Publicist Makes Pizza
For this cooking installment, I turned to a food I tend to order-in rather than make at home—pizza. Pizza, by Carol Helstosky, documents the history of pizza from its origin as a simple foodstuff of the Neapolitan poor to an Italian icon and America's most popular dish. I was intrigued by the recipe for Pizza all Casalinga, from Elizabeth David's Italian Food, since it seems to be positioned at a pivotal time in the international growth of Italian cooking and in the transition of pizza from a humble food to a global product.
Helstosky notes alongside the recipe: "Elizabeth David first published Italian Food in 1954; it caused a sensation in her native England, and throughout the world, as it popularized simple Italian cooking. She described pizza as a 'primitive dish' served in copious quantities in Naples, best accompanied by a 'rough' wine. This recipe is for the kind of pizza that would be made at home in the years prior to pizza's popularity as a convenient takeaway food."
The dough for Pizza alla Casalinga is a departure from the classic bread dough we typically associate with pizza. This crust is made more similarly to a pastry than a bread, so it is a little bit lighter and might be used for a first or appetizer course.
Ingredients for the pastry dough: 6 ounces of flour, 2 ounces of butter, an egg, ¼ ounce of yeast dissolved in a little water, salt, and enough extra water to form a medium stiff dough.
I incorporated the butter into the flour and salt, using the dough hook on my stand mixer. Once the butter seemed cut-in, I added the egg.
I then dissolved the yeast in warm water.
And mixed it into the dough, adding enough extra flour to work it into a medium stiff texture.
Once mixed, I placed the ball of dough in an olive-oil greased bowl, covered with a cloth, to rise for two hours.
Meanwhile, I gathered together my toppings: a basic marinara, plum tomatoes, fresh garlic, basil, some sliced turkey meatballs that were leftover from a previous dinner, and mozzarella.
After two hours, the dough had nearly doubled in size, and I began to roll it out. Word to the wise—because this is a pastry dough, I found it to be much stickier than the more elastic bread dough I was used to. I ended up rolling it out directly onto my pizza stone, rather than onto my pizza paddle, because once topped, it would have been nearly impossible to peal off the preparation space.
The recipe instructs to cook the pizza in oiled tins or fireproof dishes in a fairly hot oven for 25 minutes, adding the cheese only during the last 5 minutes. I deviated from this a little. I cooked my pizza on a stone dusted with cornmeal. The oven was set at 425° and it took about 20 minutes all together. I did opt to add the cheese toward the end.
The finished pizza had a crunchy, but not tough, crust and was delicious with a hint of buttery goodness.
For more pizza facts and recipes from Chicago Deep-Dish to California Barbecued Chicken, check out Pizza: A Global History.
—Carrie Olivia Adams, with photos by Taylor Adams