On July 29th I had the delight of cooking with Sandra while passing through Rome. If you find yourself in Rome, you can find her Facebook page, “Cook N Speak”. I brought my friend Alessandro along and here is what we did:

We made a beautiful salsa di pomodoro for our pizza: 500 gr. little tomatoes, 1 garlic clove, basil, salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar. chilly pepper. Boil the tomatoes for 5 minutes in boiling water, when the tomatoes skin is splitting, it means they are ready. Peel them and chop in pieces, take a pan add olive oil the squashed garlic and the chopped tomatoes, salt , chilly pepper and sugar cook low flame, add 7-8 basil leaves. Cook for 10 minutes. The small tomatoes did not have a lot of seeds. The only tricky part is peeling a hot tomato…and I do not recall how she managed that! But this makes a beautiful pizza sauce

We then tackled a fried pizza. Here is how we did the impasto (dough) per pizza: 1 liter of water, 1.6 kg of flour 0 otherwise 00, 1 tea spoon of sugar, 4g of fresh beer yeast, 45 g of salt.
Take a little bowl add 4g of yeast  and 1 glass of hot water and a teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of flour, mix all together wait 15 minutes until you see the yeast is growing. Take a big bowl and pour the flour and salt then pour the mixture of yeast and the warm water, knead with the hands for almost 5 minutes then leave the dough rest for 3/4 hours. Fry them in olive oil, tomato sauce on the top with parmigiano or mozzarella di bufala!!

Here is how we made the pasta for the Amatriciana: 150gr of plain flour 00, 150gr of durum flour (semolina), 1 pinch of salt and 3 eggs. Mix the 2 flours with the eggs make a dough , first step use a fork to mix flour with eggs and a pinch of salt, then start to knead on your wooden board sprinkled with flour. Work your pasta until seems elastic and not sticky, more and less 10 minutes. Leave it rest almost for 30 minutes covered by a kitchen film at ambient temperature.Roll the dough into a thin sheet, remember to use flour on the pasta on the wooden board. You can make tagliatelle, lasagne, ravioli with the same dough. I made this with just the semolina, and it really needs the plain flour to soften it up!

Now for the Amatriciana: If you don’t make your own pasta, recommend De Cecco # 12, 250 gr of pork cheek (GUANCIALE) otherwise bacon, 500 gr of fresh tomatoes otherwise a tin of tomatoes sauce, 150 grams of  pecorino (sheep cheese) grated, black pepper at the end on the top of the pasta,  salt . Cut the bacon in cubes, peel the tomatoes after you boiled them in hot water, in the frying pan add the bacon cubes, and let it heat over high heat. Reduce the heat and fry the bacon for a few minutes, until he reached the golden yellow colour. So beware, seize the moment it is one of the secrets of Amatriciana, add tomatoes peeled and cut. Cook the sauce for about 10 minutes, until it reaches the right degree of density and fluidity. boil the spaghetti , toss the pasta in the pan where you cooked the salsa, adding a little at a time the grated pecorino and the boiled water of the pasta . Pour spaghetti Amatriciana in a dish, cheese and grated black pepper on the top and serve hot.

Finally, Tiramisu! 250 gr. di mascarpone, 2 eggs, 1 pinch of salt, 5 spoons powdered sugar, 1 pinch of vanilla, caffe,’ savoiardi biscuits. Separate the yolk from the white, in bowl whisk the yolk with the powdered sugar and vanilla, join the mascarpone and mix it very well, take another bowl and whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt ( has to be very stiff). Mix the whipped egg whites and the mascarpone cream together.
Make a caffe’ and soak the savoiardi in it, take some glass cups and make layers with the biscuits and mascarpone cream, on the top bitter cocoa and a pinch of caffe’ powder, put in the fridge

Supposedly so simple…but I found this recipe I made with Semolina Flour. The key seems to be getting the thickness of the pasta correct (linguine). I think I used setting #5, and maybe next time try #6? I made 2 lbs of dough for 7 people and had some pasta left over – it was the right amount. Seems that for main course, 120gm/adult is about right.

Here we are, courtesy of The Prairie Homestead, Fresh Pasta Dough.

Ann and I canned (jarred?) tomatoes today, my first shot at this. I picked up two 12-14# flats of San Marazanos at the Fort Mason farmers’ market. I used a recipe from The Kitchnn and modified it a bit, because it looked like too much work:

1. I did not peel the tomatoes. I could not even begin to think of the effort to blanch and peel maybe 300 small tomatoes.
2. I did not core the tomatoes, only popped off the tops

We quartered the tomatoes, pureed them for 10sec in the Cuisinart, and then cooked them up. I used lemon juice in half the batches and red wine vinegar in the other half. The only other addition is salt. I cooked them for generally an hour, the mid-point in the recommendation. The result was a somewhat runny, but lightly chuncky sauce. I ended up with a bit over 36 cups of sauce. I’m hoping this gives me a decent starting point as I start to figure out a red pizza sauce for my pizza’s. My kids aren’t interested, but I need to figure this out!

I struggled with my previous pizza dough when i took it out of the fridge, and let it rest for a few hours in the kitchen. I had started to put the dough on a large cookie tray, covered with foil. That seemed to give the dough a bit more room than in the large casserole. Problem was when I pulled the dough out and let it rest for a couple of hours under the plastic, the dough and plastic stuck like glue. So now, I pull the dough out and take the plastic wrap off, and let the dough rest for a bit, not too long. It then works beautifully! The end product is soft and silky, just right!

I tried this technique and sure enough, no problem getting the pizza onto and off of the peel…fully loaded. However, the air pockets in the dough puff up and they have to be pushed down. also, the pizza dough is not as light and is drier with this technique

Simple. I put some flour on my hands while balling the dough and it was super easy – after the refrigerator rise, working the dough was easy.

Well I think I’m following the recipe for my pizza dough, but it doesn’t seem as workable as the dough I watch the masters stretch and toss. What I think I can count on is:

* the ingredients are right, including the malt

What I’m not sure of:

* Maybe I’m not balling the dough correctly and sealing it

* Not kneading it sufficiently

* Using a pan that is too small when I put it in the fridge

* Leaving it in the fridge for 2 days (per the instructions)

* Working the dough to soon after pulling it out of the fridge?

I don’t know about you, but I think I’m doing the dough balling wrong. My 00 is too sticky so I wet my hands, but then that seems to make the dough to moist to get it to stretch, and I certainly can’t “pinch it”…as Tony tells me too. So the third one here I used some flour instead of water to help me ball the dough, and that seemed to work much better. The dough was much more workable.

Well, it is better. I made three pizza’s with 00 (hint – best deal is at Whole Foods). The dough is harder to work with (Seems as if I had to use more water, particularly when balling the dough. Still trying to get the thickness more consistent all around. The taste is smoother in your mouth. I could not tell any difference in taste vs the conventional dough. Still trying to find the right temp to work the dough at. It’s easier when it’s a bit cooler (sticks less), seems to me. However, that is not what I think Tony is recommending

I’m not also trying the two stone method which Tony G recommends. I don’t like working in the indoor oven as much as the outdoor oven, but I can’t fit two stones on the grill.

I also used Semolina to help the pizza slide of my alum peel. It worked, as long as there was NO moisture seeping through a gap in the dough.

No revelations re toppings…but carmelized onions are a hit…and as always, brocolli rabe.

This was my first pizza dinner 2015 and the best of the four pizzas I made. This one is Mozzarella (unfortunately, not di Buffala, but from TJs), Kale, Parmesan cheese and carmelized onions. The other thing I did was unthaw some dough that I previously made and froze. It was not as light and a bit too chewy, so I prefer not to freeze. My technique to thaw this time was to put the dough wrapped in Saran Wrap and thaw in warm water for a bit, then put it on a surface with lots of flour. While it is hard to feed the family by not making a big pizza, I find the large oven just doesn’t work, and the BBQ is to difficult.. for the time being..