Saturday, March 04, 2006
Lessons in Pizza
I don't like Mondays. I hate getting up early, I'm not too keen on cycling across Dublin with the cold morning air and the traffic competing to break my spirit and the memories of the nice, lazy weekend are still too fresh for me to be enthusiastic about work. It doesn't help that the weather in Dublin is horrible in February; the sky is grey all day and the air is just moist enough to make your joints ache, but not enough to clear the clouds. In conditions like these, I tend to lose track of time and sleepwalk through life like a zombie. My dear friend Emily asked me a little while ago if we were maybe meant to hibernate. And I admit, at the moment the thought of going to bed in October and not coming back out until about April sounds very appealing. While we were still living in Prague and I was not forced to go to work every day, I regularly used to bring my bedding out to the sofa and cuddle up with a book. But then, at the time I was working on my doctorate and reading was my work. At times it was even hard work, but it was never unpleasant. I miss those days...Now I just have to take comfort in food. Tonight my choice was pizza. Although not exactly classified as comfort food, pizza has something very heart-warming. A thin crispy base stacked high with fresh vegetables and a generous helping of chopped garlic, covered in gooey cheese that melts in your mouth, some days there's definitely nothing better. Unfortunately, making good pizza at home is nigh on impossible. Domestic ovens just aren't up to the job. And I've got the added problem that our apartment is so cold, the dough for the base will not rise. I've found a way around this by putting the bowl in the oven at about 50 degrees Celsius. Whatever you do, make sure not to overheat it! The best way of controlling the temperature is to turn the oven on for about 5 minutes, then leave it off for another 10, turn it back on and so on. This ritual is not exactly environmentally friendly though, not to mention that it's a right nuisance. Our supermarket in Prague used to sell pretty good ready-made dough from their in-house bakery. It looked quite weird, a lump of pastry wrapped in plastic foil like a chicken, but it worked perfectly and the taste was all right too. But since I don't have this option here in Dublin, I've started using supermarket pizzas (yes, I know, the Italian plural is pizze, but I'm sure you'll all agree that that looks rather strange in English) as my base - the fresh ones; I have yet to find a frozen pizza fit to be eaten. Just buy a good quality fresh pizza Margherita (which, by the way, is named after the Bourbon Principessa Margherita), remove as much of the cheese as you can (don't worry about getting it clean, more cheese is good), add extra tomato paste, herbs, toppings and cheese and cook according to package instructions. And, lo, you should have something remotely like this:
Now that I'm looking at it, I do wonder: Why are all store-bought pizzas always exact circles? My homemade ones come out in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I let the pastry dictate the outcome, but I suppose machines are not as tolerant of life's little quirks.And just in case you want to make pizza at home (using either method for the base), here are a few things I learned from years of pizza-making mistakes:
- Bake your pizza on a surface that allows air to flow freely to the base, such as a really shallow pizza tray or just a sheet of baking paper. Use such things as aluminium foil or pie pans and you risk getting a soggy crust. (This rule applies to thin crust only. Pan pizza is obviously a different story.)
- If you make your own base, briefly pre-bake the base before adding the toppings. This prevents it from going soggy.
- Also, if you make your own base, get the oven as hot as possible. Don't worry about burning the cheese, if you put the pizza on the lowest rack in the oven and give it heat only from below that won't happen.
- If you use toppings that dry out easily (such as spinach or onions), toppings that loose a lot of moisture (such as seafood or, occasionally mushrooms) or toppings that take a while to cook (such as broccoli), I advise precooking. Fry them gently in a bit of olive oil until the spinach has collapsed and can be hidden under the cheese, the onions are glossy and the other toppings have released their moisture. Blanch harder vegetables in boiling water. And if you're weird like me and like the occasional creamy pizza with potatoes, the latter need to be boiled.
- Coat all exposed bits of the base in olive oil. This prevents them from drying out and helps the base go crispy and golden rather than grey and dull.
- Be generous on the herbs you put on your base. I find that they bring out the best in your toppings. Adjust them according to what's on top - oregano, thyme and basil for Italian, curry powder for Indian and a few drops of barbecue sauce for a meat lover's.
- If you like it garlicky, add garlic powder with the herbs and chopped garlic after the pizza is done. Baking does reduce the flavour.
- Try avocado as a topping. When I first saw pizza with avocado on a menu in South Africa I thought it sounded quite absurd. But unlike bananas on my pizza, I liked the avocados a lot.
Christine at 11:51 pm
