Before we got into the pizza making, each team made a batch of foccacia dough that was left to proof for the couple of hours that we were all entrenched in the pizza pies. The foccacia was so easy that it is almost laughable. Basically, if you can measure and stir, you can make foccacia. I will include the recipe for y'all one day so make sure that you stay tuned but since I felt that the end result was a little thin and a little bit crisper than I usually like foccacia to be, I am going to test it out at home and maybe make some changes first.
Now in order to make the feast of pizza, all the students were asked by our chef to pick a couple of toppings to prepare. Me? I cooked bacon in the oven, minced many heads of garlic and then tossed them in olive oil to make a garlic oil, and I doctored the tomato sauce because it needed a little help in the seasoning department. We had lots of other toppings to work with, onions, mushrooms that were cooked and raw, several kinds of cheeses, herbs, olive, capers, anchovies, sausage, spinach, pesto -- I'm sure there were others that I just can't recall at the moment, carb coma, remember? Anyway, after we shaped our dough, we began the topping. I made a few different kinds of pizza, mozzarella, tomato, basil and several other cheeses too, spinach, ricotta, red peppers and prosciutto and pecorino, a cheese-stuffed pie crust with spinach, sausage, ricotta and mushrooms -- they were all good. The dough, which our chef seemed to really adore was good but not great. I found it a little bit dry in every pizza that I made which to me means that it wasn't my cooking of the pizza but instead was the dough itself. However, despite the dry dough, with the red sauce, cheese and all my tasty ingredients, the pizza was truly delicious. Hopefully when Collin Murray gets home from work he will think so too because let's face it, cold pizza and milk is a pretty tasty treat anytime of the day!
One of my small unbaked pizza pies
Happy pizzas in the oven (Mine is on the far-right side of the oven with all the cheese and basil on top)
Another small pizza after baking
The baby stuffed crust pizza. It was so cute and only about six inches across -- truly an adorable little pizza pie!
I'm not sure what tomorrow's plan is. I heard someone say that we are making sourdough rye bread so it will be exciting to finally get to start to using the "babies" that we have been feeding for such a long time! Other than that, there is not too much exciting to report. I've been busy working on the first FLAVOR PICNIC blog entry and I'm so nervous to start this new writing endeavour that I'm just not sure what I for sure want to write about. I've got some ideas but nothing solid yet. I will let y'all know when I do post it and I sure hope that people will tune in as they do with this blog! Thanks again faithful readers, if I was anywhere near any of you I would bring my leftover cold pizza over to you and have a pizza party right this second!
Baby stuffed crust pizza... HELLO!
ReplyDeleteWell I would have thought that with all the bread that you guys have been baking lately, that you would be in a perpetual carbohydrate coma! I told you that you should have a few neighbors in the apartment building that you can share the bounty with. But then that gets complicated...
ReplyDeleteSo I can sympathize with all the food that you produce at school, there is only so much you can consume. That would be hard for you since you were brought up with the old adage, "Waste not, want not!". So I guess that I would say that you are allowed to disregard that advice for now.
It does appear that you are quite critical of the recipes that your instructors use. I think that is a good thing! I am impressed that you are already thinking of how to tweak the recipe to satisfy you. Do the others in the class share your discriminating palate?
Also I guess that I forgot that pastry chefs have their fingers in all sort of pies. Initially one just thinks that you will be making cakes and cookies and desserts. This have been quite the eye opener. For me at least!