Pizza
Ingredients for two large pizzas
350 g Flour (the more gluten in it the better)200 cl Water
20 g fresh yeast
Tomato puree
1 small ball of mozzarella cheese
100 g parmesan cheese
Salt 'n Pepper
Olive oil
Do it!
Mix a tablespoon of salt to the flour. Weight the amount of flour and be exact, or you will be sorry later. Same for the water, do not use too much or you will end up with one gooey mess. Measure the lukewarm water (not hot or you will kill the yeast bacteria) and add the yeast. Mix and let it stand for a while to wake up the yeast.
Add the water to the flour and mix it with a wooden spoon until all the flour has been incorporated. Do not be tempted to add more water too early, and if you must add just water by the tablespoon.
Now take the dough out and place it on the counter. Get ready and assume the kneading position. Work it baby!
After at least 10 minutes of hard work put the ball of dough in the slightly floured bowl you used before. Cover with a wet towel, and let it rise for about an hour.
After the dough has doubled about in size, split it into two (or as many pizzas as you want to make), and place them on a lightly floured surface with some space between them so that they won't touch when the dough increases further in size. Then cover the dough balls with a towel. Now it time to crank up the oven to max power, and get it as hot a possible to give you a good crust on your pizza.
Meanwhile you can prepare the tomato sauce with some salt and olive oil. Drain all liquid from the mozzarella and peel into pieces with your hands. Cut finely or grate the parmesan cheese.
Now comes the fun part. When the balls of dough have risen again. Spread some semolina on counter, and place one of them on top. Turn the pizza with one hand while holding with the other to stretch the pizza. Watch the Karate Kid if you need more help here. Miyagi's wax on, wax off practice is ideal here. You can also pick it up at the edge and turn it like a steering wheel, and let gravity do the work.
Place the dough on a tray, and spread a couple of spoons of tomato sauce on top.
Then the cheese.
And other stuff you may like. But do not overload your pizza, or I swear you will not get it crispy.
I place the tray directly on the floor of the oven to get maximum heat transfer to the bottom by conduction through the metal. I got better results this way than with a pizza stone that has high heat capacity but lower heat conductivity. I still use the pizza stone on my outside barbaque which gets hotter than my oven, and I get good results there. So all this depends on your oven as well. In my oven I leave it on the bottom for 10 minutes.
Finally, place tray on the top for five minutes to gratinate the cheese.
Et voila. Let the pizza cool before cutting. Enjoy!