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.