pizza my way 意大利比薩餅 - part 5

The last time I had pizza was back in April. It is high time my culinary roulette cycles back to pizza making. I made two this week, both from scratch down to the dough. The title of my blog post is inspired by Jacque Pepin's fast food my way.

Long before the rise of the TV celebrity chefs there were Jacque Pepin. I learnt a lot from his no-nonsense cooking techniques. These days he get little respects from the over-the-top fancy chefs. Jacque is never a flashy cook. For anyone who may be intimidated by cooking I would recommend watching his "fast food my way" series in which he show you how to cook with anything you have at home. For beginner cooks, I think his program is one of the best.

A few more photos from recent meals.

this large clam is about 8 years old, by counting the annual growth rings - you can see there are 8 groups of rings in this shell

This site has a great read on life span of many shellfishes.

more seafood linguine

WIP of another lo mein with just shiitake mushroom

 I happen to tune into a Julia Child's Cooking with Master Chefs. All these programs are produce circa 1990s. That was long before the ascendancy of the recent crops of over-the-top fancy celebrity chefs and their fancy preparation and presentations. Most of the cooking in this show are a lot more down to earth, and must more relevant for home cooking. In this episode the chef prepared a pan seared halibut and served over potato. While initially the recipe seems pedestrian. I soon realize it is far from it. As always I learnt a few new techniques.

I substituted the halibut with salmon. I also improvised some changes to the ingredients in my dish with what I have.

 a typical breakfast with home made smoked salmon and German bread

OK, back to home made pizza. So why would anyone bother to do so much himself from scratch preparing a pizza? There are many good reasons:

• I don't have to go buy a ready made pizza dough and to worry about to use it before it goes bad
• cooking to a planned recipe is just too stressful for me, and my cooking is always improvised - as with the main spirit of jazz
• I use my home made andouille sausage and I know what went into it
• I prepare my own tomato sauce because I like the clean taste so I just use Trader Joes canned tomato that has whole tomatoes - remember a little bit of tomato sauce goes a long way

As to the choices of ingredients. I always keep in mind of controlling moisture content. I layer the ingredients according to how fast they cook, and if I want them to brown a little.

In this first version, the ingredients are:
wild shrimps, smoked salmon, cuttlefish, andouille sausage, fresh garlic, capers, tomato sauce, ground pepper, and topped with grated Parmesan and Romano cheese

the pizza dough is hand shaped so it is rather irregular shaped - using a rolling pin drives the air out of the dough

a bit of corn meal on the bottom of the dough is one of the keys to nice texture of a good pizza crust

 more seafood lo mein

i just received this entry level Canon flash - something that I should have invested very long time ago; my Canon 7D DSLR has built-in wireless interface function to this flash; forget about trying to get a good deal on products like this on the black friday

Speaking of camera flash. Have you ever wonder why often to see someone's flash lights up when they are taking picture of distant scenery in bright sunlight? What about in venues where there are clear posted signs that flash photography is prohibited? Today watching a visitor to Germany on dw.de featured on one inside Germany program, I notice the built-in flash keep poping up when he was shooting distant scenery. He kept discretely pushing it back down knowing he was being filmed by the dw crew. The answer: A lot of people simply can't figure out how to turn off the automatic flash settings (often there is more than one) in their camera. Most people are using their expensive DSLR in the fully automatic mode all the time.

In this second version, the ingredients are:
smoked salmon, cuttlefish,  razor clam, andouille sausage, fresh garlic, onion, capers, olives, tomato sauce, ground pepper, and topped with grated Parmesan and Romano cheese

some of the ingredients - you can see the surf clam slices and cuttlefish slices

i use a pizza screen and set my oven to convection mode - actually it has a mode called intensive baking in which it turns on the convection as well as the top and bottom heating elements; it takes 12 minutes at 375 F; the convection fan keep the pizza cook very evenly even in this smallish European oven

My Miele oven is a true European version that I bought in the early 90s. Most American will balk at such tiny oven. To me it is perfect. It fits nicely with modular kitchen cabinet like the one Ikea sells. This oven fits withing a 24"x24"x24" cabinet. In my kitchen it fits in the lower cabinet and still have space left for a drawer on the bottom. As for Thanks Giving turkey, you just have to find a smallest bird but it will fit. The maximum pizza size is 13" but you can stack 3 inside if needed.

the 13" pizza can serve two - a healthy and tasty seafood pie made with honest ingredients

Home made pizza is easier than most thinks. It take a bit of discipline and it is no more work than a regular meal once you get the basic techniques. The dough is most important and frozen ready made crust can never deliver.

I found out the best way to reheat a day-old pizza is to not use a microwave oven. Microwave oven dries out the pizza crust because it super-heats the water molecules. I just place a slice in a omelet pan and cover with a lid, and heat it at very low heat. It take just a few minutes and the pizza tastes almost as good as it comes out of the oven.