The sloppy dough revolution
From when I began hearing about this breakthrough bread made with a sloppy, wet dough, there was a thought that nagged at the back of my mind. Finally, after hearing the 200th person write about his experience with the recipe, it dawned on me that a couple of years back I was involved in this conversation on a cooking and food newsgroup:
Sara: “I make pizza about once a week and we like our crust very much.”
Anon: “How long do you knead your pizza dough?”
Sara: “I can’t say that I do. It’s a pretty wet dough and you couldn’t do much about kneading it. I let it rise in the fridge for a long time instead.”
I tried what she said she did and yep, you didn’t need to knead and a long cool rise made it taste immeasurably better. It became a standard chez moi. All you had to do was remember to mix it up far enough in advance. It is more Neapolitan style than Roman– thicker and breadier, but it has a superb flavor and is dead easy to shape.
The recipe is simple beyond belief and I even mix it in the food processor. Amounts are fairly flexible, you can use fresh or granular yeast, and you need not knead at all. I am sort of getting into that rhyming thing.
500 grams (17ounces) of ordinary all-purpose flour, or 00
one packet of granular yeast or one cake of fresh yeast
2 teaspoons of salt
4 tablespoons of good olive oil
about 1.5 cups or 12 ounces of warm, not hot, water– the amount will vary according to the ambient humidity. The temperature will be warm to the wrist id using granular yeast, and about body temperature if using cake or fresh yeast.
Put the flour and yeast and salt into the food processor. Pulse it to mix it. Set the processor to a continuous process.
Through the feed tube, start adding the warm water, staring with about a cup and let the dough form, then continue to add water until the ball of dough relaxes and becomes a thick batter instead of a ball. Add the olive oil and let it incorporate for a couple of minutes.
Open a sturdy and large Ziplock bag and scrape the sticky batter into it. Press it to remove any air, then seal it really carefully. If you don’t you will be sorry, because it will open and fill your refrigerator with sloppy and fat pizza dough. Put it into the fridge and leave it for 12 hours or more.
When you are ready to make a pizza, start the oven to preheat at the maximum temperature so that it never clicks off, then take the bag out of the fridge and open a tiny gap in the zipper. Pat the bag and it will flatten the dough. Take a flat baking sheet and place baking paper on it.
Oil your hands really well. Scoop out 1/2 of the dough and plop it into the center of the paper. Using your oily fingers, press the dough out to about a 12″ or 30 centimeter circle, leaving a small ridge around the rim. The more fingerprints left in the dough, the better. If you have long nails, wear surgical gloves that you oil as if they were your hands.
Now add what you want on top. This one is my basic. It has dried oregano sprinkled over the base, then thinly sliced fresh garlic, then drained tinned tomatoes that I squish through my fingers and distribute around, and finally slices of mozzarella that is fresh and comes in brine. I use less than 100 grams for one pizza. Overloading a pizza with toppings in criminal. Be sparing. Depending on the tomatoes, I sometimes add a very small amount of salt.
Open the oven door and quickly slide the paper upon which sits the pizza off the baking sheet and onto the bottom oven rack/shelf. Close the door fast. Pizza needs the shock of the superheat to puff well. It should take about 15 minutes to cook, but I don’t know your oven, so have a look at it once in a while after 10 minutes. When the cheese is melted and bubbling, it’s certainly done. Slide the baking sheet under the paper and remove it, then slide it off of the paper and onto a cutting board. Drizzle it with good, fresh olive oil, and eat!
While the pizza was cooking, I took the remaining dough and using a new piece of baking paper, I formed a slightly thicker circle and sprinkled coarse salt, sliced garlic and freshly ground pepper over it before drizzling it with oil. When the pizza came out of the oven, I slid this focaccia in and cooked it to almost browned. I didn’t cook it all the way, because I knew I would be heating it again as I used it for little sandwiches in the following days.
As always, you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. The upshot is, the kneadless bread is not a revolution. Sara was making a version of it at least 3 years ago!
15 comments January 23rd, 2007
