Pepperoni Pizza and Deconstructed Jalapeno Popper Pizza

     Here I am again, back to the basics.  A pepperoni pizza.  Yes, we have done this before, but not with this crust, and not with this sauce.  Sometimes, little changes, little nuances can make all the difference in the world.  This crust that I have been making out of The Pizza Bible has been outstanding.  I thought my crust was good before, but this just takes to a whole new level.  This little gem of a pizza recipe was hiding in the introduction to the book.  I had already skipped over it, thinking it was instructions on the basics.  I didn't need to read about the basics - I have been making pizzas for years!

     In my opinion, there are several reasons why restaurants (or any other business, for that matter) fail, but one of them is the resistance to change.  If you have done something successfully, why change?  However, I believe that by changing, learning new things about old things, and combining them with your knowledge of how things always used to be, you can really create a masterpiece.  I decided to read the introduction and see if I could learn anything new.  And, here was this tutorial on how to create a great pizza.  I wanted to try it and see how it compared to the "old way" of doing things.  That, and I do really love pepperoni.

     The instructions started on day one of a three day process.  So, I started on Monday.  Monday's events started with weighing and measuring ingredients for the dough.  Okay, I didn't do that (the weighing part) before with the first couple of recipes I tried in this book, but I was willing to try to get down to the letter and try the author's methods.

     The weighing of ingredients was a little tough, considering all I have for a scale is a $19 jobbie that I bought at Costco on a whim one day.  It does measure grams, as the author instructs to measure everything by, but it only reports in two gram increments, and it starts at four grams.  So, measuring 4½ grams of active dry yeast was not going to be exact, nor 9 grams of sea salt, 9 grams of diastatic malt, etc.  Apparently, everything in this book should amount to an odd number of grams.  I did the best I could, though, and it seemed to be matching up to the described results in the book.

     The author chronicled each and every step and explained why each step was done.  I rather enjoyed that.  I had an education.  He instructed to knead the dough on a non-floured surface and suggested a granite surface.  I was in luck!  I have granite counter tops, and they were clean (a rarity, yes, but at that moment, they were clean).  I kneaded the dough as described in the book.  I have never been a kneader.  It seems like a superfluous step.  I was never really sure why it was done and figured whatever it was achieving (I assumed a better mix of dough), it could be done by my KitchenAide.  There was something therapeutic about it though.  Stretching and folding and smashing the dough with my palm.  I felt it was a surrogate for all of those people who had ever done me wrong.  Take THAT, Jack Goldenberg!  Take THAT, Super Ford Smasher lady at Bobby & Steve's.  Take THAT, rude lady in the Cub line!  I smash your face in with the palm of my hand, and your rubbery smushy white face gets pummeled into the granite.

     Okay, I may have gotten a little carried away with it, but I was sold.  Now, I will be kneading my dough for three minutes every week.  The dough was smooth and round and elastic and ready for forming into a ball.  Once formed, I covered it with a kitchen towel and let it "rest" for an hour (at this point I needed a rest, too, even though it had only been three minutes of pummeling).  Following the rest (for both of us), I dribbled a little water over the top of it, put it back in my mixing bowl, and blanketed it with a piece of plastic wrap.  Into the refrigerator it went for it's 24 hour "fermentation" process.

     Day two (Tuesday) involved degassing the dough, making the sauce, and making a garlic oil.  I won't bore you with all of the details.  If you want them - buy the book (ha!).  This is just the Cliff Notes version (do they have those any more?).            

     After degassing, balling, and returning the dough to the fridge for another "rest", I started on the sauce.  Here is where I fudged a little.  I deviated from the instructions just a bit.  I cannot seem to find anything labeled "ground tomatoes" at any of the stores I have been to.  What is that?  The recipe called for 4½ ounces (why did he switch from grams?) of ground tomatoes.  Is that like pureed tomatoes?  I was betting on it.  Why buy pureed, when whole tomatoes and a VitaMix will do.  So, I measured out 4½ ounces (my scale will measure ounces in odd numbers and fractions) of whole plump tomatoes from a can and placed them in my VitaMix with the tomato paste, oregano, salt, and olive oil.  In less than two seconds, the tomatoes were "ground" with the rest of the ingredients I had put in there.  I dumped the slurry into a bowl and added the "hand-crushed" tomatoes to finish off the sauce.

     

PEPPERONI PIZZA

Adapted from The Pizza Bible by Tony Gemingnani with Susie Heller and Steve Siegelman

Dough:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 ounces warm water

3 1/4 cups bread flour

8 ounces ice-cold water

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

2 teaspoons olive oil

Sauce:

3 1/2 ounces canned (drained) whole plum tomatoes, divided

1 ounce tomato paste

Pinch of dried oregano

Pinch of fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

The rest of the story:

Cornmeal

6 ounces shredded mozzarella

4 ounces sliced pepperoni

1 ounce grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon garlic-infused olive oil

Dough:  Combine the yeast and warm water in a small bowl.  Whisk to combine.  Set aside.  Place the flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment.  With the mixer running on low speed, add the ice water, followed by the yeast mixture.  Increase the speed of the mixer a little bit and continue mixing until the dough starts to come together.  Add the salt and mix on low for about a minute.  Add the oil, and mix again until the oil is incorporated, and the dough starts to cling to the hook.  Remove the dough from the bowl and knead for about three minutes on a clean, unfloured, smooth surface, such as granite or marble. Place the dough back into the bowl and cover with a clean, damp, lint-free towel.  Let it rest at room temperature for about an hour.  Spread a few drops of water over the dough.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 24 hours.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and mix the dough in the stand mixer at low for about thirty seconds to "degass".  Cut the dough in half and shape each half into a ball. Wrap one ball in plastic wrap or seal in a zip-top bag and freeze or reserve it for another use.  Place the remaining ball on a baking sheet and wrap plastic wrap around the pan and dough together.  Put the pan in the refrigerator for another 24 hours.

Sauce:  Place 2½ ounces of the plum tomatoes, the tomato past, oregano, sea salt, and olive oil in the bowl of  a food processor or blender.  Puree until smooth.  Transfer the mixture to a small bowl.  Tear the remaining tomatoes into pieces with your hands and add to the mixture.  Stir the mixture to distribute the tomato pieces throughout the sauce.

Assemble:  Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough into a 15 inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Spread the sauce over the prepared dough.  Evenly distribute the mozzarella over the dough.  Arrange the pepperoni over the cheese.  Transfer the pizza to the preheated stone, if using, or transfer to a pizza pan and place in the oven.  Bake for 10 minutes or until the pepperoni has started to crisp.  Remove the pizza from the oven and dust with the Pecorino and oregano.  Drizzle lightly with the garlic oil.

     Wednesday, I took a rest from working on the pepperoni pizza and started some preparations for my second pizza.  This pizza had all the elements of a jalapeno popper - those delicious little nuggets of jalapeno stuffed with cream cheese and deep fat fried.  Since my pepperoni pizza dough recipe made two pizzas' worth, I decided to use the second dough for my popper pizza.  

     I started with the batter recipe.  It called for a lager, but I didn't think I could add that the day before.  A little Internet browsing taught me that the bubbles in the beer is what makes the finished breading light and fluffy.  When the beer hits the hot oil, it causes it to foam, creating a light and airy texture in the batter.  Because of this, I decided to just combine the other ingredients and add the beer on Thursday, just before I was ready to batter and fry my jalapenos. Next, I fried up the bacon, sliced the jalapenos, and chopped the onions.

DECONSTRUCTED JALAPENO POPPER PIZZA

Adapted from The Revolutionary Pizza by Dimitri Syrkin-Niolau

Dough:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 ounces warm water

3 1/4 cups bread flour

8 ounces ice-cold water

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

2 teaspoons olive oil

Beer Batter:

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

4 ounces Modelo Negro

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice

The rest of the story:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

6-8 medium sized (or 3 large) fresh jalapenos,sliced into rings

Salt and pepper

Cornmeal - for dusting the pizza peel

3-5 cups vegetable oil - enough to submerge the jalapenos while frying

2 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

4 ounces Neufchatel cheese

2 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese

2 ounces crisp thick-cut bacon, broken into small pieces

1/2 cup chopped green onions

Dough:  Combine the yeast and warm water in a small bowl.  Whisk to combine.  Set aside.  Place the flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment.  With the mixer running on low speed, add the ice water, followed by the yeast mixture.  Increase the speed of the mixer a little bit and continue mixing until the dough starts to come together.  Add the salt and mix on low for about a minute.  Add the oil, and mix again until the oil is incorporated, and the dough starts to cling to the hook.  Remove the dough from the bowl and knead for about three minutes on a clean, unfloured, smooth surface, such as granite or marble. Place the dough back into the bowl and cover with a clean, damp, lint-free towel.  Let it rest at room temperature for about an hour.  Spread a few drops of water over the dough.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 24 hours.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and mix the dough in the stand mixer at low for about thirty seconds to "degass".  Cut the dough in half and shape each half into a ball. Wrap one ball in plastic wrap or seal in a zip-top bag and freeze or reserve it for another use.  Place the remaining ball on a baking sheet and wrap plastic wrap around the pan and dough together.  Put the pan in the refrigerator for another 24 hours.

Make the fried jalapenos:  Mix the batter ingredients together, and whisk to remove any lumps.  Add the jalapeno slices and set aside for ten minutes.  Mix the flour and salt and pepper together.  Preheat the vegetable oil to 375º F.  If you don't have a thermometer, put the pan of oil over a high flame for several minutes.  Drop a dollop of batter in the oil.  If it sizzles and starts to brown immediately, it is ready.  Turn the heat down to medium-high to maintain the temperature.  Roll the batter-soaked jalapenos in the seasoned flour and drop them into the hot oil.  Cook until browned.  Remove the jalapenos from the oil and place on a paper-towel-lined plate to drain.

The Rest of the Story:  Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough into a 15-inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Top the stretched dough with mozzarella and transfer dough to the preheated stone, or transfer to a greased pizza pan and place in the oven.  Bake for 5-7 minutes or until crust is starting to set up, and cheese has melted.  Transfer the pizza back to the pizza peel (or place the pizza pan on a hot pad), leaving the oven on.  Spread the Neufchatel cheese over the mozzarella.  Distribute the fried jalapenos over the cheese.  Top with the cheddar.  Bake for 3-5 more minutes.  Top with the chopped bacon and green onions.

     On Thursday, as soon as I got home, I took the dough out of the refrigerator.



Again, I started with the pepperoni pizza, spreading the sauce over my newly rolled out dough.

As per the instructions, the cheese went on next.  Normally, I object to the cheese on the bottom, because you cannot get the warm, brown, bubbliness that is so wonderful.  However, since I was trying new methods, I thought I would give it a shot.  (There's nothing wrong with crispy browned pepperonis, either).

     We started putting on the pepperoni.  And, putting it on, and putting it on.  I never realized how much pepperoni was in four ounces!

  When it came out of the oven, the pepperoni looked like it was self-deep-fat-fried.  It was shiny and crisp, and it had shrunk up a little to reveal the gooey cheese underneath.

When I added the Pecorino, it melted into the pepperoni.

I have to say, I think it was probably the best pepperoni pizza I have ever had.  The crust had a nice crispness to the outside, the inside of the crust was fluffy and flavorful.  The pepperoni was both crispy on top and meaty underneath.  The sauce was great, too.  The tomato flavor was hearty, yet not overpowering.

We, of course had to make the obligatory frozen pizza for the picky people.

Again, the jalapeno pizza started with the cheese on the bottom, and this time it was truly on the bottom.  And, it was baked some before the toppings went on.

It seemed a shame to cover up the gorgeous, bubbly cheese, but I was covering it with cream cheese, so how could that be bad?

The lovely, deep fried jalapenos went over the cream cheese (at least the ones that didn't go in my mouth).

A little more cheese went over the fried jalapenos.

After another short stint in the oven, the bacon and green onions went on.

This was truly a delicious pizza.  Again, the crust was perfect.  The creaminess of the Neufchatel tempered the heat of the jalapenos and evened out the saltiness and zip of the onions. Surprisingly, the jalapenos stayed somewhat crisp, and the entire piece of pizza was a treasure chest of textures and flavors.

Lamb and No Eggplant Pizza; Upside Down Cheese Pizza; and Punt e Mes Negroni

  You wouldn't think that Japanese eggplant would be such a difficult thing to find.  I started at Cub (of course), but they only had globe.  I was going to take the lazy route and just buy it, but Jeff said "either you're going to follow the recipe or you're not.  We can find it somewhere else later."  Little did he know I hardly ever stick to a recipe completely any more.  He checked Festival for me to no avail.  Jennifer tried Target and Lund's and couldn't find it either.  So, we (Jennifer and I) decided to skip it.  There were enough things going on for this to still be a tasty pizza - although we may have to revisit it when the right eggplants are in.  

     One of the recipes (the cheese pizza) came from a new book that Jennifer and her family bought me for Christmas.   It was the first recipe I made in it, and I am thinking that the author may be a little anal.  All of the measurements are in grams, which is fine - whatever works.  But, they are so specific (2.2 grams of yeast) that I had to improvise in places.  My scale, while it will measure in grams, is very limited.  It only measures 2 grams at a time, and it doesn't do portions of grams.  And, it doesn't start measuring until you hit at least 4 grams.  I tried to trick it by putting what I thought was about 2.2 grams on the scale (it didn't register), then hitting the tare button to zero it back out.  Then, I took the item off the scale to see if it would register a negative number that might give me a clue as to how much the item weighed.  It didn't work.  It still registered zero, but it was negative zero.  Oh well.  Improvising is part of the fun, I guess.

     The author had many other specifics that I was unable to follow.  Not just because it was a lot of reading after a long day of work, but because I would have had to take the entire Thursday off just to get the pizza on the table before 10pm.  Also, I can't take a cheese pizza recipe that seriously. Note - if you're going to make this the way I did, you will need to start making the dough the night before, if not earlier.

Upside Down Cheese Pizza

Adapted from The Pizza Bible by Tony Gemignani with Susie Heller and Steve Siegelman

Dough:

pinch of active dry yeast

2 tablespoons cold water

1/4cup + 3 tablespoons (roughly 55-56 grams) bread flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

3½ cups bread flour

2 teaspoons salt (I used Kosher)

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons ice water (divided)

2 teaspoons (about 10 grams) olive oil

Sauce:  

8 ounces canned plum tomatoes (roughly half of a 15oz can, reserve the remainder for the topping)

4 tablespoons tomato paste 

pinch of dried oregano

1 teaspoon olive oil

Rest of the story:

Cornmeal for dusting

8 ounces sliced mozzarella

6 ounces canned plum tomatoes (or the remainder of the can), drained and crushed

2 tablespoons grated Romano cheese

pinch of oregano

1 tablespoon of garlic infused olive oil

Dough:  In a small bowl, combine the pinch of yeast with the 2 tablespoons of cold water and set aside for about five minutes.  Add the "55 grams" of bread flour and stir to combine.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 10-18 hours.  This is the "starter".  In a very small bowl, combine the 3/4 teaspoon yeast with the 1/4 cup of warm water, and set it aside for about five minutes.  Put the flour, salt, and olive oil into the bowl of a large stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Stir at a low speed to thoroughly mix.  With the mixer running, add the 3/4 cup of ice water.  Then add the yeast mixture.  Use the remaining two tablespoons of ice water to swish out any remaining yeast mixture from the small bowl and add it to the flour mixture.  Run the mixer at medium speed until the ingredients start to combine.  Add the "starter" and mix at medium speed until the dough comes together in a ball and clings to the hook (stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl, if needed, to make sure all of the ingredients get incorporated).  Cut the dough in half.  Place one half in a freezer bag and refrigerate or freeze for another use.  Place the other half of the dough in a greased bowl.  Lightly oil the exposed portions of the dough and drape a damp towel (or loosely drape plastic wrap) over the bowl.  Set aside to rise for at least two hours (original recipe recommended rising it in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours; I set it on the counter in my 63º house for roughly 11 hours). 

Sauce:  Combine all sauce ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth.

The rest of the story (assembly):  Preheat oven to 500º F, with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Dust a pizza peel or board with cornmeal to cover.  Stretch and roll dough out to a 15 inch circle.  Shake the peel or board to ensure that the dough will still slip off its surface. Lift the edges of the dough and slide more cornmeal underneath, if necessary.  Arrange the mozzarella over the dough.  Spoon the tomato sauce over the cheese, spreading it almost to the edge of the dough.  Slide pizza into oven onto the preheated stone.  Bake for twelve minutes, rotating the pizza halfway though baking.  Remove the pizza from the oven.  Top with the crushed tomatoes and sprinkle the Romano over everything.  Drizzle the garlic olive oil over the top.  Slice and serve.

     As I mentioned, there were a lot of details that I glossed over.  I hadn't read the recipes completely before I started in.  I started measuring out the ingredients for the starter, then read that it called for something called diastic malt.  I had never heard of that before. I had to Google it (what did we ever do before Google?).  Apparently, it is a grain that has sprouted.  Then, it is dried and ground into a powder.  It is supposed to improve the texture, crumb, and browning of the crust.  I thought I might try and see if Byerly's carried it, but with the snow and below freezing temperatures, my laziness won out.  It was going to join the eggplant in the "items not used" category for this week.

      Wednesday night, I started with what the cookbook author called the "tiga", which is the starter for the dough.  Since I had no malt powder, it was simply water, yeast, and four.  It was really thick, as I had been warned in the book, but I assumed that meant it was going to be like a paste.  It was more like a mini pile of dough.  I was instructed to let it rest at room temperature for 18 hours, so I moved on to the next thing - the sauce.

     The original recipe called for "ground tomatoes" and "hand-crushed" tomatoes.  I'm not entirely sure what "ground tomatoes" are.  Did he mean tomatoes that were ground up?  Or, did he mean tomatoes that grow on the ground, like ground cherries??  I went with the assumption that he meant tomatoes that were ground up.  I'm not sure how that would be different than pureed tomatoes, so I threw whole (canned) plum tomatoes in my VitaMix along with the rest of the ingredients.  It called for 4.5 ounces of the ground and 2 ounces of hand-crushed, so I was planning on using in 6½ ounces of whole tomatoes, but I over-poured and ended up with about 8 ounces. I read later that I was supposed to add the "hand-crushed" after everything was pureed - Oops!

     After preparing the sauce for the cheese pizza, I started in on preparing the toppings for the lamb pizza.

Lamb and No Eggplant Pizza

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

Dough:

pinch of active dry yeast

2 tablespoons cold water

1/4cup + 3 tablespoons (roughly 55-56 grams) bread flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

3½ cups bread flour

2 teaspoons salt (I used Kosher)

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons ice water (divided)

2 teaspoons (about 10 grams) olive oil

Corn meal (for rolling out the dough)

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

Toppings:

14 ounces ground lamb

6 ounces thinly sliced red onion

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

28oz can plum tomatoes, drained and crushed

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons fresh thyme

8 ounces soft goat cheese, crumbled

2 teaspoons olive oil

Salt 

Freshly ground black pepper

Dough:  In a small bowl, combine the pinch of yeast with the 2 tablespoons of cold water and set aside for about five minutes.  Add the "55 grams" of bread flour and stir to combine.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 10-18 hours.  This is the "starter".  In a very small bowl, combine the 3/4 teaspoon yeast with the 1/4 cup of warm water, and set it aside for about five minutes.  Put the flour, salt, and olive oil into the bowl of a large stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Stir at a low speed to thoroughly mix.  With the mixer running, add the 3/4 cup of ice water.  Then add the yeast mixture.  Use the remaining two tablespoons of ice water to swish out any remaining yeast mixture from the small bowl and add it to the flour mixture.  Run the mixer at medium speed until the ingredients start to combine.  Add the "starter" and mix at medium speed until the dough comes together in a ball and clings to the hook (stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl, if needed, to make sure all of the ingredients get incorporated).  Cut the dough in half.  Place one half in a freezer bag and refrigerate or freeze for another use.  Place the other half of the dough in a greased bowl.  Lightly oil the exposed portions of the dough and drape a damp towel (or loosely drape plastic wrap) over the bowl.  Set aside to rise for at least two hours (original recipe recommended rising it in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours; I set it on the counter in my 63º house for roughly 11 hours).  Preheat the oven to 450º F.  Lightly coat a 15-inch deep-dish pizza pan with a tablespoon or so of olive oil.  Roll or stretch out dough and press it into the deep-dish pan, creating a thicker rim around the edge, going up the sides of the pan.  Prick the dough with the times of a fork.  Bake for five minutes. Remove it from then oven and brush it lightly with another tablespoon of olive oil.

Assembly:  In a large, non-stick skillet, brown the lamb with the onion and garlic, cooking until no pink remains in the lamb.  Drain well.  Spread the lamb mixture over prepared crust.  Spread the tomatoes over the lamb.  Sprinkle with oregano and thyme.  Top with the goat cheese crumbles.  Drizzle with 2 teaspoons of olive oil and lightly salt and pepper.  Bake for 25 minutes or until cheese starts to brown and the crust is golden.

     Ok, the original recipe only called for 8 ounces of lamb, but the smallest package I could find was 14 ounces.  I put it all in, rationalizing that if there were no eggplant in the pizza, the extra lamb would fill in the gaps.  It may have been a little too much, but I didn't hear any complaints (or, at least, I chose not to).  

     The lamb and onions cooked up quickly and filled my house with homey, warm aromas - perfect on a night that was -10º F with a wind chill factor of -30º (why do I live here again?).  I drained it, let it cool, and packaged it up for the fridge.
     In the morning, before work, I mixed up the dough.  Since the dough recipe for the cheese pizza made twice as much as the pizza called for, I decided to use the other half for the lamb pizza.  I wasn't sure how that was going to work, since it was a deep dish, but I went for it anyway.
    The instructions were very specific about when to add each ingredient and what speed and how long to mix after each addition.  Being impatient and having a short attention span, I pretty much just put everything in at once and ran the mixer at medium speed until it became dough.  At this point, the instructions were to knead it by hand (skipped that), form it into a ball (skipped that), and let it rest at room temperature for an hour before covering it and putting it in the refrigerator for 24 hours.  I just removed the dough from the mixer, sprayed the now empty bowl with cooking spray, replaced the dough, sprayed the dough with cooking spray, covered it and left for work.
     When I got home (an hour and 12 minute commute in the snow that day for a 13 mile journey), I started working on the dough.  Just as I started, Jennifer and Jonah showed up.  I put Jennifer to the task of completing the cheese pizza while I worked on the lamb pizza.
     There was a lot of lamb.  It practically filled the deep dish pan.  As I was putting the tomatoes over the lamb, I started to wonder if Jennifer would like it.  She is not a huge fan of tomatoes, and there were lot here. I know that almost half of the 28 ounces in the can is juice, but weight-wise, there was almost the same amount of tomatoes as lamb, even after draining.
     Jennifer was a little more diligent than I was.  She made sure to spoon the sauce into the center of the pizza as instructed by the recipe.  Then, she used the back of a spoon in a circular motion to spread the sauce to the rim.  I would have tried to pour the sauce to cover as much space as possible on the outset and zig zagged the spoon any which direction to get the sauce to go where I wanted it to.
     There were two pizza stones in the oven when I had turned it on, and she read that we were to bake the pizza for six minutes on a stone positioned in the top third of the oven.  After the six minutes, she rotated the pizza 180º and moved it to the second stone, as instructed.  I had planned on ignoring those instructions and just bake it on one stone for 12 minutes, rotating it only if one side looked more done than the other - that way, I could enjoy my drink for a little while without having to do anything else.

Punt E Mes Cocktail

1 ounce gin

¼ ounce Punt E Mes

¼ ounce sweet vermouth

juice of ¼ of a lemon

Place all ingredients into an ice-filled shaker.  Shake vigorously for a few seconds.  Pour into a chilled cocktail glass.  

     A couple of years back, I saw a lot of cocktails with the ingredient Punt E Mes.  I was never really sure what it was and couldn't seem to find it anywhere.  Recently, I started playing around with our computer software at work (I work at a liquor distributorship) and discovered that we carried this product.  I immediately got some and brought it home.  Then, of course, I couldn't seem to find any of those recipes I had seen earlier for it.  It is a vermouth, and there are apparently several different kinds of vermouth.  I imagine it is a bit like gin, where each brand has its own secret blend, resulting in a unique flavor profile.  This is a little bitter, with a sweet after taste.  It is very dark in color and a little bit thick.

     I stumbled across a recipe for a Punt E Mes Negroni.  It had equal parts gin, Punt E Mes, and sweet vermouth.  We tried that first.  While it was good, it was a little too bitter for our tastes, even with the sweet vermouth.  It needed to be mellowed out a little.  We reduced the amount of Punt E Mes and sweet vermouth and added lemon.  It was much better.  The first taste was crisp and citrusy, and as I swallowed, there was just a bite of bitter that gave it a nice little zing.  

     The cheese pizza was done first.  Even after Jennifer added the crushed tomatoes, Romano cheese, oregano and olive oil, the pizza wasn't much to look at.  It reminded me of the pizzas in the eighties that came in a box, and you assembled it yourself with their wimpy, thin, sugary sauce.  The taste was far from that.  I am usually not a fan of the cheese on the bottom, because it doesn't get the chance to brown and bubble and caramelize, but this was really good.  The crust (despite the lack of malt) was crisp on the bottom with a nice soft texture inside.  The sauce was bright and flavorful.  The smooth, silky texture of cheese against the chew of the crust and the wetness of the sauce was amazing.  We kept marveling that such few and simple ingredients could taste so good.  We all agreed that the crust was much better than the previous crusts I had been making.

     The lamb pizza took quite a bit longer to bake.  When the goat cheese started to brown, we took it out of the oven.  There was a lot of liquid in the bottom of the pan.  I am not sure if I didn't drain the meat well enough, or maybe the tomatoes should have been drained better, or both.  The crust, even though it had been pre-baked, was soggy in the middle and a little gooey.  The outside edges appeared to have been boiled, which makes me think it was more of a tomato issue than a lamb issue, because I think if it was mostly grease, the crust would have been crisper, essentially deep-fat fried.  The toppings, though, stole the show.  It was rich and meaty with the nice, creamy tang of the goat cheese.  I cannot imagine how eggplant would have improved it.

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