Pizza Crust

Pizza is something I've always wanted to be better at.  Over the past year or so I think I've improved quite a bit.  I like Chicago style pizza as well, but this one is a nice crisp thin crust.  The most important thing is to have a good pizza stone, and also helpful is to have a peel that you can use to slide your raw pizza onto the stone.  The other secret is, I think, to knead the dough long enough to really be elastic.  The recipe I use is based on Alton Brown's, but as is often the case with his recipes, you do have to be careful.  The one that's easiest to find online has way too much sugar and salt.  There are two errors in the recipe from I'm Just Here for More Food, which I've corrected in my version below.  The flour in the book's recipe was off by a factor of two, and it called for a children's aspirin instead of vitamin C (I skip it completely).

Pizza Dough

1¼ cups warm water
2½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
4 cups (454 g) flour
2½ tsp. yeast

Mix the ingredients in a stand mixer with dough hook, then knead on 4 (out of 10) for 5 minutes.  Work the dough into a ball, put in a bowl lightly greased with olive oil, cover with a towel and put it in a warm place, until it doubles in size, about 1 hour.

Divide the dough in half, then work one half into a pizza crust, them place on a pizza peel dusted with cornmeal or semolina.  (The other half can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen if you don't need both.)  Top and slide onto a preheated pizza stone in a 550° F oven.  Keep an eye on it, it should be done in 5-6 minutes.

My biggest remaining problem is that the cheese starts to burn before the crust is completely done.  What I've done the last couple times is take it out and turn the oven off when the cheese gets done, then after having the first piece, if it could use a little more time, slide the rest back on the pizza stone for a few minutes.  That tends to get more cheese & sauce on the pizza stone than usual, making it harder to clean.  Next time I think I'll try 500° F for slightly longer.

Waffles (or: Joy of Cooking 1, Alton Brown 0)

We decided that waffles would make a great Saturday morning vessel for our Five Fruits Sauce, uh, Jam. I am the primary waffle maker (probably; instigator, definitely) and I reached for our Joy when Kels asked why I always use that recipe. Why not try another one? Why not indeed. So he reached for Alton Brown and found his. Look, it's much simpler! And indeed it was. What we learned: there is a reason that they come out so fabulously when you go to the trouble to separate the eggs, and beat, then fold in, the egg whites. We have a Villaware Belgian waffle maker, and the Alton Brown ones did not rise enough. Overdone on the bottom, deflated and doughy on top, these were not keepers. Tasty with the jam, though....

Dutch Baby Bunny

This is easy, and good brunch food. I guess it's a dutch pannenkoeken. I often make one when I'm home for lunch and don't have handy leftovers. Either a full recipe or 1½ recipe go well in a 12" cast iron skillet. It's good with or without bacon, though you may want to add more salt if you make it with unsalted butter and no bacon. We don't usually have vanilla sugar, so I use granulated sugar and add a little vanilla extract to the liquid. They usually puff up higher than the one in this picture.

Dutch Baby Bunnies

½ cup flour
2 tbl. vanilla sugar
¼ tsp. salt
4 tbl. butter [I usually use 2-3 tbl.]
½ cup milk
2 eggs
3 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Put the butter in the skillet and place a 10" cast iron skillet into the oven to melt the butter. Watch out--- don't let it burn.

Combine the dry ingredients (except the bacon), then the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, and mix the wet into the dry, then add the bacon.

Remove the skillet from the oven. Pour the batter into the skillet and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Remove the skillet from the oven and transfer the bunny to a serving plate.

Sprinkle with more vanilla sugar and top with desired topping [usually maple syrup for me]. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.

From I'm Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown

Fudgesicles

I was looking for recipes online to make use of our new popsicle molds. The easiest option is to make pudding pops with instant pudding. My first attempt was a homemade fudgesicle recipe from Alton Brown. I altered it slightly (forgetting the vanilla), so my recipe was:

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine
2 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
12 ounces (1 1/2 cups) heavy cream
8 ounces (1 cup) milk
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

They are now freezing for 4 hours.

Red Flannel Hash

Made this with the delicious Cast Iron Duck.

Alton Brown, p. 34.

Cast Iron Duck

We've been cooking a lot from Alton Brown this week. This one was great, and simple (on p. 33). Two frozen duck breasts (12 oz. total) cost $10.99 at Whole Foods, but it was worth it (and one is fine for a serving). I probably had the heat slightly too high, as not all the fat was rendered when the outside was pretty brown.

Software:
4 duck breasts
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Canola oil

Hardware:
Sharp knife
Paper towels
Spray bottle for the oil
Cast-iron skillet
Tongs
Resting rack
Aluminum foil

Application: Searing

With a sharp knife, trim excess fat and sinew from the breasts and score the skin in a crosshatch pattern, being very careful not to cut into the muscle. Pat the breasts dry with paper towels. Season the breasts with salt & pepper. Heat a well-seasoned cast-iron pan over medium heat for about 3 minutes. Using a spray bottle, lightly coat the pan with oil. Gently lay the breasts into the pan, skin side down. Resist the urge to move them around, as you'll want them to brown. Once you've acheived a golden brown skin, using tongs, flip the breasts away from yourself, using easy motions so you don't splash hot oil on yourself. Cook for another 3 minutes. Remove the breasts to a resting rack and loosely cover with foil. Letting the meat rest will allow the juices to redistribute throughout the meat. After about 5 minutes, with the skin side up, slice the breasts on a bias. Fan the meat over a tasty side dish---how about Red Flannel Hash---and enjoy.

Yield: 4 servings

Scampi v2.0

Thursday night we cooked our first meal at home after the holidays, and made Scampi v2.0 from Alton Brown (p. 127). Very easy and good.

With steamed broccoli & garlic.

Software:
2 cloves garlic
2 tbl. finely chopped parsley
2 tbl. olive oil
1 lb. jumbo shrimp (headless)
2 ripe Roma tomoatoes, seeded and diced [I never seed tomatoes]
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tbl. butter
Juice of half a lemon

Hardware:
Sauté pan

Application: Sautéing

Chop the garlic togethe with the parsley until it almost reaches a paste like consistency.

Heat the sauté pan and, when hot, add the oil. Add the shrimp and toss. When halfway cooked, about 1½ minutes, add the tomatoes and toss for 30 seconds to 1 minute more. Add the garlic and parsley mixture, the salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice and toss one last time. Turn out onto a plate and serve.
Yield: 2 servings

Chicken in Garlic & Shallots

Made Alton Brown's Chicken in Garlic & Shallots (p. 125) on Friday night. Smells great, very tender, good with bread. Kind of greasy, and ended up with a lot of liquid (watery chicken thighs?). Garlic was good, but not enough. I would reduce oil, and use 30-50 cloves of garlic instead of only 10.

Software:
1 whole chicken (broiler-fryer) cut into 8 pieces, or 10 chicken thighs
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
Several sprigs parsley, sage and thyme
10 peeled cloves garlic
10 shallots, peeled and split from stem to root

Hardware:
Large ovenproof saute pan with tight-fitting lid. [I used a Le Creuset casserole dish]
Tongs for handling meat.

Application: Slow Frying

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Season chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Toss with 2 tablespoons oil, and brown on both sides in wide frying pan or skillet over high heat. Remove from heat, add garlic, shallots, herbs and the rest of the olive oil. There’s no need to chop the herbs, just distribute them around and in between the chicken chunks. Cover and bake for 1½ hours.
Yield: 6 servings.