An Engineer’s Guide to Pizza

#LetMenCook is fast becoming the New #COVID-19 Normal. And, it’s about time! Men have been freeloading for sufficiently long time now and it is time they (we!) get our act together. Those who know me will get the they bracket we! nuance. Those who don’t get it, you just have to know me better!

So, Pizza! I always wanted to understand the basics of it. Over the years, I’ve made some really lousy ones and some pretty decent ones so here I’ll share some of what I’ve learned over the years.

Let’s start with the Base.

I don’t use enriched flour. I don’t think enriched flour is good for you. I do like the taste of enriched flour base Pizza (the ones commercially available) but I refuse to make Pizza at home with enriched flour.

The problem I ran into was this: When using Whole Wheat flour, the pizza base would either be too soft or become too crusty.

The too soft part is easy to understand. The pizza sauce (either home made or commercially bought) is a liquid. Liquid when heated starts to flow down by gravity. Viscosity drops with increase in temperature, yada yada yada, and the liquid oozes to the bottom between the pizza base and the pan and it just sits there making the pizza base all mushy and soft.

Enriched flour dough is borderline hydrophobic. This prevents the sauce liquid from seeping across it during the baking process. Whole wheat flour therefore needs to be “adjusted”. This is what I found on the internet:

Recipe for Whole Wheat Pizza Base w/o Yeast:

2 Medium sized Potatoes, cooked and mashed.
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
2–1/2 tbsp Semolina
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Oil
2–5 tbsp Yogurt.
Knead to a semi soft dough. Add more/less Yogurt; no water.
Cover for 10 minutes with moist cloth.
Knead again. Dough is ready to be rolled out and used as pizza base.

The addition of Potatoes makes the dough sufficiently hydrophobic as desired!

Now for the sauce. It has to be Vegetarian for my wife and I. Hebbar’s Kitchen has a nice recipe on their YouTube channel. Another option is to buy the sauce from the store. The best one that I’ve found is the one below from Nature’s Promise Organic.

Now the toppings. This is an open field. The key is to finely julienne all the toppings: Olives, Green Peppers, Musrooms, Onions, … be creative.

For cheese, I zeroed down to two choices: Mozzarella and Amul Cheese. Amul Cheese is slightly salty to taste and browns nicely at 390 F in the oven.

Now the Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 392 F (= 200 C)
2. Put Cast Iron skillet / pan on low heat. Add Olive Oil and spread the oil on the base of the pan. Low Heat is critical since the Olive Oil has a low smoke point and we don’t want that to start smoking.
3. Roll the pizza base and put onto the skillet/pan. The rolling can be done separately or simply use a big ball of dough (this requires some judgement!), flatten it with the palms of your hand. Put the flattened dough onto the pan/skillet and press from the center towards the outside to hand-flatten the dough. Keep the edges a bit thicker than the middle section. Switch off the heat since by now the pan/skillet is nice and toasty.
4. Using a spoon, spread the pizza sauce onto the flattened pizza base. Normally, the pizza base already has salt to taste.
5. Add the julienned vegetables on top of the pizza sauce.
6. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the vegetables.
7. Add seasoning if desired. I usually add some mix of dry oregano, basil, rubbed sage leaves and some other spice mix like Southwest or Sandwich Masala.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Put pan/skilled into the oven preheated to 392 F / 200 C. Cook for 15 minutes or to the desired browning level of the cheeze.

Now for the Why’s:

Why the cast iron pan? It is an independent knob to turn to make the base of to the desired crusty level. Warming up the cast iron pan allows the base to pre-cook on the flame before it gets into the oven.

[Aside: I have never understood the word pre-cook! It is like pre-boarding an aircraft. Remember that? Some high milers or special needs or active military personnel are asked to pre-board. Well, the actually board! Anyway.]

Why the order of the stuff that goes on top of the base?

First, we put the sauce. Sauce is liquid which will cook to release the water as steam when it heats up past the boiling point of water (=100 C, 212 F). Steam rises.

As the steam rises, it will cook the layer of vegetables which are placed on top of the sauce.

Cheese on the other hand, melts as it get warm and flows downward due to gravity. Gravity is directional: top to bottom. This is the reason to put the cheese at the top of the vegetables.

As the cheese melts and flows downward, it will bring with it all the additional seasoning that we sprinkled on top of the cheese (the oregano, basil, sage, spice mix).

And there you have it! There is a method to making Pizza.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Press enter or click to view image in full size

And the final satisfaction is when the pan comes out clean!!

Press enter or click to view image in full size