Notes
A thin-crust pizza from a strangely unItalian source:
Back when Jamie Olliver was just a sprat he had a television series called "The Naked Chef" where he cooked in an apartment kitchen set with a scenario like "the mates are coming over to watch the game" providing the scene's motivation.
Olliver back then was riding a wave of what seems to be now not uncommon modern-era Brit cooking shows: "bam, bam, yeah? Allroit, we mix this all up..." He and Nigella Lawson pioneered a certain unsteady cam here in the United States seen rarely outside of certain slightly seedy video productions. "Having had four margaritas, we engage Jamie Olliver as he throws a rasher of bacon onto this 'za here. Take it away, Jamie!"
Crust is all in the fermentation it seems. You can bang this right around and start working up pizzas or let the doughs rest in the cooler for a while to develop some gasses for a thicker crust.
Ingredients
|
2 lb
|
bread flour,
(+3 oz if necessary)
|
|
1 oz
|
sugar
|
|
1oz
|
salt
|
|
1 oz
|
yeast
|
|
1 pint
|
lukewarm water
|
|
2 Tbl
|
olive oil
|
Preparation
Mix dry ingredients in a small volcano and add olive oil and water to the center. Slowly draw dry ingredients into the mound until a workable dough is formed. Jaime always does this on the counter, but there's a reason that some of us are world-renowned chefs and there's a reason some of us slave over an unfashionable electric out in Rosemont -- I use a big bowl to do the mixing. When the dough is solid enough, transfer to the counter for some serious kneading.
Separate the dough into balls roughly the size of a small grapefruit and then stretch each into disks. The dough will need to sit a bit in this stretched-out form for a bit to let some gas generate and the gluten relax a bit before stretching out fully into shape.
I prefer to do my pizza's Italian stylee which means thin crusts and light on the toppings but this dough works pretty well for thicker crusts as well.