Pizza Night!

Who doesn't love pizza? I grew up on Pizza Hut and Jerri's Pizza (a local joint in my hometown). The maker of a better pizza was high debated among Cantonites (is that what we call ourselves?). I was always a huge fan of Pizza Hut. What can I say? I like deep dish. But in retrospect Jerri's was a damned good pizza. When I moved to Los Angeles, I couldn't get a good deep dish to save my life. Even the cheese bread sticks via P.H. delivery were sub par. Admittedly, there are a couple of good New York style places, but I sadly found that post-delivery the thin crust was too soggy for my tastes. So, I stopped ordering out pizza altogether.

It dawned on me one day as I was milling around my neighborhood Whole Foods that I could just make my own. So, I sauntered on over to their hot food counter and purchased an order of their pizza dough (apprx. $3.50). I've never had much luck with quick rising yeast, so I like to just purchase fresh dough. Since then, I've tried lots of different pizzas. Caramelized onion pizza (no sauce). Margherita. Pepperoni, of course. This week I found my fave though.

Besides the dough, this beauty was made with stuff I already had in my kitchen. I love that!

Prosciutto and Pepperoni Pizza

1 store-bought pizza dough
6+ slices of prosciutto, ripped into smaller pieces
1/4 lb of sliced pepperoni
1 cup of fresh mozzarella pearls
Parmiganio-Reggiano
For the sauce:
1 can diced tomatoes
6 oz of tomato paste
1/3 c water
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 tsp of dried oregano
pinch of sugar
1 clove of garlic, minced
a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Apparently it's best to always work with room temperature dough. I had no idea until I spent one fine evening at Mario Batali & Nancy Silverton's Pizzeria Mozza. We were lucky enough to sit at the "bar," giving us a front row view of the woodfire oven and the lovely, hard-working folks responsible for making the pizzas, assembly-line-style. The dude responsible for "rolling" out the dough was inspiring. He was so cool and calm, almost zen-like, stretching out each dough with his fists right in front of us. I learned a lot that night about rolling out dough, including to work with dough at room temp for easier manipulation.

Back to assembling my pizza. Oven to 450. For the sauce, just combine all the ingredients and mash up the diced tomatoes at bit with a fork. Let it set while you're dealing with your dough. So, after rolling out my dough, I brush it with olive oil to create a nice crisp and brown crust. Then it's pizza assembly time.

I like a lot of sauce, but even after a liberal application of sauce, I had enough for another pizza left over, so I froze it for next time (we'll see how it turns out after being thawed). Then I strategically placed the pepperoni and mozzarella pearls around the dough. Next went the prosciutto, and then I grated a liberal amount of parmesan over the top. I happened to have a really nice sharp sheeps milk gouda in the fridge too, so I just grated some of that on top as well (why not, right?!). After about 18 or so minutes in the oven, we had a homemade pizza that cost way less and tasted way better than delivery.