My mother came home and finally revealed the yeast’s secret hiding location. It was in an unlabeled Snapple bottle in the fridge. Duh! And the white flour wasn’t in the baking cabinet, but in the pantry with the rice. So I whipped up a batch of Pioneer Woman’s pizza dough (since she uses all-purpose flour… and that’s all we got) and I’ll figure out this whole pizza thing in an hour or so. Since the weather is warm, I stuck the bowl with wet dishtowel out on the porch. Her recipe was absurdly easy.
I think part of the problem of working at Serious Eats is that one becomes exposed to all the complexities and neuroticisms of food. For a girl who’s normally super neurotic anyway (YEAH! Loud and proud!), this makes the prospect of cooking almost unbearable, like a tragicomical ballet of certain failure. You begin thinking cooking is rocket science. That to make a decent pizza, you need to read and follow every last word of this extraordinarily complex and nerdy recipe.
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Two hours later
I just made an “Asian breakfast” pizza… sorta. Topping of stir fried bacon and scallion greens with an egg cracked on top, Sriracha in the tomato sauce, mozzarella & Parmesan cheese. Then I did a more classic one with regular crushed tomatoes, mozzarella & Parmesan, basil, and olive oil drizzled on top to finish.
Parents seemed perplexed by the egg yolk. They ate around it, sullenly. Raw things do not really occur in Chinese cooking. The Western salad doesn’t really exist, nor do medium rare steaks.
I used the inverted, preheated cast iron skillet placed directly underneath the broiler set on high method. The Asian pizza was a bit undercooked, the second turned out better. Definitely need to invest in bread flour if I’m going to do this right – not enough chewiness in the crust.
Here, it seems like a lost cause, though. This is white rice and stir fry land. All other cuisines enter at their own peril.
Now washed up, smell like smoke and oil. Le sigh.
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The flavor of sriracha would overpower everything else wouldn’t it? In any case, that sounds like the if a scallion pancake ran headfirst into a traditional pizza (with egg thrown in) :) which is pretty damn awesome.
Posted by Nicholas | July 12, 2010, 11:55 pmI cleverly mixed Sriracha with the crushed tomatoes so that the sweet garlicky spiciness was tempered with normal ol’ tomato. The main problem was that I precooked the toppings, resulting in burnt scallion once it baked again. Pioneer Woman’s dough also wasn’t great – no chew, but then again, what do you expect with all-purpose flour. I’d try it again with bread flour and a proper pizza stone… But glad to know you think the concept has promise! Serious Eats worthy?
Posted by Lingbo Li | July 14, 2010, 8:09 amMy Pie Monday submission? LOL… what if you kneaded the scallions into the dough? It would prevent burning and be sort of like a shao bing thingy.
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Posted by Weersverwachting Amsterdam | December 13, 2010, 10:38 am