Pizza Cravings

When the moon hits her eyes
Like a big-a-pizza pie
That's amore!
-- Dean Martin

Pizza: Possibly the world's most perfect food. When pizza is done well, with a great crust that is perfectly cooked, great cheese, sauce and good quality toppings, it's awesome. When it's not done well, it's still good. I don't know anyone who doesn't like pizza. You can order pizza pretty much anywhere on earth, even Mongolia.

Pizza is amazingly versatile. They can be vegetarian or an artery-choking meat-filled monument to carnivores. Most come with cheese but they don't have to. The sauce can be made of tomato or pesto or creamy alfredo. It can come loaded with everything as if it was made by a schizophrenic produce grocer, or it can be a simple pizza bianca like the one made at Forno at the Campo De'Fiori in Rome: A simple crust dressed with olive oil and garlic. Pizza can be made small enought to feed one, or big enough for a Mormon family of 12. You can go out for pizza, or you can have it come to you. In the future, you might even be able to get pizza in space. It can be fancy--hand-tossed and baked in a wood fired oven--or it can come frozen in a cardboard box. And if pizza isn't junk-food enough for you, there's even gummi pizza.

Pizza is one of those foods that you can go without for a while, but then the craving hits you and you gotta have one. Now.

That happened to me a couple of days ago. I suddenly found myself craving pizza. I'm not sure why but I think it was because I had a block of Dietz & Watson whole milk mozarella in my refrigerator that was waiting for a good excuse to get eaten. So my craving wasn't just for any pizza, but homemade pizza. Off to the store I went to get the rest of the ingredients, quietly singing that Dean Martin tune.

For me, making pizza is normally an elaborate affair that spans the course of two days. I use hard bread flour in my dough so I make it a day ahead of time and let it cold rise in the refrigerator to develop better flavor and texture. The next day I heat a ceramic stone in my oven at 500 degrees for almost an hour before I will put a pizza on it so that I get a nice crisp crust on the bottom of the pizza. That's what I normally do, but that wasn't going to cut it for me because I wanted pizza that night.

I thought about doing a quick rise dough and baking it in the oven on a rack without using the stone, but all of that would still take about two hours and it was already 7:00 PM and I was still at the store and I was getting hungry. I was going to have to fall back to Plan C.

Plan C is a pizzette made with a thin durum wheat semolina crust that is cooked in a pan on a burner. It's different than traditional pizza dough--it's a yeastless dough that gets its rise from using baking powder--but it has nice texture and flavor from the durum semolina. The hardness of the durum wheat also lets me roll the dough extremely thin, which is very important since I am going to pan cook it.

When I got home I found out that I forgot the pizza sauce. Looking through my pantry I found two small cans of Hunt's tomato sauce. It was a start, but I had to dress it up and thicken it. Nobody wants runny flavorless pizza sauce.

The pizzas turned out well and my craving was satisfied. Oh, and the mozarella was delicious. Now That's Amore!

Semolina Pizzini
Makes Four 7" pizzas

1 cup Durum wheat semolina flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup warm water

1 lb mozarella, grated
your preferred pizza toppings
1 to 1 1/2 cups pizza sauce (recipe below, if you forgot to buy some)
freshly grated parmigiana

In a food processor combine the dry ingredients. Keep the blade spinning and slowly add the olive oil in a stream. Then slowly add the warm water about 1 tablespoon at a time. Stop adding water when the dough forms a ball. If it appears a little dry, add a little more water. Hand knead the dough a couple of times then wrap it up in plastic wrap and set it aside while you prepare the toppings.

Divide the dough evenly into four parts. Roll each as thinly as possible into 7-8" crusts. Keep them covered with plastic so they don't dry out.

Heat a 10"-12" nonstick frying pan over medium high heat. Put a pizette into the pan. Bubbles should form in 5-10 seconds. If they don't, the pan is not hot enough. Let the crust cook until it begins to brown, about 2-3 minutes. Slide the crust back on the work surface, cooked side up. Spread on the sauce, cheese and toppings, then put the pizette back into the pan to cook the other side of the crust. The pizza is done when the cheese is melted and the crust is browned underneath, another 2-3 minutes. Repeat with the other 3 crusts.

Grate some fresh parmigiana on it, slice into quarters and serve.

"Uh oh, forgot the" Pizza Sauce

2 cans tomato sauce (8 oz. each)
1 tbsp minced basil
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 clove garlic, minced
salt & pepper, to taste

Combine the first four ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Reduce by about a third. Season to taste.