Working on Pizza Perfection (Part 1, Dough)
I have resigned myself to the fact that I am never going to reach pizza perfection. Yes, I know that perfection is a ever moving target that changes with ones palate and food experience, but I always love the pursuit. Just like my search for the perfect burger, the goal is to get to a point where the cost of labor/time/ingredients are too high to justify squeezing that last percent of performance. (Smarter people than I call it the “law of diminishing returns.”) Making pizza at home has a built in limitation, the home oven. For the most “authentic” tasting pizza, one really needs an oven that can hit 700, 800, or even 1000 degrees. The problem is that most home ovens max out at 550 degrees and I am not sure that spending a few thousand dollars on a wood-fired oven is really practical. I have come close by using a slight variation of Heston Blumenthal’s technique, but I know that a wood-fired oven would add so much flavor. So for now, I am going to concentrate on the dough.
Ingredients:
3 cups Antimo Caputo 00 flour
1 cup water at 105 degrees
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon organic sugar
Application
Combine yeast, water and sugar at let it sit for about 15 minutes (or foamy).
In a Kitchen Aid, combine the flour, salt and olive oil. While using the dough hook attachment, slowly add the yeast, water, and sugar mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough forms a ball and knead for about 5-10 mins after.
Now, you can use the dough after an eight hour rise and it will be ok. It will be so much better than the national pizza chains. However, if you are seeking pizza dough love, 24 hours is the minimum time for the for your dough to mature. After testing the recipe for while, I have found that the complexity of the dough peaks at about 48-72 hours. Trust me, it is worth it
Bacon Biscuit With Cheese (Recipe)
Every six months or so I like to re-test my recipes to see if I can improve on the taste of the dish. So for this Weekend Food Project, I re-imagined my biscuit recipe. For my new recipe, I went from 3/4 teaspoon to a full teaspoon of kosher salt and went from 4 to 6 tablespoons of butter. The butter added a softness to the biscuit that was amazing. The above biscuit was made with my homemade bacon and I will share that recipe (and technique) with everyone in the next post or so.
Ingredients
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup buttermilk, chilled
Application:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, butter, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a food processor, pulse until mixture looks like crumbs. Pour in the chilled buttermilk and pulse just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Brush the tops of the biscuits with buttermilk.
Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 minutes.
You can also serve the biscuits with fried chicken and honey butter for a sweet/savory combination. Inspiration for this dish came from Alice Levitt and Bite Club TV. You should really check out her video after the picture, you will enjoy it. 
