Thursday, March 24, 2011

Pizza Dough, Even if You Don't Know How to "Spin It" and You Don't Have a Rolling Pin

The kids came for Purim, second day-Shushan Purim.  I let them choose the menu.  They wanted pizza and I hadn't made it for years.  I had forgotten my old recipe.  My married daughter said that her husband has a tnt-tried and true pizza recipe for the dough.

Here's what she sent:
20גר שמרים טריים
או 2 כפיות שמרים יבשים
1ושליש כוסות מים חמימים
אחד כפית סוכר
2 כפות שמן זית
500קמח מנופה גר
כפית מלח
Translated that's:
20 grams fresh yeast
or 2 Tablespoons of dehydrated yeast
1 1/3 cups of warm water
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 Tablespoons of olive oil
500 grams of sifted flour
1 teaspoon of salt
I doubled the recipe and accidentally used a Tablespoon for the sugar and intentionally less salt than indicated. 

Eventually, I got the dough to a kneadable state.  I kneaded it and let it rise.  Then I found myself in big trouble.  My rolling pin had been thrown out.  How was I going to spread out the dough on the baking pan?  I certainly don't know how to spin pizza dough.

So, I took out a simple glass, pressed gently, as not to add blood to the recipe and the emergency room to the itinerary.  And it really did work.  I ended up with nice flat pizzas.

Can't you see?

The two large ones were topped with homemade tomato sauce (recipe to follow on this page, and if you want the microwave version it's here) and grated cheese, and my daughter topped the others with what her kids like, plain cheese, olive oil etc.

Photos by my husband.

Very Easy Homemade Tomato Paste
  • tomato paste or concentrate
  • cut up onion
  • garlic either fresh or whatever's in the closet/pantry
  • oregano
  • oil, any type (I've always cooked with plain ordinary Israeli soy oil except on Passover, when I use olive oil)
  • boiling water
Now:
  1. put water up to boil
  2. start sautéing the onion (and fresh garlic)
  3. add tomato paste and some boiling water to get the right sauce consistency
  4. add the oregano (and dried garlic powder)
  5. let it simmer for a few minutes
Yes, that's it!  If you want you can add salt, but I don't.  You can also add other vegetables, like mushrooms.  Whatever you want.  This is the basis for meatballs and all sorts of foods you want to serve with tomato sauce.  It's really so simple to make. I don't understand why people buy the ready-made.

2 comments:

Hadassa said...

Shalom!
My thoughts? I love homemade pizza! Olive oil in the dough is a must. I omit the sugar.

Batya said...

OK, my old recipe just used regular soy oil. As you can see, I got a lot of pizzas out of this recipe.