Easier pan pizza in a non-stick — browned base and crispy rim

this video is sponsored by squarespace here's a much

easier

and more reliable method for making great skillet

pizza

, a style of

pizza

pioneered in the American Midwest and yes, popularized by a global chain that rhymes with it's overkill, they don't need my advertising, you can. absolutely use any pizza dough with this method, but this is what I've been using lately for pan pizzas, bread flour, but for all purpose a cup would be fine to start with, like 120 grams, in fact, I put too much in, you'll see half. a teaspoon of salt maybe three grams two or three grams of sugar half a teaspoon and half a teaspoon of dry yeast a gram or two a little bit of olive oil maybe a couple of teaspoons and you don't have to do this but garlic powder inside the dough works great with a thick crust pizza with too thin a crust would burn just a little.

Here I am only making a portion of dough and instead of water I am using pizza with milk. The pizza

base

uses various powdered dairy products. its crusts produce very pleasant caramel notes on the brown surface half a cup of milk some people say that you have scalded milk before using it in a yeast bread heating it to almost boiling deactivates enzymes or proteins in the milk that can interfere with gluten and the rise I tried this dough with scalded milk and with milk fresh from the refrigerator and I noticed absolutely no difference maybe because my milk is pasteurized I don't know, I do know that I put too much flour in it so more milk To balance it out, I think the doughs Moist and

stick

y are better for pan pizza, they bake fluffier and when I'm kneading a small ball of dough for just one pizza, I like to do it in the air between my hands, this is great. easy, you just crush it and grind it between your palms, it's strangely satisfying and doesn't make a mess on the counter.

Let's see if it is soft and elastic enough to be able to form a thin sheet without breaking. Check it to form a smooth ball. Yes, I wish it was a little

stick

ier, but it's okay. Place it back in the bowl, cover, and let it sit for an hour or two. This took two because my kitchen is very cold. Now it has doubled in size. You could do absolutely what I normally do. I put the dough directly in the refrigerator and let it slowly ferment for a few days, that's fine too, but either way we're going to do a second rise in the pan.

I used to use cast iron for skillet pizza, but I've switched to a 10-inch nonstick Teflon skillet with an oven-safe handle. You could use cast iron, but I've found this makes it much

easier

. You'll see why just a little bit of olive oil in the pan is too much and the pizza has a really fried taste, just a little bit and I like to put some seasonings in this oil, a pinch of chili flakes with basil and dried oregano , whatever you want and a pinch of salt, a little bit of salt goes a long way here and then just completely. cover the pan, this results in a distinctive layer of flavor at the bottom of the pizza that is quite a tasty smorgasbord and while my hands are still greasy I will grab my dough ball and drop it.

I used to roll out the dough first and then place it. in the pan, I found it's easiest to just mash it right into the pan with your fingertips. This also helps me get a more uniform thickness if you do the traditional air stretch, the thick outer ring of dough you get tends to make all the sauce and cheese pool in the center with this style of pizza. I'm stretching it past the corner of the pan, not because I want it to be up there, but because I know this dough is going to shrink before it's all said and done. start wider than you want, I'll rub a thin layer of oil on top because it tastes good and will keep it from drying out when it rises a second time in the pan for at least half an hour, that really helps.

It bakes up lighter and fluffier, it tends to be a little dense and doughy if you skip this second rise and while it rises we can prepare everything else for the sauce. I'm still on this particular brand and model of canned tomatoes, it's the best for pizza sauce that I can find in US grocery stores. When I can't find it, I use another brand of crushed or ground tomatoes and add a little to it of tomato paste to give it more flavor. Normally I don't measure it but a third of a cup. it's perfect for a pan pizza this size imho here's my new favorite pizza herb marjoram it smells like tea but tastes like oregano crossed over time maybe use some oregano and basil too and a pinch of sugar, a little chilli flakes, black pepper and a little olive oil, stir it all together and that's it, if it seems like there's not enough sauce to me then it's probably enough.

Let's prepare our cheese for New York style pizza. I scour the earth for low-moisture, whole-milk mozzarella, but on my skillet pizzas. I've been really into the part-skimmed kind lately and it's much easier to find, it has to be low moisture, even though it's an eight ounce block. I'll use five or six ounces, like 150 grams. I miss the flavor with all the fat, but the semi-skimmed type seems to brown better with this particular recipe and for that same reason I think it is particularly important to avoid pre-grated cheese for this, the anti-caking starch they put in the pre-grated material is particularly likely let him burn with this. method, I'll show you there we go and lastly, I like to put some grated parmesan on top of the sauce layer.

I guess now is a good time to admit that I prefer the pre-grated stuff for pizza, I have real parmigiano. Reggiano in the fridge right now, I could use it, but it doesn't taste good on pizza to me. Fake things taste good to me. The last thing I need to prepare is my dressing. Any topping you want is fine, but this is my new favorite pizza topping. a small clove of fresh garlic, small because we are going to eat it raw and raw garlic is super strong, just a couple of small shavings of lemon zest, the bright yellow part with as little underlying white pith as possible and then a small bunch of fresh parsley, chop it all up and you have gremolata, the traditional last-minute garnish for many Italian dishes.

Cutting those three ingredients together really seems to cause a chemical reaction between them, the result tasting like more than the sum of its parts. A last minute pinch makes all kinds of things taste fresher and I don't know more sophisticated. Okay, the dough has visibly puffed up a bit, so we're ready to bake. You can simply cover the dough and then dump the entire pan. a very hot oven which is traditional, but what I do is much more energy efficient, it is easier to control and gives you a much more golden bottom heat at medium temperature and at the same time I will make the grill of my oven heats up to maximum, that's the element at the top of the oven it heats up in an instant and I have a rack placed quite close to it, after a minute I can see the dough puff up and after four minutes I can smell it starting to brown with my old method.

Start topping the pizza now, but the way I cook it nowadays is to finish completely browning the bottom before anything else goes in. Do it this way and you can use a soft spatula to lift the dough and see exactly what's going on with the pizza. nonstick pan, you can just shake it like you would an omelet to make sure it's not stuck and you can move or rotate it if some parts seem to brown more than others. With my old method, you'd have to guess when. the bottom is perfect with this method, there is no way to guess, just cook it until you like the bottom, I like it, it just starts to burn a little, burning is part of what makes the bread taste like pizza to me and there we are , so out of the fire, this is coming. now there's no special rush, I'll just smooth my sauce from edge to edge, there won't be a ring of crust around the edge, the stuff on the sides of the pan will caramelize and turn into a super sweet powder with a little parmesan or like you want to call him. substance that really enhances the flavor and hiding it under the layer of mozzarella prevents it from burning again from edge to edge with the stray dogs, those pieces of cheese that touch the sides of the pan will do magical things, that's all and under the grill this is called British.

If it's a grill, I think this pizza cooks much better and faster if I keep the oven door closed. Yes, people say you shouldn't put Teflon under the grill as it could overheat and emit toxic fumes. Good advice but this will only be down there for literally two minutes I tested with my infrared thermometer, the exposed Teflon never came even remotely close to the temperature at which PTFE starts to break down causing polymer fume fever at very high doses , never came close if you can't risk it or if you have a pet bird nearby you use cast iron birds they are super sensitive to polymer fumes but I am super sensitive to pizza fumes and this smells amazing just throw it away when It's golden to your liking, look at that

crispy

cheese on the edge and because I use the non-stick pan, it will come off right away and I'll sprinkle it on top of my gremolata.

You want to let this cool in the pan for a few minutes until it solidifies enough that you can take it out intact the sooner you get it. Place it on a cooling rack, the crispier the bottom will be and look with a non-stick, you can literally just slide the pizza out like a tortilla. It couldn't be easier now that it's on the rack where the steam can escape, you can safely leave it. this cold as long as you want before eating, I like to let it cool down, hey, look up, you can see that super dark and even brown bottom, but there's nothing about it that I haven't seen before, although there's no surprises here.

I always hated my old method where you just had to guess when the bottom was perfect, even if you say it's not perfect, maybe you didn't get out of the pan fast enough and now it's soggy, you can easily re-fry it for a few minutes basically until you hear it start to sizzle again and that will bring life back to the crust. I've said in the past that I don't think pizza cutters are good for home cooking. I prefer to use a knife because a pizza cutter tends to fall off. straight from the edges of your small cutting board, but with a pizza this small diameter it's fine, cut yours however you want.

I like the small slices because they are so thick and so delicious that the milk has made the crust a little soggy in an incredible way. that's a big guilty pleasure pie and look at the edge, those delicious pieces of brown cheese that actually has an Italian name frico, it deserves its own name, it deserves its own Squarespace website, whether you're starting a pizzeria planning sell. pizzas over the Internet or just trying to show your pizza photography. Squarespace has a site template that you can customize in minutes by simply adding your photos, maybe editing them a little, and then you can process payments from your customers.

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