When the dough’s in a puddle and the chefs in a muddle – that’s a Moron

19^th March 2011 – Pizza Dough – Dad/Mr Wolf.

So it was time for the March showcase, and Adam and Cath were the ones to review my cooking. I decided to make pizzas for them and Dad had given me a recipe to make the dough. Sian said she had most of the ingredients I’d need in the cupboard so I was searching though all the containers to see what I could find. I found one awesome container that when opened… was full of weevils! I’d never see weevils before and they freaked the eff out of me. I dropped the container and started fanning my arms around my hair in case there were in my hair.

I went and got the fly spray and sprayed the shit out of the area. I’m pretty sure no one has ever used so much fly spray in one go, but they all appeared dead. So anyway, the search for the ingredients continued and I was writing Sian a message to tell her what happened, when I slipped in the fly spray and stacked it on the ground, then I got such a fit of laughter that I couldn’t breathe which wasn’t helped that I was inhaling a ridiculous amount of fumes (which later set off a fit of sneezing).

So, I donned my apron so I’d feel like an Italian whilst making my pizza dough (no idea why I feel aprons are Italian). I couldn’t find the dough hook for the machine, so I made the dry ingredients into a ring on the bench and poured the liquid into the middle as the recipe said. I then stood back and watched as the liquid and flours mixed into a paste and went all over the bench, down the front of the dishwasher and onto the floor. I considered getting really annoyed, but instead I watched it go everywhere and started laughing again (I think I was probably still high on the fumes).

The second batch was much better, I added liquid slowly and mixed it all together and then had to do the exhausting job of kneading it for ten minutes. It was hell, although Bliss N Eso beats really help to get a rhythm going and take away from the pain in my arm muscles (not quite so Italian)!

Anyway, the rest was pretty straight forward. I used a pizza stone in the oven and they cooked perfectly. I think they were slightly too thick so some parts weren’t cooked as well as I would have liked, but the rest was really yum. There was a variety of different toppings and I made the tomato sauce out of tomato paste, garlic and Italian herbs. It was awesome. Cath introduced me to putting paprika on the pizza which was amazing, but she also says oreg-ano instead of ore-garno so you win some, you lose some!

They seemed to really enjoy it and it was amazing to have the leftovers when we got home from the pub that night. We’ll wait for the review but I enjoyed it all (I shouldn’t put too much on the review though as the next day Ads said ‘I got so drunk that now I can’t even remember all the stuff I wanted to say about the food’).

Tips: Pour the liquid in slowly to avoid a big paste mess and make sure you don’t have weevils!

Music: Bliss N Eso/Hilltop Hoods