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Apr. 11th, 2006
I have just successfully made my own pizza, from scratch.
Now, to some, this might seem like only a minor meritorious occassion. But it only seems like that to those who are not aware of the fact that my mom has made pizza, from scratch, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night since before I was born. When we were kids, we'd eat pizza and watch Star Trek (pretty much the only TV I ever watched as a kid) every weekend.
So living up to the standards of someone who has made over 3000 pizzas over a span longer than my lifetime was a bit daunting, and that's why for so long I had even bothered trying. (It didn't help, of course, that my initial forays into bread making and pie crust usually ended up in tears, frustration, and either giving up or something completely inedible. This didn't bode well for pizza crust).
But the focaccia recipe that I found a few weeks ago had been going extremely well pretty much every time I made it - I had just one flop when I don't think I had warm enough water, and the yeast didn't rise much. Over the weekend I made two batches which I brushed with pesto and grated parmesan before baking (yum!), and so I decided to go one step further, and actually turn the focaccia into pizza dough.
It turned out amazingly well. We had black olives, mushrooms, the end of a stick of garlic sausage which we used as substitute pepperoni, and then some fresh mozzarella. (Well, I'm not sure fresh is the right term. You can buy it in the refridgerated section of the grocery store, it comes in a sealed plastic bag and is still floating in its own juices. So it's not exactly fresh as in "recently made" but it's definitely fresh as in "not aged".) The end result was incredibly tasty. The crust definitely doesn't taste exactly like mom's, but I have her recipe and can compare the one I used to it to see what the differences are. Also, part of the difference can be chalked up to the fact that she usually uses half white flour, half fresh-ground whole wheat, and I used all white. So the next adventure in "finding food in Amsterdam" will involve finding wheat flour. I've not seen it at the grocery store yet, but I bet the natural food store a few block away will have it. (And if we're lucky, it'll come in bigger than 1 kilo bags! We buy flour nearly every week as it is...)
Now, to some, this might seem like only a minor meritorious occassion. But it only seems like that to those who are not aware of the fact that my mom has made pizza, from scratch, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night since before I was born. When we were kids, we'd eat pizza and watch Star Trek (pretty much the only TV I ever watched as a kid) every weekend.
So living up to the standards of someone who has made over 3000 pizzas over a span longer than my lifetime was a bit daunting, and that's why for so long I had even bothered trying. (It didn't help, of course, that my initial forays into bread making and pie crust usually ended up in tears, frustration, and either giving up or something completely inedible. This didn't bode well for pizza crust).
But the focaccia recipe that I found a few weeks ago had been going extremely well pretty much every time I made it - I had just one flop when I don't think I had warm enough water, and the yeast didn't rise much. Over the weekend I made two batches which I brushed with pesto and grated parmesan before baking (yum!), and so I decided to go one step further, and actually turn the focaccia into pizza dough.
It turned out amazingly well. We had black olives, mushrooms, the end of a stick of garlic sausage which we used as substitute pepperoni, and then some fresh mozzarella. (Well, I'm not sure fresh is the right term. You can buy it in the refridgerated section of the grocery store, it comes in a sealed plastic bag and is still floating in its own juices. So it's not exactly fresh as in "recently made" but it's definitely fresh as in "not aged".) The end result was incredibly tasty. The crust definitely doesn't taste exactly like mom's, but I have her recipe and can compare the one I used to it to see what the differences are. Also, part of the difference can be chalked up to the fact that she usually uses half white flour, half fresh-ground whole wheat, and I used all white. So the next adventure in "finding food in Amsterdam" will involve finding wheat flour. I've not seen it at the grocery store yet, but I bet the natural food store a few block away will have it. (And if we're lucky, it'll come in bigger than 1 kilo bags! We buy flour nearly every week as it is...)