If you made it through my first epic-length entry on pizza making, bravo. What can I say? I’m passionate about the ‘za. I will try to be more succinct here and in future postings. And I promise to never again use the term, "‘za."
So when I left off, I had made a bunch of dough blobs. Feel free to skip that step. It’s a bit of a production that is often hard to justify when you can just go to Trader Joe’s (or wherever) and get a sack of ready-made pizza dough for a buck and change. I will say that the premade stuff yields a harder, denser crust, but it’s oh-so-convenient. Especially when your backyard abuts the Trader Joe’s parking lot (as mine does).
Handling your dough – that’s a not a euphemism for something naughty – is not an easy skill to acquire. For me, it entailed a lot of pizzeria stalking. At Pizzeria Mozza, they have a guy whose only duty is to prep crusts for the toppings guy and I spent many a lunch at the bar parked right in front of his station watching his every move. “Hey, Joe. The creepy dude who stares at you all the time is back.” Honest Abe, my eyes were on the dough the entire time.
But seriously, watching pizza guys is a great way to learn the technique. I’ve also spent meals watching them roll out pizzas at Terroni where they do this weird finger pressing thing that gets the dough super thin, at Bollini's where they use a super fat copper rolling pin to get them to the DOC specifications, and at Lucifer’s where they toss wads of dough in a machine that spits out perfect round crusts. They all make good pizzas but I prefer the hand-tossed crusts that are thin in the middle and a little puffy and doughy on the outside. My experience is that rolling pins squish out the air bubbles in the dough, making a crisper, stiffer and more uniform pizza, so if that’s your thing, by all means do it that way. It’s way easier.
I have to confess that my preference for the tossed crust has less to do with taste and more because it’s so much fun to throw pizza dough into the air. Haven’t you seen that commercial?
The basic idea is to punch the center of your dough down relatively flat while keeping it fat on the rim.
My apologies for the blurry photos
I first squish down a ring with my thumbs
Then I flatten the middle part
When it gets big enough, you drape the dough on your knuckles, slowly working and stretching the outside rim to make it wider while rotating the dough after every pull to keep things even. The dough should feel loose and elastic as you stretch it to a size that’s tossable. I don’t really know what the tossing does – maybe it helps retain a round shape – but it’s really, really cool.
I'm not yet ready to join the U.S. pizza throwing team. Sometimes my dough will get lopsided where I’ll have to dangle and shake it like a bed sheet to even it out. The goal is to work it until it’s fairly translucent in the center part, so whatever it takes to get there, right? A 200 gram lump of dough should make a nice, thin 10-12 inch pizza. Little holes can be fixed at the end with a finger pinch. But if your dough is correct, it should be surprisingly elastic and strong.
Ta-da!
If things do go south and your dough is tearing or lumpy and you want to start over again, I’d advise against it. If you re-wad everything, it won’t be as elastic and even the second time through and you’ll have worse problems. At that point it’s better to bring out the rolling pin and fix your mistakes with it. Or use the rolling pin to start with and quit being such a showoff. Or you can just screw it all and call Domino’s.
Next up: Toppings
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