Tt proposed pizza comment - mon, oct 26, 2015

For me, the best pizza around is what I make at home, and I'm not talking about what I posted above six years ago. That was before my sourdough starter existed.

It's easy to make a thin-crust pizza at home. It just takes some time. But don't use a rolling pin. Stretch the dough only with your hands. If your recipe uses 100 percent all-purpose flour, then it's super easy to get the dough to stretch.

But anymore, I like to incorporate a little spelt flour into the recipe, which makes the dough a little stiffer, and the pizza bakes a little thicker, but the taste with the spelt addition is much better.

I try maintain a fresh basil plant year-round. My wife makes and cans pizza sauce. She also makes ricotta cheese, and I'll use that instead of mozz. If no ricotta, then I use the goat cheese chevre from local farmer Turkey Foot Creamery.

Toppings are simple: sauce, cheese, olive oil, sea salt, and then fresh basil when the pizza comes out of the oven. I'll sometimes top with produce from our garden when available.

I have not made a potato pizza in a while, and this may be my favorite. It's only yellow potatoes sliced thin with a mandoline, diced yellow onion, black pepper, and olive oil.

The best tasting pizza that I ever made also had to be the ugliest looking pizza of all time. In the recipe, I incorporated some spent beer grains from a stout beer that we brewed.

I pulverized the spent grains in a Vitamix to make something resembling flour. It was 5 parts all-purpose flour to only 1 part spent beer grains flour, but that small amount of spent grains was enough to make the dough rather stiff and difficult to shape. Naturally, it changed the color of the dough. But it also imparted great flavor to the crust.

Spent beer grains before and after being ground up.

The pizza dough balls before proofing. The dough was some kind of odd dark grey-brown color.

If sight affects taste, then this would need to be eaten blindfolded.

It was a thick, chewy, but delicious pizza.

I have other spent grains in the freezer, but it takes so damn long to dry the grains, that I have not made another.

A sourdough starter will add flavor to crust, but instant yeast is good enough. But definitely try it with some spelt or at least a little whole wheat.

My basic pizza crust recipe:

• spelt flour : 180 g
• all-purpose flour : 540 g
• water : 500 g
• fine-grain salt : 14 g
• dry active instant yeast : 7 g

#pizza #home #food #recipe #howto