Blork was more prescient than is possible in his comment when he recommended going back to his regular pizza peel. Trouble is, I can’t. See, when I have my dough laden with its ingredients (pictured below) it is almost impossible to get it off the peel and onto the pizza stone (hot! hot! Close oven door RIGHT NOW!) without something going into freefall, be it the dough scrunching, cheese falling off, what have you . . . at least with the traditional peel, even with corn meal.He might beg to differ, but for years I wrestled with pre-baking the dough for a few minutes so it was hard enough to slide on and off the traditional peel, and it just never came out right . . . it wasn’t until I started using the slide-off peel that I could assemble everything on the dough and expect it to still exist in its format when it came to sliding it onto the stone. (Why does this sound so sexual?)
So, conditions were ripe last night for disaster. Thing is, I had forgotten just how to slide the pizza off the Super Peel . . . instead, I assembled it on the peel on the SLIDE-ON position, so when I went to slide it onto the red-hot stone, I realised it was the opposite and I could not get it off the peel, it being sloppy and not inclined to slide in one piece (see doomed pizza, assembled, last photo). Trust me, with two other pizzas and all the ingredients and a dinner date waiting in the wings, I was not in the mood for this to happen.
I tried to spade it off onto the traditional peel. It went, sloppily, but as predicted, that was about that. When I tried to get it onto the stone, it fell apart. Literally. Cheese, mushrooms, peppers, all over my 550-degree oven, all over the pizza stone.
Fire, fire about to happen, thought I, and desperately tried to rescue the situation. Luckily, my neurons, dendrites and axons decided to get together and finally have a party and cooperate after months of feuding and I was able to rescue the situation. The one disaster-pizza I had to toss, but the other two were awesome.
Below is pictured the roasted cherry-tomato-red-pepper-sun-dried tomato-prosciutto-mozzarella di bufala concoction that I came up with. The other pizza had no sauce, just truffle oil, goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, basil and arugula.
Roasted Cherry Tomato pizza sauce
Ingredients
A bunch of cherry tomatoes — doesn’t matter how many. Lots. Little buds removed, quartered
Two large cloves garlic, diced
Sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and finely chopped
Roasted red peppers, also out of the jar, patted dry and finely chopped
Good olive oil
Fresh oregano
Chicken broth
Method
Assemble all ingredients in a casserole. Mix well. Roast on about 500 degrees for about 45 minutes, observing often and stirring about every 15 minutes. When done, let cool at least to room temperature.
Purée sauce with hand mixer or food processor, adding chicken broth if too thick. Spread on dough.
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteDo you use cornmeal under your pizza dough?
Hope all is well.
-e
Hahaha...oops. guess I should have read the previous post first. You have problems even with the cornmeal. (:
ReplyDeleteErica,
ReplyDeleteAll is most definitely well!
Yeah, pizza making is as debatable a sport as politics sometimes, so one man's pizza screen is another woman's stone, so to speak. But I always liked the corn meal under my commercial pizzas (the chains never use it so it was always a hallmark of class) so I use it. And it just KILLS over flour . . .
BUT it doesn't always want to slide the way you want it to slide.
Kind of like life.
To be precise, I didn't recommend going back to the traditional peel, I just said that's my preference. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear about your disaster, but I'm glad to see you recovered well. Those pies sound excellent!
i'm craving smoked meat pizza... mmmm :)
ReplyDeleteBlork,
ReplyDeleteMy NY method works really, really well (when I pay attention to how to sing the peel!) I swear that if I didn't have the Super Peel I'd get nothing off a wooden one. Some part of the dough would stick and the whole thing would be a disaster. I'd love to see a video of you doing yours . . . maybe youse knows sumpin' I don'ts knows.
Julie . . . smoked meat pizza? Youse DEFINITELY knows sumpin' I don'ts knows.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll get Martine to make a video of me making a pizza. :-)
ReplyDeleteI rarely (but not never) have problems with sticking. I used to, but I try to use a less wet dough, and I don't put it on the peel until it's ready to be dressed and popped in the oven. And I work fast.
Generally, from onto the peel to into the oven is somewhere between 30-45 seconds. The longer it takes, the higher the risk of stickage. Nowadays about the only time it sticks is when I accidentally slop some sauce over the edge of the dough and onto the peel. That can be catastrophic!
Damn, you can assemble a pizza in 40 seconds??? This I have to see.
ReplyDeleteLook at the pizza in the last pic at the bottom and you'll see how heavy it is . . . with wettish dough there is no way it's going to be sliding ANYWHERE. Even with a mountain of flour and/or cornmeal. And I don't want to be taking the risk with a broiling oven and two more waiting in the wings . . .
But we should have a pizza cookoff just to see how we do things.
Youse's place or mine!