[Editor's note: we will have one recipe a month, and you will only find vegan food discussed herein. We do not refer to meat and dairy as "food", so if you ever read us print about food, it is assumed to be vegan]
For the dough:
- 27 oz Bread Flour
- 20-22 oz Ice cold water
- 2 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
For the sauce:
- 1 28 oz can whole plum tomatoes (get Muir Glen if you can) or whole San Marzano tomatoes
- 3-4 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2-4 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano, or 1 1/2 Tbs fresh oregano
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 4-6 fresh basil leaves (optional)
For topping:
- 30-40 cherry tomatoes, preferably organic, sliced in half from stem end
- 4-6 garlic cloves sliced paper thin
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Oregano
- Fresh Basil Leaves, julienned
The day or night before baking:
In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle yeast over 4 oz of lukewarm water, and leave for five minutes to hydrate yeast. Meanwhile mix bread flour and salt together. When yeast is hydrated and dissolved, add 16 oz ice cold water to yeast mixture followed by salt and flour mixture and mix by hand with hand kneading (though this will be hard as this is a very wet dough) or mix with a wooden spoon, or mix by machine, just until dough comes together and no flour shows, about six minutes.
Add remaining water a tablespoon at a time if dough isn't right consistency during mixing. Immediately after mixing if mixing bowl isn't at least twice the size of the dough, move to an appropriate bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave in refrigerator overnight, taking care to keep dough cold all through mixing until removing from refrigerator the next day (though this day will actually keep at least three days in the refrigerator with no negative discernible effects. (Though I'd bet the dough will last longer than a week in the refrigerator)
Bake day:
On the day of baking remove bowl and dough from the refrigerator between six and eight hours before baking and leave on counter to come to room temperature and ferment.
Meanwhile prepare sauce by processing all ingredients in a blender or with a hand blender until smooth, you may leave the sauce unrefrigerated for six hours before food safety becomes an issue. The sauce will keep for four to seven days refrigerated, allow sauce to come to room temperature before using.
When dough has come to room temperature and allowed to ferment until at least 25% percent larger in size, no longer than four hours, heavily flour a clean work surface with bread flour and carefully remove (pour) dough from bowl onto work surface keeping the dough in one piece. Flour dough surface and cut dough with bench scraper or other flat sharp edge into five or six equally weighted pieces, for five pizzas, between 9 and 10 oz, for six about 7.5 oz. with floured hands to avoid sticking, pull dough pieces into balls with a tight, unbroken skin and the seam on bottom, and set on clean surface and cover with either oiled plastic wrap or a floured tea towel.
Allow dough to rest for at least a half hour. Meanwhile pre-heat oven with baking stone positioned in the second to highest rack position to highest heat setting, ideally this should be somewhere between 750 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit, but 550 or even 500 will work. After dough has been allowed to relax and oven has been allowed to heat for at least a half hour, dust flour liberally over surface of dough balls and remove a dough ball from surface with bench scraper, using flour to push and help scrape underneath of dough for easier extraction and to maintain integrity of round dough shape, onto a lightly floured pizza peel or appropriately sized wooden cutting board, large enough to cater a fifteen inch diameter round.
With floured hands, lightly press with your finger or knuckles to make a flattened round with dough, if dough springs back and resists flattening allow more time for the dough to relax. To finish shaping the dough, take flattened round into your hands, actually the top of your hands, and either by the doughs own weight or soft easy stretching with your knuckles, stretch dough into a round that's transparent when held up to light, taking care not to tear dough, though with practice you may mend such tears. This round should be between 9 and 13 inches in diameter, use flour lightly to keep dough from sticking if necessary. When stretched, place pizza dough back on lightly floured peel and shake peel to ensure dough is loose and not sticking to the peel. Use your hands to correct shape if necessary.
Working fast yet careful not get peel wet with any toppings, spread 1/3 to 2/3 C sauce to within 3/4 inch of doughs lip, followed by one-fifth of sliced garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and finally one-fifth of the sliced tomatoes, shaking peel every so often to ensure dough isn't sticking. Working fast (this dough really has a tendency to stick if you don't keep it moving) carefully transfer pizza onto hot baking stone by sliding dough off at about a 10 degree angle from the horizontal, and close oven door swiftly so not to let heat escape.
Bake for about six minutes, turning once, until crust has browned and toppings are cooked through, slight crust charring isn't a bad thing. Remove from oven when ready and sprinkle with oregano, slice pizza, and sprinkle with basil, and drizzle again with olive oil if desired, serve hot. Repeat with remaining pizza doughs. If not using every pizza dough, each ball may be kept in an oiled sandwich bag and kept in the refrigerator for at least three days. Improvise on the toppings yourself, but remember to keep the toppings light, the pizza simply will not bake or transfer to the oven if the toppings are too heavy. Consider marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, olives, spinach, or sliced onions.
-XO
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