Frank fancies himself a pizza connoisseur. Well, maybe not exactly a connoisseur but he sure is picky. When he worked down on Wall Street he thought nothing of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at lunchtime so he (and others) could stand in line outside Grimaldi's for hours so they could sit there and order several (yes, several) pies of the world's best pizza. I always thought they should have walked back after the several pies, just sayin'. He was crushed when the office was moved to Jersey City and they couldn't make their weekly pilgrimage; not that they didn't make the trek on occasion, but still...He was then really thrilled when Grimaldi's opened a branch in Hoboken. Yay, practically next door. Unfortunately the pizza wasn't up to snuff; it was OK but not the same for his discerning palate. So he was very excited when one day I announced that I would like to try making pizza at home. Immediately he bought me this:
This, for those uninitiated in the art of pizza making, is a pizza stone (and no it's not dirty, it's been used a lot and can't be washed) and it is used just in case you don't happen to have a wood burning oven, cause it gets really really hot. Then he bought me this:
a pizza peel, so I could look and act professional. I guess I had to get going; and I did, I made lots and lots of pizzas. Then for some reason once we moved to South Orange I stopped. Besides, there were two pizzerias in town, Bunny's and Reservoir; neither passed muster though. Finally about a month ago or so he found an article on this place and off we went. He liked it so much that he wanted to go all the time. Suddenly I wanted make pizza again! The I saw this post and thought, well I'm going to make that pizza by golly! and I pulled out my equipment! I make my pizza dough from a very old recipe I have from Pierre Franey's 60-minute Gourmet, because it works so well and it really does rise in 30 minutes, even though I usually let it go for an hour.
Pizza Dough
1 envelope active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water (100F)
2 cps + 2 tbsp flour
Salt
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp semolina
1. Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup of the warm water. Place in the container of a food processor and add 2 cups of the flour, salt to taste, and 1 1/2 tbsp of the olive oil. Blend, turning on and off 3 times. Add the remaining water and blend for about 10 seconds, until the dough begins to form a ball.
2. Remove the dough to a board dusted with the remaining flour. Knead it and form it into a neatly rounded ball.
Wrap the dough in a towel and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes.
3. If available, place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 500F. 4. Flour the ball of dough lightly and press it out to a 12-in round, about 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle a pizza peel with the semolina and place the dough round on it. Alternatively, place the dough rounds on a lightly oiled metal tray.
5. Place the toppings as in David Lebovitz's Tomato Basil Pizza (link above)
6. Slide the pizza from the peel onto the pizza stone in the oven.
7. Bake 10-12 minutes, rotating once or twice. Remove the pizza with the peel
Cut into wedges
and serve.
Kiss Grimaldi's and Arturo's goodbye, and sing this little tune
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