Pasta!

Ari Meermans

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ROFL Yeah, but without the guard. Gotta be careful there or ya might slip and end up with "extra" ingredients.
 

Haggis

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Homey don't work without no guards no more. Been there. Done that. It hurts.
 

Ketzel

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Here's the brand of microplane grater I've been using lately. It's a little less lethal than the garlic mandolines I've seen. At least, I haven't grated anything but garlic into my cooking using it. :)
(And the grating surface comes out so it can be washed completely - no bits of stale garlic stuck under the handle!)
 

Ari Meermans

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I must beg your pardon. A question just reminded me that, when it comes to cooking, I tend to take certain things for granted. So, here's the answer to the question: Yes, using the lemon juice and sour cream cold from the fridge would chill the sauce too much. Have your lemon juice and sour cream already sitting out and let them warm to at least room temp before adding to the reduction. Near the stove should be fine, but not ON it.
 

Aleiarity

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I just smash the garlic with something flat. Makes it easier to peel, too. I use my microplane for zesting citrus or for Parmesan cheese.


If you're not getting crab meat from a pouch or something, a decent (and simple) cream sauce shouldn't overpower it. If you shell the crab yourself, you could make some stock from the shells, reduce it, and add it to a cream sauce - the sauce will be less heavy, and it'll bring out more of the crab flavor from the pasta.

Frimble, I'd love to see some of the stuff you make from polymer clay.


Mac, here's what pasta machines are supposed to do for polymer clay:

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I think a wetter dough makes a better pizza. Gluten development is crucial for a chewy crust, and that takes more water.

Once, I made the pepperoni into little roses for pizza:

FPETE4TGD2J1VE6.LARGE.jpg
and fresh basil makes such a difference here.
 

Stacia Kane

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I think a wetter dough makes a better pizza. Gluten development is crucial for a chewy crust, and that takes more water.


Agreed. (I also think a wetter dough makes a better bread.)

Wow, your creations are amazing!



Okay, I made pizza yesterday and weighed all the ingredients.

Here is the recipe as written:

4 - 4 1/2 C bread flour (you can use AP flour but the texture won't be as nice)
2 1/4 tsp/1 packet instant dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C water roughly 110F
2 Tbsp olive oil (1 for dough, 1 to coat the bowl the dough will rise in)

Here is the weight of the ingredients as I added them:

580g bread flour (this is 4C. The cup measure I use is British so it's slightly bigger than a US cup. I rarely if ever have to add the extra 1/2 C, probably because of the size difference, but I recommend you weigh out/scoop out and extra 1/2C and keep it handy in case the dough does need more flour. 1/2 C measured as 70g for me).
7g yeast
9g salt
I add a dash of sugar to mine, more out of habit than anything else. It was > 1g.
375ml (by weight--my scale measures in grams, ounces, or ml) water--I usually start with a little milk, like enough to just cover the bottom of the cup, and then add water. My water was 105F, which was 40.5C (I mention the temp because of the refusal of every UK yeastmaker or bread recipe I've seen to actually say what temp the liquid should be, instead insisting that "hand-hot" is a legitimate measure of temperature that is the same for everyone. So if you're frustrated by "hand-hot," there you go). Note my liquid was a tad cool, but still within the workable range for yeast, which is 100-115F. I just didn't feel less messing around adding a little extra hot water and then maybe a few drops of cold and blah blah blah to get to 110F.
30g olive oil (Yeah, I know it's measured in grams; I'd switched my scale back to g., and since I pour it directly into the dough I had no way to re-measure it.)

You will also need a pizza tray [or two--I have two] or cookie sheet, some parchment, and a pizza stone--see below for discussion.

Okay. The original recipe instructions are for a food processor (put the dry in the tub thing, turn it on, drizzle in the oil and then the liquid until it makes a dough, let rest 2 minutes and then knead a little). I do not have a food processor, so here's what I do:

combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and give them a good stir or whisk (I just use a big dessert spoon) to combine. Pour the water in; I don't bother making a well or whatever, I just move my hand as I pour so I'm pouring in circles, basically.

(I add the water first because oil added directly to flour can make clumps which are difficult to break up.)

Then, before I stir, I glug in a Tbsp or so of olive oil (hence the 30g that may not be exactly a Tbsp). I stir that with my dessert spoon for a minute or so until it's just become a ragged dough and there's still some loose flour. Then I let it sit for a couple of minutes--I usually do this with my doughs anyway, actually--give it another stir, turn it out onto the counter, and knead it for a minute or two. You don't want to knead this a lot like bread dough; it doesn't need to be perfectly smooth and satiny, just fully combined and cohesive. You can add more flour (that 1/2C set aside) if you have to. It will be very soft and sticky.

I usually judge the correct stickiness as about the place where it sticks to my palms when I knead and leaves some dough on the counter, but will still mostly stay together when I lift it (won't leave half of it stuck to the counter) and, if I just poke it with my finger, will stick to it but will release it (i.e. not leave dough on my finger). If you're more experienced with making doughs you'll probably have your own measure, but if you're not and don't, I hope that's helpful.

Then I pour a little olive oil into the bowl (it's the same bowl I used to make the dough, because why dirty another bowl?), turn the dough in it to coat, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it to rise.


That recipe makes a pound of dough, enough for two 16" pizzas. I don't have big enough ovens for pizzas that big, but my slightly smaller, slightly thicker pizzas still turn out well.

The cooking method involves a pizza stone. Personally, I think pizza stones are outrageously expensive, so I went to the floor tile place in the next town and bought two ceramic/stone tiles, the biggest ones that would fit in my ovens, for about £3 each, instead of the £25 I'd pay for a single pizza stone. Plus, mine are pretty, hee. (They are slightly smaller than my pizza trays, though. It doesn't matter much to me, but see below.)

Anyway. About when the dough is doubled in size/ready--and this dough rises fast, it usually takes 2 hours or less--put your "stone" in the upper third of your oven and turn the heat on to about 500F/gas 8-9/250C. Leave to get the stone very hot; you want it in for at least half an hour but not much longer than an hour at the most before using.

Also, cut two pieces of baking parchment (if you are in the UK, use the white Baking Paper from Tesco and NOT the brown baking paper from Sainsburys if at all possible; the brown sticks to the pizzas, I've found) about the size of your stones/pizza trays/baking sheet. Leave them as big squares; you can trim them into rounds later.

Dump out the dough, cut it in half, put one half back on the bowl and set the plastic on it to keep it from crusting while you form the first pizza.

I used to give this dough a few turns before shaping it, but I've found it's much easier to stretch and shape if I don't--it's extremely soft when just turned out--and there's no real detectable change in quality. So it's up to you.

I've tried the "form into a small round and spin it on your knuckles" thing but it doesn't work for me. I basically smush the oiled dough out from the center with my fingers/heel of my hands/sides of my hands until it's round and the same size as my pizza trays--the more organized/less messy among you can use a rolling pin if you wish, of course. Then I take one of the parchment pieces and lay it over the dough, give it a light rub to adhere sort-of, and roll it back gently, taking the dough with it, to transfer it onto the tray (which I've placed directly to the left of the dough, so it just rolls back right onto it). Do not be tempted to just roll out/stretch out/shape the dough right on the parchment! What will happen is the parchment will wrinkle like crazy and those wrinkles will go up into the dough, and then when you try to straighten the parchment the dough will stretch out oddly and develop thin spots. Plus it's much harder to shape it that way to begin with. trust me, it's more trouble than it's worth.

During the transfer the dough usually stretches or falls out of shape a little. No biggie. I just pinch/fold/much it back into place.


Now, take some olive oil--I keep some in a little tupperware tub for just this purpose, because we eat these pizzas often--and use your fingertip to smear it around the edge of the pizza (the part you want to be the crust). You can make the crust as narrow or wide as you want. Don't skip this step, though, if you want nice brown/crisp crusts.

If you have a double oven, as I do, make both pizzas at once. If you don't, make the second while the first cooks.

As I said, I use a quick, basic sauce for this: a couple of cloves of minced garlic sweated in a little butter & olive oil until soft, a jar of minced/crushed stewed tomatoes (passata rustica) and a half a bottle of tomato sauce (passata). I use the Cirio brand, which I highly highly recommend. If you can't get it, use whatever you like. I pour in a little red or white wine, too, and then add salt & pepper, a pinch of sugar, and a little basil and oregano. You can add whatever herbs etc. you like, of course, but you don't want this to be too highly spiced; you want the flavor a little "thin" and a little sweetish. Otherwise it can be oddly overwhelming.

Anyway. Start the sauce just before you're ready to shape the dough and let it simmer gently until you're ready to use it--you don't want to simmer it too long but long enough to let it thicken a tad.

Scoop out two (at the most!) ladlefuls of sauce into the center of the pizza, and use the bottom of the ladle to spread the sauce thinly over the pizza surface up to the olive oil line. If you use too much sauce the crust will be soggy! So be careful. I'd start with one, actually, and add another half or so and see if that does it. It doesn't have to be perfectly even and it'll be very hard to make it so. This is a fairly rustic pizza and part of the fun is in the unevenness etc.

Same with the cheese; too much and the pizza will be soggy and limp. Maybe 100g of mozzarella? Or about 1 C pre-shredded. You want to be able to still see sauce through the cheese, but you don't want just little islands of cheese in the middle of whole stretches of sauce. So cover thinly but pretty well with torn shreds of mozzarella or shredded mozzarella. Then add a good bit of shredded parmesan, too.

You can add toppings if you want, but really no more than two, if you want the crust to stay crisp.

Now. The actual recipe says to basically use the tray just to hold the pizza until you can slip a pizza peel under the parchment and transfer the pizza, parchment and all, to the hot stone in the oven. However, as I said, my stones are smaller than my trays, and both barely fit into my oven--in fact my tray sticks out over the oven shelf in the back, where the flames are (it's a gas oven). So if I did this I've have blobs of unsupported dough basically melting off and falling into the flames, which would be bad. (This is also why I have to trim my parchment close to the tray, to avoid having paper hanging directly over fire.)

So I set the whole tray on the stone, parchment and all. I do lose some crispness in the crust this way, but I'm the only one in my family who likes the crust to be crisp anyway so it's not a big deal. The parchment will char a bit where it's not covered by pizza, but it doesn't burn from the heat of the oven.

I did once split the dough into three, and made two smaller pizzas and some imitation Crazy Bread (cook the dough plain, then pour melted butter with garlic powder/granules and grated parm over it. Delicious). Because the pizzas were smaller, they fit directly on my stones. The sizzle when I slid the pizza & parchment onto the hot stone was pretty cool, and the crust was indeed gorgeous and very crisp. So if you *can* place your pizza and parchment directly onto the stone, do, but if you can't, it's really still very, very good pizza.

Bake anywhere from 8-14 minutes (mine usually take eleven or twelve), until the crust is golden and the cheese is all melted and bubbly. My crust usually gets a little charred at the back where it's hung directly over the flame, but I like that so it's not a big deal.

Let the pizzas sit for a couple of minutes before pulling the parchment away--it should peel off easily; if it doesn't, put the pizza back in the oven directly onto the stone for another minute, and then let it sit a couple more minutes before trying again--and then cutting and eating.

If you skip the parchment, your pizza will likely stick a little to the tray. Not a huge deal, but still.

Last night I actually forgot to put the stone in one of my ovens. So only one of my pizzas was cooked with a stone, which is the first time I've done that. Again, it lost some crispness and took slightly longer to cook--I transferred it to the stone oven after that pizza was done, to give it another minute or two--but again, not a huge deal. The crust was a little thicker, too, though, because it rose slightly more than normal as it cooked.


Wow, this is a really long post. I, uh, I hope it's helpful and you like the pizza. :)

Oh! I almost forgot. Those pizza stones/tiles? Will be hot as fuck. Like, hot enough that if you touch them you'll leave many layers of skin on them. Do not try to handle them for a long time. I don't even remove them from the oven when the pizza's done, actually (I'm always afraid someone's going to accidentally touch one); I just close the door on them and let them and the oven cool together, and then let the stones cool even more before I take them out. Usually I just leave them overnight. Seriously, be careful.

P.S. If you make bread, the stones when hot are great for crisping the bottom crust or warming slices/rolls or whatever.
 
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harmonyisarine

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I just asked in another thread if someone had a thin pizza crust recipe, and then I wander over here to see Stacia's.

I know what I'm making as soon as I shake this cold. And with fresh herbs and possibly tomatoes, too.



As far as pasta, you can make chocolate pasta by just adding some cocoa powder to the flour. I usually take out a bit of flour and then add twice the amount of cocoa powder, but the numbers are a bit subjective to your tastes and flours and pasta. Last time I tried this, I made two raviolis. One was filled with sweet ricotta, and one was filled with raspberry ricotta, and I made a chocolate and a raspberry sauce to go with it.

I also like making pumpkin pastas, but the squash is more wet than potato tends to be, which can change the proportions of egg and oil you need to add. If you do it, though, pumpkin ravioli with shrimp filling is pretty much to die for.