Salado Pizza Pies

gmbbs

I had a blast slinging pizza at Salado, but was too busy to chat with folks to answer questions like I would have liked. There are a million different pizza doughs, sauces, and pizza opinions, but here's what you tasted in Salado:

I use this dough recipe from Serious Eats:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza.html

I make it in my Cuisinart 14 cup Food Processor. I would scale it down if you have a smaller food processor. To make it easy to scale, I converted the recipe to weight:

630g flour (I used King Arthur Bread flour)
30g Morton Kosher salt
30g table sugar
1pkg yeast

I put a paper plate on my kitchen scale, then dump the dry ingredients on the plate, one ingrediant on top of another. Then take the plate of dry and dump it into the FP bowl. Pour 40g olive oil on top of the dry. Next...quickly dump 425g warm water into the food processor bowl, put the lid on and turn it on. Process for 20-30 seconds, then dump onto a floured work surface. Knead it a few times til smooth, then portion into 4 parts, rolling each of these into a ball. I find one batch of this dough makes four  13-14" thin-crust pizzas.

VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO NOT DRIZZLE WATER INTO PROCESSOR THROUGH THE FEED TUBE AS IT SPINS, AS THIS WILL ONLY BOG DOWN THE PROCESSOR AND YOUR DOUGH WILL NOT MIX! And your food processor makes funny acrid smells.

Dough can be used straight away, but the real flavor comes from a cold rise in the fridge. It's best after 3 days or so. The Salado dough was made Thursday night.




My sauce of choice is this Ultimate Pizza Sauce, recipe stolen here:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dads-ultimate-pizza-sauce/

I make a quadruple batch, portion into individual serving portions (1/3 cup) and freeze. I also use LOTS of garlic and red pepper flakes, because that's how I roll, dawg. It is very thick and rich, so a little goes a long way. For pizza toppings, I say less is better. About a gallon sized batch:




I found my sweet spot for pizza on the egg is 550 degrees. YMMV. these pies cook in about 6 minutes. I don't have a pic of my set-up, lots of people were interesed in that. I have my grid at felt level (using a Woo), plate setter legs down, then spacers (BGE feet, wadded up balls of tin foil, bones of my defeated enemies...) then the pizza stone. This puts the pie high up in the dome, so it gets lots of radiant heat to cook the top.

I keep an insulator handy...if the bottom is cooking too fast relative to the top, slip something between the pie and the stone to allow the top to catch up; like a pizza screen, another pizza stone, or I use the grid off of my small.

I cook on parchment paper, and leave it there the whole time. The exposed edges can burn and turn into charred airborn bad-flavor flakes, so I trim the corners, leaving one for a handle. The handle allows me to easily remove it, and provides a handle with which to spin it with. Since the egg tends to be hotter in the back, sometimes a 180 degree spin mid-cook is necc. I position the "handle" over one of the plate setter legs, to shield it from direct heat.

I also sprinkle a little kosher salt on the parchment paper before I put the dough on it. Makes a HUGE difference when you taste the pizza, try it, you won't be sorry. Also, it is best to make the pies quickly and get it on the egg quickly. If you leave the dough sitting there with sauce and ingredients on it, it can make the middle of the crust water logged, and soggy.



Hope someone finds this manifesto useful. Go cook some pies, turn up the Yakity Sax when they come off, and Mangia!




Greg

Blassiter

Great post! Will be cooking pizza this weekend for sure.

bud812

I see you Raichlen proof your pics.   Looks good too..

Bbquru

Looks awesome!!

20stone

Thanks for putting up this write-up.  I am 0-2 on making dough, and look forward to getting back in the game.

NCEggSmoker

Nice write-up, thanks for sharing. Good looking pies too. I've only done pizza once on the egg and I think I was cooking too hot and not high enough in the dome. Underside of crust was cooking before the cheese got bubbly. 

gmbbs

That's why I like to cook pizza @ Salado, lots of people have never done it, or are intimidated. Spreading the pizza love.

"I got my technique down and everything, I don't be ticklin' or nothin'." - Jules Winnfield

SmokeyPitt

Awesome post- I am bookmarking this.  

What is the difference between bread flour and all purpose and how does the final product differ? 

nolaegghead

Foot f*ckin master!

Brisket_Fanatic

Nice tutorial - I will give it a try next time with less toppings

Legume

great post!

JohnnyTarheel

Thanks for sharing 

Eggcelsior

This is hilarious. Thank you.

Mickey

Your my hero

SkinnyV

Nice looking pies well done.

Monaarts

Great looking pizza!  Kudos

DoubleEgger

Best.Watermark.Ever

texaswig

I'm also a fan of the parchment paper. I'm gonna try that dough for sure. 

buzd504

Love the watermarks.  Great write up.

LKNEgg

Sounds great!   Look forward to making pizza this weekend for a large group.  Going to try and cook about 8 in a row.  Most so far is 3, but shouldn't be any more difficult, just slow more dining time! 

Nanook

Bookmarked

Grillmagic

Some Beach!!!!! This looks Awesome...

Griffin

Great lookin' pies. That's the dough recipe we use as well. Haven't made any in awhile. That may need to change.

Love your watermarks. You are my idol.

bluebird66

Thanks!

Dredger

Fantastic pizza. Love the watermark. Too funny.

mlamb01

@gmbbs - Have you ever tried making the dough with cold water?  I have made this dough, and used to use warm water like the instructions said.  Then I tried cold water, like 40 degrees or lower, and found the dough was easier to stretch out.  Did not seem to tear holes like it did when I used warm water.  Could be I was just getting more experience stretching it out too...  Reasoning for the cold water is that the food processor really heats up the dough, and if it gets too warm it affects the dough somehow.  Maybe the gluten does not form as well?

Just made another batch on Tuesday night for pizza tonight.  This time tried putting all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, stirred it abit, then dumped the cold water in and stirred so that all the water was absorbed.  Then dumped it in the food processor and processed for about 30 seconds.  I'll get to see if it made an improvement tonight.

gmbbs

I haven't tried cold water, but was thinking of trying that next time to retard the rise a little bit more.

I've read about the resting period too (autolyze), but this dough has good flavor without, so I just dump and go. Always room for improvement tho!

I have found this dough to be very workable, stretching it is no problem, in fact I just hold the dough by the edge and let gravity do a lot of the work. The dough is so loose it literally flows.

mlamb01

Can you spin/toss this dough to stretch it out?

gmbbs

Yes you can, most definitely. 

mlamb01

@gmbbs - I think my last batch of dough had the best consistency so far.  In previous batches, the dough was not very elastic, and I had to be careful not to overstretch it.  All I really had to do was press it out on the counter with my fingertips.  I could actually stretch the dough out from this last batch using my fists.

saluki2007

Wow, those are some great looking pies.  Thanks for sharing and book marked for future use.  Always love trying new dough recipes.