased slaves for sport. I’m not sure why my mind went there.

Finally after following this exercise for the prescribed length of time I was allowed to bake the cake from the recipe that was also supplied. The cake was very good, but I’m afraid I broke the chain by not putting a small sample of the goo in a fresh baggie and passing it along to someone. By that point everyone I knew had been “yeasted.”

But what I was doing with the baggie was propagating the yeast. Commercial yeast is grown using basically the same technique. The difference is that when you buy the little packets of yeast in the supermarket they have cleaned away everything but the yeast.

Okay, back to me standing in the baking aisle of the supermarket, holding the Pizza Crust Yeast. “Hmmm,” thought I, “Does it make the pizza taste different?” Reading the package, I learned that taste isn’t the focus of this new product, rather, convenience – time – is the focus. The concept is that you can now make pizza dough from scratch without having to wait for the dough to rise. By adding some dough relaxers and conditioners to the yeast packet, Fleischmann’s promises that you will immediately be able to roll out a 12” pizza crust without fighting the “snap-back” which happens when the gluten in the crust doesn’t allow you to shape the crust without it snapping back.

I think this warrants a session in the Butter Flour Eggs Food Laboratory, don’t you?

As much as I love pizza, I thought for the purposes of testing that I needed to make the crust without sauce and cheese so that I could really compare the crusts – taste and texture – unadorned. But that sounded kind of dull, so as a compromise I decided to make a simple Olive and Rosemary Focaccia.

I started with the Pizza Crust Yeast. The recipe and instructions on the Pizza Crust Yeast are geared towards a strictly manual process, i.e., a wooden spoon and a bowl or two. My first experiment was to see how well it would do in a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The answer? Fine, although using their recipe yields a sticky dough which makes cleaning the bowl of the mixer a bit of a task, but not bad enough to raise any flags. Yes, the dough was extremely compliant when being shaped into the pan, happily settling itself into the corners.

The resulting Focaccia was a bit sweet, had a very cakey texture, and the crust was missing the tooth-shattering crunch I like. This actually wasn’t a bad thing. The Focaccia reminded me a bit of King’s Hawaiian Bread. While it didn’t make a great Focaccia, it did get my imagination going on other things I could make using the same technique. A fast yeast coffee ring came to mind first, but then my mind went to other combinations, including Honey-Whole Wheat bread sticks, and Breakfast Pizza (bake the crust first, then top with eggs and sweet sausage, and return to the oven to bake.)

I’ll experiment further, and publish the results when I come up with something good. In the meantime, some folks may like the sweet, cakey Focaccia, so you’ll find that recipe here. It was certainly fast and easy, and I’ll be curious to see how the yeast performs in my pizza recipe which uses much less sugar and a bit more flour. By the way, bread is out of the question. Fleischmann’s advises that the product is not suited to bread baking.

The other Focaccia, based on my usual pizza crust recipe was, by nature, a lengthier project. I think I’ll stick with it for now. The aforementioned crunch of the crust, plus the slightly fermented, yeastier flavor that are the results of the longer rise are what I like about Pizza and Focaccia.

But I like this “new” yeast. Anything that gets folks into the kitchen baking with and for their family gets my vote.

Sorry. Life as we know it is still very much the same. But the thought of making a quick yeast coffee cake will keep me going.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Click here for my recipes for Olive and Rosemary Focaccia.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

Yes. I ate the prop. Someone had to...

There’s a quote that gets repeated a lot lately: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result each time.”

This has been attributed variously, but inconclusively, to Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, or (my favorite) a fictionalized version of Albert Einstein in a mystery novel.

But what is it if you expect the same result each time? Persistence? Practice? The triumph of hope over experience? (Oscar Wilde said that about second marriages…or was it Samuel Johnson? Or was it Oscar Wilde quoting Samuel Johnson?)

Issues of repetition are on my mind because every Sunday night I bake pizza. I’ve been doing this for so many years that I’ve lost track. No big surprise here:  growing up, Sunday was pizza night in our house. But ours came from Tony’s Italian Villa. In those days the normal answer to the question, “Do you bake your own pizza?” would have been, “What’s the matter? Is Tony’s closed today?”

Tony’s Italian Villa is indeed closed today and forevermore. This will not be one of those stories harkening back to childhood to reminisce about the best pizza I ever had. I suspect that the truth is that Tony’s pie was probably nothing better than run-of-the-mill Boston-style thin crust pizza.

If there is any insanity in my tale, it is that I live in New York. It is an understatement that there are a lot of places to find pizza in New York. But many of them are the “slice-o-pie” places that reheat already baked pizza.  That’s not for me.

I’ll take the pies that are being hand-crafted to order in coal or wood fired ovens that are so hot the pizza bakes in one or two minutes. The good news is that those places do exist here in New York.

I suppose you could call me a pizza snob, and I’ll cop to that label–but with reservations. The reservations are: 1) I don’t insist on brick oven pizza, and 2) I have a very open mind about what goes on top of a pizza.

By baking my own pizza am I harboring illusions of recreating the best that New York or Naples has to offer in my itty-bitty apartment kitchen? No. I’m home Sunday night baking pizza because it is fun, and the pizza tastes good.

That’s the “Reader’s Digest” answer.

The long answer is much more complicated. There’s something about working with the pizza dough that I find intensely gratifying. If you’ve never worked with yeast dough you’ve missed out on one of the great basic, accessible, pleasures of cooking. You communicate with the dough, and the dough lets you know in very specific terms what’s on its mind. I’ll never be a dog or horse whisperer, but I am a dough whisperer.

In spite of the fact that we’ve all seen pizza bakers punch, slap, and spin dough into shape, yeast dough actually requires a bit more respect. Dough can be somewhat stubborn, yes, but when that happens, just walk away, not unlike how you’d treat an obstreperous child. Return in five to ten minutes, the dough will have gotten a good cry out of its system and will be bright, springy, and willing to yield to your wishes. Treat it with respect, and above all, listen to it patiently.

(Yes, I’m talking about pizza dough like it’s a living thing. Who says it’s not? Yeast is, after all, a living, breathing organism.)

Let’s talk ingredients. I like to use Italian type “00” flour. “00” refers to its powdery grind, not its protein content or gluten level, and I find that it produces a crust with enough crunch and chew to make me do the happy food dance. But any good quality bread flour will also give the gift of great crust; use that happily if you can’t find type “00.”

There’s no need to learn how to spin the dough; you’ll have better control over its shape and thickness if you work the dough on your countertop, pouncing on it with your fingertips. Not to mention the fact that spinning the dough in a tiny apartment kitchen like mine will leave a snowy dusting of flour over your entire apartment. (Trust me on that one.)

Skip the pizza stones and bricks, unless you enjoy setting off your smoke alarm. Ditto the big wooden pizza peels. Messy.

I use a pizza pan. You may have seen these: they are a 16-inch round metal pan with several hundred holes punched in the bottom. I think the holes deliver the dry heat of your oven to the crust better than a pizza stone, and will give your crust a crunch that will have you running to the mirror to make sure all the teeth are still in your mouth.

Sauce? No need to grow your own tomatoes. A simple sauce with a little texture, the merest touch of sweetness, and just a breath of tomato tartness is all you need. I use a canned sauce by a small company named Don Pepino which I like as much for what’s in the can as I do for what’s on the can: a retro cartoon of a chef who looks like he could be Chef Boyardee’s slightly demented brother (In its defense, the sauce only has five ingredients, and sugar is not one of them.)

Feel free to use a simple smear of San Marzano crushed tomatoes instead. Just add a bit of salt and pepper.

Cheese? What kind of mood are you in? My standby is Asiago that I grate with an old fashioned box grater. It is zingier but less stringy than the usual mozzarella.  I know that you’re not supposed to use cheddar on pizza, but skip the tomato sauce, caress the crust with some very thin slices of Pear peppered with a complex cheddar and you’re in another world.

In the summer Pissaladière is an easy treat that will earn you some new friends. Just top the crust with some lovingly caramelized onions, cross hatch with really good anchovies (soaked to leach out their overpowering saltiness,) stud with briny black olives, and you’ll be welcome at any Provencal table.

How about clam pie? This New Haven native is simply the crust dusted with parmesan, some freshly shucked clams, and enough garlic to give the clams some mellow companionship.

Is it persistence? Is it practice? Every Sunday night I pull the pizza out of the oven and look at it for a moment, thinking, “Wow! I made that!”

Try it. Click here for my recipe.