Monday, December 8, 2008

I would like to make pizza

My own take on home-baked pizza looks a bit like this:

Crust:

large pita (I've never tried making my own crust)

Sauce:

no sauce, but tomatoes are sliced paper-thin, almost as if we were making foccaccia

Cheese mixture:

mozzarella
crumbled feta
crumbled parmesan
oregano
parsley
basil
thyme
olive oil (binding agent)
garlic powder
salt and pepper (optional; if you include salty meats like pepperoni, you can probably do without the salt)

Toppings:

Whatever you like. Today, I'm hankering for shrimp, green peppers, mushrooms, and maybe some olives.

Directions:

1. On your countertop: flop crust on some sort of oven-friendly tray-- a pizza tin, a cake pan, or a cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Prep tomatoes. Paper-thin, remember. They're your sauce surrogate.

3. Prep other toppings.

4. Make cheese mixture in giant bowl. Vary proportions to taste. Feta and parm are strong, fragrant cheeses; mozzarella keeps the mixture sane. Use only enough olive oil to bind it all together, like the One Ring.

5. Paint a thin layer of olive oil onto the pita.

6. Stack! Place tomatoes on first, then the toppings, then the cheese (if you're a cheese-then-toppings type, knock yourself out).

7. Bake somewhere in the 10- to 15-minute range.

8. Eat while hot.

WARNING:

Don't try to make a Hawaiian pizza with the cheese mixture described above. You won't enjoy it.


_

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait, so is this just an intellectual exercise, or did you actually make this pizza? Judging by the lack of pics, I'm guess the former, but it does sound good.

You should definitely try making your own crust sometime, by the way. Definitely more of a pain in the neck than just using a pita or pre-made crust, but worth the effort.

Kevin Kim said...

Started off as an intellectual exercise-- or more accurately, a remembrance of past glory-- then turned into a mission. I ended up making pizza, but because I lacked tomatoes, I made do with a bottled sauce. No pita: Boboli to the rescue.

By the way, I now see why Boboli's such a popular brand of pre-made pizza crust. It's got perfect taste and crunchiness, and is very forgiving about variations in temperature and cooking time.


Kevin

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Boboli is pretty good. I remember we made good use of Boboli crusts at university, creating all sorts of weird concoctions to put on top (like a macaroni and cheese "pizza"--talk about carb overload).