Pizza!

Originally, I was going to do this on my gas barbecue but my pizza pan wouldn't fit with the lid closed so it was off to the kitchen oven to cook.

There are two time consuming steps to this but this is another one you can do a few hours ahead of time and stick in the fridge until it's time to cook.  The first step is the sauce and the next is rolling out the dough, which not only takes time but is pretty labor intensive, too.

Except for the sauce, I bought all the other ingredients premade at a local Italian deli, Capri in Covina, California. That makes things a bit easier.

INGREDIENTS
16 ounces of pizza dough (you can make this yourself but I just buy it premade at a local Italian deli. You can also find it at Trader Joe's and other stores)
6 medium Roma tomatoes
1 teaspoon oregano
3 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 links Italian sausage
1/4 pound prosciutto
1/2 pound mozarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded quattro formagio (four cheeses, available at most supermarkets - substitute with a high quality shredded parmesan if you can't find it)

Sauce
Take 5 tomatoes (you may want to cut them in half first) and puree in a blender with 1 cup of water.

Cut the 6th tomato up into cubes.

Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauce pan. Pour your pureed tomatoes on top of that and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then set to low to simmer. Put your tomato chunks, garlic, oregano, salt, and sugar into the mix and stir. Simmer for 2 hours or until reduced by two thirds. Stir occasionally during this time (maybe every 10 or 20 minutes). Taste a spoonful occasionally to see if the taste would be good on a pizza. Add ingredients to adjust, sparingly, until you get your perfect tast.

When sauce is thick, a little thicker than you'd want to serve on pasta, take it off of the heat.

Pizza
Preheat oven to 450 -500 degrees...very hot!

On a large, wooden cutting board, sprinkle about a quarter cup of flour and spread out over the board. Place dough on it and roll out flat. This will take quite some time as the dough will keep wanting to snap back to its original shape. Keep at it and, eventually, the dough will lose its elasticity and you'll have a flat dough. be very careful not to tear your dough.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil and coat it with a paper towel over a round pizza pan. Transfer your dough into the pan and, carefully, spread it to the edges.

Using a ladel, spread your sauce over the dough, leaving about a half inch clear around the rim to be able to hold your pizza slice later.  Put a think layer of mozzarella over the sauce. Put on your toppings (we're using Italian sausage and prosciutto but the sky's the limit on what you'd like to put on it). Sprinkle quattro formagio on it. 

Cover with another layer of mozzarella (I'm using a mozzarella ball for this and laying slices of it around the pie).

Put in oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Put parchment paper on your cutting board and transfer finished pizza pie to it once done. Let sit for 5 minutes before slicing.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
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