For Those Who are a Bit Epicurious
We haven't had a "50 People Try to..." video from Epicurious for a while, so let's head back into the kitchen. Today, we'll watch 50 people try to toss pizza dough.
I was particularly interested in this one because for the past couple years I made pizza from scratch every other week. ("Every other" because I make enough for two meals, and freeze half.) A big reason that I make it myself is because much as I absolutely love pizza, it's so high in fat -- not just from the cheese, but oil in the dough -- that it's too much for me (as I try to cut down on my fat intake). So, I've come up with a recipe that's extremely low in fat. I keep experimenting with it, though I've stuck pretty close to the current recipe for a while. No oil in the dough, no oil in the sauce (or next to none) light on the cheese, and a very low-fat cheese.
To be clear, though tasty, this is not "good pizza," by any professional pizzeria comparison, nor even alongside most well-crafted homemade pizza. But, I think, it's extremely good, very low-fat pizza. And that's the whole point. Until I started making it, I'd have pizza 2-3 times a year -- and I love pizza. Now, I have it every week, which is a joy. And it's very good -- it's just not very good compared to going to a pizzeria. But I rarely go to a pizzeria, and when I do those are 60-80 grams of fat, and mine is just about 8 grams of fat. And I only eat half.
What's helped my recipe is that Trader Joe's fairly recently introduced a very low-fat mozzarella. Before, I'd been using their shredded soy cheese or almond cheese -- they were fine, and exceedingly low-fat, though not much flavor and didn't really melt well. The low-fat mozzarella is a touch higher in saturated fat, but still very low, is actual mozzarella, has an okay flavor and melts fairly well, even getting stringy. And with the toppings I put on, those are the bulk of the flavor, along with sauce and nice fresh, yeasty dough taste.
The one thing I haven't been able to get right is tossing pizza dough. Which is why I wanted to watch this. It turns out that the Epicurious chef at the end of the video mainly stretches the dough with only a very slight toss. As it happens, I use some of the technique he shows, though not all. I've tried that "other" part but don't do it well. Watching the guy here, I'll give it another go. Since I made pizza last night, though, it won't be for a couple weeks.
Buon giorno.
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