out and compose my own acoustic version of the Scorpions hit single, "Rock You Like a Hurricane". This is horribly embarrassing and would set the tone for the rest of the day.And here we present a glorious 3 hour extravaganza which I have titled:
A Pizza Salute to All Nations, but Mostly America, Italy, and I Guess Germany
We're documenting the whole process here, so get ready for a serious amount of pictures, some of which will leave you wondering why I posted a picture of it. Hey, I'm very proud of my Hummel figurine collection, and nobody ever comes over to see it. Suck it up.
First thing I did this morning to psyche myself up was to out and compose my own acoustic version of the Scorpions hit single, "Rock You Like a Hurricane". This is horribly embarrassing and would set the tone for the rest of the day.
I already had some dough in the freezer so step 1 was to make my sauce. I like using raw tomato sauce, because I think it tastes fresh and delicious. It is a bit watery so I dump the can into a sieve, and walk away for the duration of one beer.
Spice it up with sugar, salt, oregano, basil, granulated garlic, onion powder, crushed red pepper, black pepper, and olive oil. Mix it up, and let it rest for at least one beer to let the dried spices rehydrate.
Oh here's the dough. I freeze them in ziplocks pre-flattened so they thaw more quickly and evenly and the gluten is already relaxed into this shape which makes them easier to form later. Make sure you drink a beer while you're waiting for the dough to come to room temperature; the CO2 released by the beer raises the air pressure slightly in your home and allows the dough to become more cromulent. If you're at a higher elevation you'll need to drink more beer to compensate obviously.
Floured the counter, cut the ziplock open, flour and flip out onto said counter. This is all the flour I use because too much makes me feel like I'm going to exhale raw flour while eating the pizza. From this point on I use just a little medium grind cornmeal. When it starts to stick a little, cornmeal the top and flip it.
To shape, I hold my right hand flat down and stretch to the left with my left, spinning the dough by letting up with my right hand before the left hand finishes its stretch motion. Confused at all? Just lazily lead left lift remember rotate right robustly, or LLLLRRRR (not related to Lrrr of Omicron Persei 8).
Go light on the sauce. I scooped some of this back off after this picture was taken. Beer clouds judgement? Nevar.
Like any scientific experiment, we needed to build a Control Pizza. Ask any scientist why, they'll tell you it is because scientists have too many leftovers in their pantry/refrigerator. Scientists eat alone a lot, and they end up with a lot of leftover. Sad people, really, those scientists. What sort of Control Pizza would we make? Let's see, we have some dried shiitake mushrooms, which were rehydrated, then squeezed sliced and sauteed to dry them back out again. Confuses the fuck out of those mushrooms and they're most delicious when they are most vulnerable. So 1/2 shiitake mushroom.
And half raw jalepeno. I prefer to use the pickled kind but I didn't have enough beer on hand to wait long enough for these to be pickled.
Let's see, half plus half... leaves us about a quarter left so I don't know, fuck it-- pepperoni.
Stop Motion It! 1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10, 1112. Doo doo daa doo doo daa doo doo doo doo doo doo. 12!
The test setup has everything we need. A fire extinguisher, a beer, some pizza, a grill at 625F, aaaand there might be some pornography in there too if you look hard enough.
Control Pizza will enjoy the black dynamite heat of the default Big Green Egg ceramic pizza dealie. It isn't called that, it is called the "plate setter" which I have no fucking idea how high they were when they named it that. Might as well call it Activity Grain featuring Chocolate Giddyup.
And here's our product after a 4m 30s cook time. It looks a little liquidy on top but it soaked all of that back up as soon as it wasn't rocket hot any more. As you can see the bottom is nicely done. It has a good crispness, but the dough should have been a little thicker. It didn't have enough bite to it, just crisp. That's my fault for stretching it out too much, but the beer's fault for convincing me to do so.
Let's finally get on with our experiment. I put the Scorpions on loop-play, at a volume which might have lost me some faction with my neighbors. Are you readyreadyreadyred ahhahhhhAHHHHAHHHHH
How did that happen? I don't think rock guy will cook evenly, nor does it really look like rock guy, so...
I apparently didn't put enough charcoal in the grill. I put 4lbs in there, thinking that 5lbs is enough to cook pulled pork for 14-18 hours. Either cooking pizza is slightly less economical than cooking at 225F, or I had been taking more beer breaks than I thought. We'll have to make do with 750F for the experiment. The 10" skillet had been heating up for a good 30 minutes. I chose upside down because getting the pizza out of the skillet would probably be impossible at 750F.
At the 90 second mark I could smell burning. I sat on my hands for a full 2 minute cook time. Even with the upside down skillet, I couldn't get the fucker out with bare hands. I'd get my fingers on the foil, I'd hear a sizzle of skin and/or arm hair, and retreat with a squeal. I pussied out and just used the pot doodads.
Product! The mozzarella I used here was fresh so it... wet. It just sort of made a puddle. The crust was.. suboptimal. The bottom was burned, the top wasn't done I think. A gas grill will probably be worse, considering the top of the Big Green Egg is ceramic like a pizza oven, and a gas grill will not radiate as much heat.
So I think you can do it with a gas grill at ~600F and a cast iron skillet, but 750F is just too much heat from the bottom for the top to get done properly. I'll go grab a beer while you collect your thoughts.