Halloween isn’t until next week, on a school night no less, so now is the time to celebrate, before you start eyeing the Trick or Treat candy in the bowl in the front hall. First things first – scary pizza and cocktails for the grownups.
I had a ghoulish meander around the internet trolling for Halloween treats and tricks. There is nothing like repourposing an everyday ingredient in an eye-catching way. Look at the genius who thought of carving minute skulls from mushrooms! They look like wee shrunken heads – so creepy! And what crazy person discovered that blueberries could be frozen in round ice cubes? They look like so many bobbling eyeballs! I’ll need another drink, thanks.
Pizza is a food group universe in our house: carbs + dairy + grease + toppings = happiness. We started making pizza at home when our children were young, and malleable. Pizza to them was not a treat or a ceremonial meal marking an auspicious occasion. They had cafeteria pizza for lunch in school. There were class pizza parties to celebrate honor roll announcements. Our children were growing up on expensive, cardboard, industrial-complex-pizzas that had no soul. And these were the grandchildren of original New Haven Sally’s Apizza aficionados after all, so we had to indoctrinate them.
We started slowly, making pizza dough from a recipe in The Joy of Cooking, of all places, but those were the olden days before the internet, and Joy was my go-to. The children enjoyed the process of rolling out the dough, playing with the flour, spooning the sauce and scattering the cheese. And finally, the eating. Our Friday night ritual was firmly established. At least until they grew taller than me.
Our dough these days, which has been evolving for 20-something years, is a variation on a Mark Bittman recipe. We have been using a “00” flour, as suggested by my brother, the original family pizzaiolo, who still eats in New Haven pizzerias with regularity, and who bakes a mean pie. This flour has made a huge difference in the texture of the crust – it is lighter, and more flavorful, and makes an excellent, crisp crust. For these formative years, though, we used all-purpose flour or bread flour, and made perfectly delicious pizzas. We are just showing off now.
Our take on pizza dough:
3 cups “00” flour
1 tablespoon yeast
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup warm water (I warm it in a teapot that has a thermometer – to about 120°F – any warmer and you will kill the yeast)
I use a fancy KitchenAid stand mixer, which would probably offend Sally’s soul, but the romance of kneading dough by hand wore off decades ago. I mix all the dry ingredients, then add the oil, and finally the cup of water. Sometimes I have to add a little more water, until the shaggy mess forms a dough ball. I take the ball of dough out and knead it on the counter, just to tidy of the ball. I put it in a mixing bowl, with a drizzle of olive oil, and cover the bowl with Saran Wrap, and pop it into the microwave for a day of rest. The microwave is a nice safe place; the dough is off of the counter, and the temperature stays constant. By around 6 o’clock, it has risen nicely, and is ready for transformation.
When we first started making pizza at home we had a standard issue electric oven. Now we have a slightly fancier gas oven. First we pop a pizza stone into the oven, and pre-heat to 550°F. Once the temperature reaches 550°, we set a timer for 30 minutes. We don’t have a coal-fired oven like Sally’s, but we can pretend. We started off using a basic cookie sheet, then graduated to a round pizza pan. Now, after all these years, we have lots of esoteric equipment: a metal pizza peel, a French rolling pin, the pizza stone, a pizza steel, a stainless steel bench scraper, a squeeze bottle for oil, a gigantic pizza cutter, and newly acquired pizza shears.
While the oven is heating, I grate an 8-ounce block of mozzarella cheese. Sometimes we also use fresh mozzarella, but fresh tends to contain a lot of moisture, and can make a soggy pizza: use judiciously. We also employ freshly-grated Parmesan cheese with abandon.
I like pepperoni pizza best, and Mr. Sanders is a bon vivant who likes sausage, meatball, salami, Prosciutto, ham, speck, kale, broccolini, peppers – you name it. Have these wild cards lined up on the counter, too. We cheat enormously with the pizza sauce; we stockpile jars of Rao’s Pizza Sauce when it is on sale. But leftover homemade spaghetti sauce is also a family fave. Use what makes you happy.
On a floured surface, divide the dough in half. We freeze one half, for emergency, mid-week pan pizza, or garlic knots. Then Mr. Sanders stretches the pizza dough. (It took years to achieve a circle shape, so do not despair if you produce amoebas.) Drapping the dough over the rolling pin, he places it gently on the corn meal-covered pizza peel, which is essential to his art. Don’t forget the corn meal. (There is no other way to transfer an uncooked pizza to a hot pizza stone without a peel. We have been using a metal pizza peel for a couple of years which is much easier to ply than our old wooden one.)
Once the dough is on the pizza peel, Mr. Sanders squirts a couple of tablespoons of garlic-infused olive oil onto the dough, and spreads it around evenly with the back of a spoon. Then Mr. Sanders spoons on some sauce, not lots, because you want the pie to stay light and crisp. You’ll develop an eye. Then he scatters the mozzarella cheese, and judiciously arranges the toppings. In your travels stop by a pizza joint, not a fancy place, and watch how the journeymen pizza guys scatter the cheese and toppings. They are fast, spare, and economical. Less is better.
Then transfer the pizza from the peel to the blazing hot pizza stone. This takes some practice. Set the timer for 8 minutes. Add some frozen eyeballs to your drink, light the candles, and prepare for glory. Homemade pizza. Happy Halloween!
“But magic is like pizza: even when it’s bad it’s pretty good.”
—Neil Patrick Harris
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