Re: Recipe Thread
My pizza recipe...
When it comes to pizza I am a purist, don't expect crazy garnishes here...I mostly care about the tomato sauce and the dough. Though, the dough just takes time it's not rocket science unlike making some good tomato sauce...
Ingredients:
1. one or two onions depends on how much onions you like in your tomato sauce...
2. sugar, salt(I always prefer herbal salt, it's easier to dosage), black pepper, garlic(lots of it gives the pizza a special tanginess combined with the peppers), hot peppers (I like green bulby peppers they are extremely hot and taste good, I ment this sort they are called
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, though it says in the article they are mild which is strange...), oregano, basil (I like
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it's really tasty in the tomato sauce)
3. a package of
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(I normally buy 2 in case I run out of salami, just buy packaged slices you don't really need something fancy here like some whole sausage I just look out for it having a nice redish color...also the slices are easier to disperse once you have cut them into tinier
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...looks like someone was using a rather dull knife

)
4. a package of
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(again, I buy 2 packages in case 1 package won't suffice...like with salami I normally take the cheapest sort they have in store, there is not much difference in taste, I feel...)
5. flour, oil(I normally take olive oil), you can either use water or milk for the dough, milk makes the dough more white...
6. about 4 or 5 tomatoes (I prefer fresh ones but you can always take tomatoes in a can...) /Have an immersion blender to blend the tomatoes
7. a small package of baker's yeast
1. Making the dough, I always start with the dough since it needs to rise after it got slapped good...
Ok first the measurements always take half the fluid of what you used as flour, I normally go for 400g to 500g of flour and use one package of baker's yeast, 200ml of warm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt, 3 big spoons of olive oil.
Now for making the actual dough...Fetch yourself a big bowl the bigger the better, making a dough is always a bit messy due to all the flour you are working with...first weigh up the flour 400g, crumble the baker's yeast over the flour, put in the salt, sugar and the olive oil, then add the hot water/milk whichever you prefer, using hot/warm water myself 'cause, well it makes the ingredients mix more easy also a nice feel on your hands when you get in there...
I take a big spoon and mix up all the ingredients while I do that I add flour until the dough gets about the right consistency, means it's not all that clingy anymore and it's about the right consistency to take out the spoon and start working with your bare hands, I normally knead the dough with one hand and add flour with the other, don't feel shy to go in there knead the dough good in and out, if the dough still sitcks too much to your hands add more flour if it doesn't stick at all and breaks apart add more water, it takes some time until you get the right consistency and feel for it, but don't worry you can always either add more water or flour...
Once the dough got a nice consistency and doesn't stick to your hands all that much, slap it good a few times then cover the bowl up and put it somewhere to rest, so the dough can rise...normally takes about half an hour for the dough to rise enough time to make a good tomato sauce...
2. The tomato sauce, I always like this part, since kneading and slapping the dough really is hard work, making the sauce isn't, at least not physically hard work

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Ok slice up the tomatoes roughly, put 'em in a pot on your stove and heat it up...while it heats up get an immersion blender and blend them tomatoes until you have a nice sauce, then slice up the onions into tiny pieces I normally take 1/3 of the onions and blend 'em with the tomatoes...heat it up until the sauce cooks now put your stove on a lower temperature flavour your tomato sauce with salt and black pepper, add the fine cut basil, and the rest of the fine cut onions, you should really cut them into tiny pieces so you won't have to chew on them too much I don't like to blend them though, for the basil it takes away the flavour when you blend it and for the 2/3 of the onions I like to chew on some tiny onion pieces on my pizza, hehe, once you are done with flavouring the sauce leave it on some low heat so it stays warm...after you put all the ingredients in you normally taste it a couple times to see if you have to add more salt, pepper...sometimes I even add some cream, but just when I feel like it...
3. Garnishes, after I am done with the tomato sauce I prepare the garnishes I put on my pizza, for this pizza I slice up alot of garlic into small tiny pieces, I would say about 12 cloves of garlic or about 2 bulbs...then cut the salami into pizza piece like shapes, so you can fit them easily all over your pizza, cut the mozzarella cheese into rough slobes, careful with the water when you remove the cheese from it's packaging...lastly cut the peppers up roughly I normally just cut 'em once so I have little pepper rings/pieces I can chew on once the pizza is done...
4. Now for making the actual pizza, first put some flour on your kitchen table get some wine bottle, vodka bottle whatever bottle makes it easier to roll out the dough good and thin the thinner you can roll the dough the better ((quick note: don't use the recommended
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you see so often, it's crap the physical pressure and ammount of time it takes to roll out the dough with this piece of crap is tremendous, just use some fine hefty glass bottle you can apply nice pressure to to make the dough extra thinn, I mean these things are definetly not designed for pizza I guess it's used for bread or such, don't even try using it give the nice glass bottle a shot saves you alot of trouble and makes for a super thin dough in the end.)) ...Grab a piece of dough put it on the flour, put some flour on your bottle and start rolling it out until you reached a bit more material than the outlinings of your baking form can contain...put a tiny little bit of flour in your baking form spread it nicely so it gets into every corner of your baking form, then put the rolled out dough in the form, cut away the edges, I normally roll up the edges so the dough on the edges is broader, I also coat a teaspoon in oil and slightly slide it over the edges of the dough so when the pizza bakes the edges get golden and rise up nicely...done with the dough now I add the tomato sauce and spread it good in the form, after the sauce add the mozzarella cheese sparingly, once the cheese is applied add the garnishes being garlic, peppers sprinkle a good amount of oregano over it and lastly top it of with the slices of salami, I see it alot of times that people tend to put the cheese on top of the pizza, traditionally this is wrong you add the garnishes on top so the cheese will meld with them from below, I also noticed it tastes better personally when I don't put the cheese on top, hehe.
Well, we are finally done, just put the pizza in the oven now at about 180°C and wait for half an hour or less, when you can smell the tasty pizza in your whole house while it bakes in the oven you did a good job!
The combination of the garlic and peppers on this pizza makes for a spicy surprise, I like that taste alot

, maybe drink some milk if it get's too hot...