It's a bit of an exciting night for me! After almost 5 years of constant pizza failures, I'v finally gotten close to making a good pizza! I'm very passionate about pizza and one of the hardest things about living in China is the lack of quality ingredients and quality pizza! Luckily, there are one or two good foreign run pizza places in Chengdu, but for me that just isn't enough. I'v also tried dozens and dozens of local Chinese style pizzerias and while there are some decent ones, none quite bring me that magical moment that we all know and love pizza for.
I love making pizza, I find playing around with your own personal dough recipe to shape the flavor base of your pizza such an intriguing and fun activity. Subtle changes can drastically change the flavor, texture and end result of your crust. There's definitely an art to making a beautiful pizza and living here in China is something I'v really struggled at getting a grasp of. Back in America I didn't have much of a problem, maybe it was because I had a good oven (nothing professional) and more access to quality ingredients, but for just what ever reason I haven't been able to create anything decent here in China. I'v made dozens of pizzas here changing the flour, ratios, prep methods, etc with not much success... until today!
Tonight I finally changed the tide of my pizza fortune. I made some simple changes that I honestly should have tried a long time ago and they finally brought about some success. I have to thank my bread machine because this thing is a kneading master! I may have failed a lot of bread loaf attempts with it but if there's one thing it does right, it's knead a dough ball!
After getting this perfect elastic dough ball, I immediately wet it with some olive oil, covered tightly and sat it in the fridge for a 24 hour cold ferment. This was actually my first time trying a cold ferment and I was very impressed with the results. It created a much more robust crust with more flavor than my previous attempts. The last change was my oven pre-heat time to be longer. I don't know why such a simple and basic step slipped my mind for so long but when using a smaller, lower max temp oven extending the preheat time really made a huge difference in the crust color.
I brushed the crust with some olive oil and pre-cooked it for about 10 minutes to help promote a good color. My oven only hits 230C so I really struggle and have to do a lot to get that nice golden brown started. Once it was just starting to brown a bit, I took the pizza disk out and splashed on some pizza sauce. I first grated a layer of pepperjack and then a layer of shard cheddar. After the foundation was down I decorated it with some spinach, onions, garlic and jalapenos before dusting it with a thin layer of white cheddar.
With that my pizza was ready for the final cook. I lifted the pizza back into the oven and almost burnt my apartment down as the parchment paper grazed the iron rods inside catching on fire. Don't worry! The fire burned down almost immediately leaving just a few parchment paper ashes floating around and I learned I need to cut the excess paper around the rack before sticking it into the oven next time.
Now that the pizza was in the oven I just had to play the waiting game. I sat down at my laptop and played some Kingdom Come Deliverance. After about 15 minutes I headed back expecting another failure but was pretty surprised to see an appetizing looking pizza! I burned a hole in my oven mitt in my rushed excitement taking the pizza out of the oven. I spent about 20 minutes trying to take some instagram ready pictures but realized my food photography is horrible without my girlfriends help. I finally resigned myself to a simple picture on my cutting board and PS'ed the photo a bit to match the joy of my success. I might have brightened the colors a little but what can I say, I love food art despite my lack of talent for it!
The recipe:
4 cups + 1 small handful of bread flour (the handful is for rolling the dough out later)
1 1/2 cup water
2.5 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
3 teaspoons kosher salt
There's not much in terms of directions. I set my bread machine to knead the dough, once it was done I rolled it into a neat dough ball, greased it with some olive oil, placed in a large bowl and covered with plastic wrap. I put it in the fridge and let it sit for 24 hours. When I was ready to start making the pizza, I took the dough out an hour early to let it warm up some and then rolled it out and proceeded to cook!