The New Trendy Pizza!

FRIED!  If you read potter Gary Rith's blog, you will know that he got me into this fried pizza thing. I make pizza once a week. It's my favorite food and there are no pizza joints in Seagrove so that means you have to make your own. Even when I lived in NH I usually made my own because I can be picky about pizza and it's way cheaper to make yourself.
After reading Gary's post I knew I had to try this so I did a little research of my own. I read a few different ways that restaurants were doing it and decided on a cross between those and Gary's pizza making demo. Like Gary, I used my cast iron skillet to fry the dough prior to baking. I decided to use canola oil because you can heat it at a higher temp than olive oil. My dough recipe made two small pizzas, one at a time in the cast iron pan. The first one I put too much oil in... the second one I didn't add any more and it was perfect. I won't give you all the steps, I am too lazy to type them out, so go to Gary's blog and read them!
I made a fresh tomato topping...

One tomato chopped, 1 garlic clove minced, lots of chopped fresh basil, a few grinds of Himalayan Pink Sea Salt & fresh ground pepper. I let this sit on the counter and absorb the flavors while I fried the dough. This is also a good sauce on pasta in the summer, after pouring onto hot pasta add chunks of fresh mozzarella.

Pizza #1 - fresh sauce, parmigiano-reggiano & fresh mozzarella. I went ahead and cooked the other one too, I figured leftovers are good and while I have all that stuff out and ready to go...
I didn't get a picture of it but it was the fresh sauce with a little jarred sauce added (I ran short on tomatoes) parmigiano-reggiano, pepperoni, mushrooms & shredded mozzarella. The #2 pizza was puffier than #1 and I think that was because of the difference in oil.
I have to say that frying the dough prior to baking, gave it a whole new taste and texture. It was excellent. A little more work and since I am lazy I don't think I will do it every week.
Just for a special treat.


Here is my favorite pizza dough recipe:

Dissolve on packet of yeast in one cup of lukewarm water, let set about 10 minutes and then add 2 tblsp. of olive oil

In a medium bowl, mix together:

2 cups bread flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. sugar

Add the yeast, water, olive oil mixture to the bowl and mix until it comes together. Don't over mix. Cover with kitchen towel and let rise... usually only takes 1/2 hour to an hour, depending on the weather. I have found that the crust is more tender if you don't let it over rise.
This dough doesn't need any kneading. I roll it out on a pizza peel that is dusted with a mix of flour and cornmeal. I throw a little more flour on top of the dough when I pick it up so that it doesn't stick to my hands.
I bake my pizza on a stone that is preheated at 425 degrees. I preheat the stone for at least 1/2 hour. The pizza should only take about 15 minutes to bake.