The sloppy dough revolution
January 23rd, 2007
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 Add your own
1. eg | January 23rd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I’d like one of these for lunch, please. Perhaps with a small salad and some crispy fries?
2. Snowpea | January 23rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Oooo that look so very good. I’m going to try that!
3. Snowpea | January 23rd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
and I’m missing an S in that previous post. I sound like a lil Injun. Me so dumb.
4. Lynnegh | January 23rd, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Gotta try this - though I’ll reduce the amt of mozzarella so I can add just a touch of provolone, which is a personal tic of mine. Maybe dot a bit of Italian sausage around? And I may just end up using the entire recipe for focaccio sometimes, focaccio being one of my weaknesses.
5. Judith | January 23rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Aha! I have an edit button! And you don’t!
eg, make it Friday night and cook it Saturday lunch?
Lynnegh, top as you will, just don’t load it. My favorite is actually done with a tart fresh cheese added at the very end of the cooking to the naked dough and then arugola when it is cooked, with oil over it. What a flavor!
6. Lisa (Homesick Texan) | January 24th, 2007 at 1:45 am
I’m a big fan of kneading–I find it not only good exercise but peaceful as well. But your post was the first that made me actually want to try the sloppy, no-knead method. Perhaps it’s because you made pizza with it, but no matter. Avanti! I’m off to make a sloppy dough!
7. Judith | January 24th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Go, Tex!
I’ve decookied myself and now can’t post or comment or get edit buttons and we are all equals here.
8. Judith | January 25th, 2007 at 8:49 am
OK, folks, I got it back and we aren’t equals anymore.
The Boss
9. Leola | January 26th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
This one sounds good to me, too. I wonder if I could dump the stuff in the bread machine on dough cycle, and then put it in fridge when mixed. Can you tell I’m a really lazy cook?
10. Judith | January 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
lt could be more trouble. This is way wetter than the BM was designed to handle.
11. Snowpea | February 12th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Well, I made it tonight, after brewing up the dough last evening.
Despite the fact that I made on a cookie sheet and that my oven does not get quite hot enough I think (500F) aaaand that I think I overloaded the pizzas a tad, it turned out well! I used a bit of tomato sauce, some herbs, 3 tinned tomatoes, half a small onion, and some grated brick cheese on each. They didn’t quite puff up as much because of that. Still, very nice results.
This recipe is a keeper. And if I use a bowl or sealable container, maybe I can save a ziplock bag too.
This was my day for baking: I made the pizzas, and before that, a cherry clafouti, and some heart-shaped butter cookies for St-Valentino — not just for me and my beloved, but for friends who are coming over on Wednesday for Game Night. We’re all long-time couples, so it not a big deal for us. Peter and me will be celebrating St-V by being utterly antisocial together next weekend, all cocooned up.
12. Snowpea | February 12th, 2007 at 2:56 am
and clearly my morning workout has totally exhausted me because, mama mia, those typos!
13. Judith | February 12th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Thanks for reporting back, Pea.
The reason I use a heavy ziplock is that after 12 hours this dough is powerful and could blow most tops and fill the fridge. So I burp out all the air and seal it tight and so far have a still sloppy-dough-virgin fridge.
When I make pizza for a tableful, I split the dough up among many ziplocks. This dough is so easy to spread around that you can make pizza to order if you pre-prepare a variety of toppings. Zucchini and onion? Potato and garlic? Cheese with pesto added after it comes out? Hot peppers and Jack cheese?
All is possible. But now you know why not to load it up.
14. Snowpea | February 12th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Mmmh, I suspect my yeast may be a bit tired then, because it didn’t grow much in the fridge (even after 24 hours). There were small bubbles all over in the fermenting dough, and I’d tested the yeast beforehand, so I knew that something was happening. I used about a teaspoon of yeast, because I have no idea how much a packet represents.
The resultant crust had an even, spongy crumb, but no big chaotic bubbles. I’ll try another yeast next time. Still, the lack of a really good heat shock probably is part of the problem. More fiddling to come!
15. Judith | February 12th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Pea, I get the shock by preheating quite a long time at MAX which is over 250°C and never turns off, then using only paper under it.
It doesn’t take much yeast, because with the long cool rise, it multiplies like crazy. Too much yeast can be a problem. It runs out of food.
One of my packets is 7 grams. It raises 500 grams of flour.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed