Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- (chuckling): Stay tuned, because I'm about to show you the most insane, off-the-wall, crazy recipe for pizza you will ever find.

- Mm!

This is definitely a big step up from your regular Italian deli salad.

(crunches loudly) - Oh!

You hear that crunch?

All of that happened without a pizza stone.

- Let's begin.

- In Bari, Italy, on the east coast, they make a really unique focaccia dough.

It's so wet that it literally pours into the pan.

And they also let the dough proof for hours.

It rises, it collapses, and then rises up again.

So we adapted this recipe for an easy pour-in-the-pan pizza.

We also make a fresh-tasting shaved fennel, mushroom, and parmesan salad, and finish up with an inverted pizza with onions, potatoes, and thyme.

Please stay tuned.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sauted, you seared, and you served.

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(bell tolling) - (in Italian): - Thank you!

- Thank you.

- Oh, my goodness!

- (in Italian): - (chuckling): Stay tuned, because I'm about to show you the most insane, off-the-wall, crazy recipe for pizza you will ever find.

We're going to break all the rules, do everything "wrong," and you're going to end up with a recipe that's easy to make and you don't have to really shape the dough with your hands, which is always the problem with homemade pizza.

So it starts, the story starts, about 15 years ago in Naples.

I was at da Michele, which is one of the old pizza joints, and I sat right next to the guys and the oven, right?

And I watched them make pizza.

And it was an art, of course.

And my conclusion was, I don't have enough years left to figure out how to do it that way.

This is what this guy's been doing for 30 years.

So the whole idea of repeating that and replicating that at home is crazy.

Like, we're never going to be able to do it.

So I thought, well, let's take the opposite tack.

What's the easiest way to make pizza at home with a good crust and good chew?

So if you travel due east from Naples, across Italy to the Adriatic coast, to Bari, there's a bakery there called Panificio Fiore, and they make this wonderful focaccia.

And what they do is insane.

The hydration is 92%-- what does that mean?

It means the weight of the water divided by the weight of the flour is 92%.

And they also use a ton of yeast, and they let the dough rise for four or five hours.

So what that means is, you end up with a really wet dough you really can't handle with your hands, and they pour it out onto pans and bake it, the focaccia.

So I decided to adapt that recipe for pizza because it had such great chew and it was so easy to work with, because you didn't actually have to shape the dough.

So we have 400 grams of flour here.

We're going to add two tablespoons of yeast-- not half a teaspoon-- two tablespoons of yeast, which is insane.

And then we're going to add a little sugar, two teaspoons of that, and we're just going to mix this up until the dry ingredients are, come together.

Okay, so now we have a ton of yeast here.

The next thing I'm going to do is add a ton of water.

400 grams of flour, 350 grams of water.

So this hydration level, the 350 divided by the 400, is about 85%.

So we'll let this knead for a few minutes and we'll be right back.

(chuckling): So that...

This is really loose and wet, and it's not a mistake-- we'll show you later.

So this has to, to rest about ten minutes.

We'll be back and we'll finish up this part of the dough.

So we've let it rest.

And let me just show you the dough.

Again, it's incredibly wet, which is right.

Now we're going to add two teaspoons of salt.

And we're going to mix another five minutes or so.

So that's been five minutes.

Now, before I do anything, I'm going to oil the bowl.

You know, normally in bread recipes, you add just a little bit of oil to the bowl, you know, just a little misting.

This dough's wet, so I'm going to add more oil than I normally would.

Because you definitely do not want it to stick.

And I want to also get it around a little bit.

Okay.

Now, the other thing you're going to want to do is, you're going to want to spray your silicone spatula.

And the reason is, the dough was going to stick to it.

Okay.

And that's the way it pours out.

(chuckles) Unlike any other dough you've ever worked with.

So the bottom of the dough is obviously coated with oil.

So we're going to want to flip this over.

Okay, so now we're going to cover this in plastic wrap.

We're not going to let it sit for an hour.

We're not going to let it sit for an hour and a half.

We're not going to let it sit for two hours.

We're not going to let it sit for three hours.

We're gonna let it sit for four to five hours, which sounds crazy.

And what's going to happen, we'll show you now, it's going to rise, and then it's going to collapse, and it's going to rise up again.

So this really overproofed dough is part of what made that focaccia in Bari so great.

(chuckling): Okay, so it's been hours now, and you watched the dough rise, collapse, rise again.

This does not...

I guarantee this does not look like any dough you've ever worked with before, but it's still okay.

I'm going to put a fair amount of oil on this because we have a very sticky dough, and we're eventually going to want to move it around just a little bit.

And then I'm going to, once again, spray spatula, and I'm going to loosen the sides.

Go around the sides.

And try to get this out in one fell swoop.

There we go.

And that's why I put so much oil in the bowl, because you want to get it out.

It's so important with pizza dough, with this recipe or any recipe, to really let the dough rest.

When you start overworking the dough or starting to work it, it'll get tough.

So put that aside.

Now, meanwhile, we have to deal with the tomato sauce.

I tested this recipe a dozen times, and I used tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce is too wet.

And any kind of wet on this is going to actually make it not rise properly.

That's why at da Michele, by the way, they use fresh buffalo mozzarella, which is very wet.

And so the center of their pizzas is actually soggy.

(chuckling): So when you sit down, nobody's eating pizza in the hand.

It's all with a knife and fork because the center is actually soft.

So we didn't want that.

We wanted a nice crust throughout.

So we're going to take these tomatoes and we're going to cut them in quarters, and then we're going to mash them up a little bit to let the juices drain off.

And as it sits here and drains, it'll be almost an hour before we actually put this in the oven.

You'll have tomatoes, but you're not going to have the liquid, and the liquid is what prevents the dough from really rising nicely.

So we'll let the tomatoes sit.

We'll let this sit about half an hour, and we'll be back to almost finish up our insane, off-the-wall, focaccia-like pizza.

So it's been half an hour.

The dough is relaxed in the pan.

This is the part of the recipe you got to pay attention.

Don't try to get the dough all the way into the corners of the pan.

It doesn't really matter.

What you do not want to do is overwork the dough.

So you want to be gentle.

The first thing you want to do is... Is to very gently move the dough out.

You don't want to push it too hard.

You could get underneath it if you want, a little bit.

But what you don't want to do is press down really hard.

You know, like you would with a rolling pin, for example.

Very gentle.

And as I said, if it doesn't make it all the way to the edge, that's okay, don't worry about it.

So just a little more.

And now we're going to add the tomatoes.

So they've had a chance to drain.

There's very little liquid there.

We won't get them all the way to the edges.

We'll get the most of the way.

And this, by the way, is a good technique if you're making regular pizza.

I do this all the time so you don't get a wet sauce on top.

All I'm going to do now is, I'm going to drizzle with a little oil.

So we have the tomatoes on, the olive oil, we'll let this rest another half-hour, and then we'll finish up the toppings and pop it in the oven.

So three more things and then into the oven: a little oregano, of course-- this is traditional.

So you want a really coarse sea salt.

Lots of it, too, when no one's looking.

Just put more on.

(laughs) And then... Now, you may ask me, "Chris, why are you buying "this sort of pre-shredded supermarket mozzarella?

It's not fresh buffalo mozzarella."

Yeah, I tried it with that.

And the problem is, there's so much liquid, like at da Michele, that it just sogged out the dough.

So you do want to use a dry, pre-shredded-- one of the few times I would call for this-- supermarket mozzarella.

So this goes into a very hot oven, 500 degrees, 18 to 20 minutes or so.

And so we'll go throw it in the oven.

Obviously, it's baked, it's out of the oven.

We let it cool just a little bit.

So this looks a little different than a typical pizza, right?

The texture looks a little different on the top.

It's not focaccia, it's pizza, but it has that great chew and that great texture, which is something that's really hard to get when you have to stretch out the dough yourself, or you buy the dough at the local pizzeria, you make it yourself.

This is so easy to get, this texture, which is what I really like.

You know, a sort of crispy edge, and the center has that great chew to it.

(crunches softly) Mm.

That's good.

So that's our pour-in-the-pan pizza.

It's based on a recipe for focaccia from Bari, Italy.

Tons of yeast, lots of rising time, incredibly high percentage of water.

But you get this great chew to the center of the pizza with a nice crisp edge.

And the best part is, you don't actually have to shape the dough with your hands.

Pour-in-the-pan pizza is one of those things you will be making every month.

- Why should kids have all the fun?

If you're anything like me, a grown-up child, then you're going to love this recipe.

It's a pizza party salad for grown-ups.

This is our shaved fennel, mushroom, and parmesan salad.

I cannot wait to show this to you.

It's delicious.

Let's begin.

So I'm going to start by building my dressing.

Very simple.

I've got olive oil in here.

I'm going to add some lemon juice.

Some chopped garlic.

And a little extra zing-- some pepperoncini brine.

A little bit of salt.

I'm going to whisk that together.

Now, I'm going to let this dressing sit for a few minutes so the garlic mellows out, and I'm going to turn to my vegetables.

This salad features fennel, which is a classic Italian flavor.

Lots of crunch, and that lovely, almost licorice-like taste.

Very important-- safety first.

I have this protective glove, because I like my fingers.

And here we're going to go in with our fennel.

Steady, even pressure and you've got steady, even slices.

Now, if you don't have a mandolin, it is perfectly okay to use a sharp knife.

Now, you want to shave up until just the very bottom.

Make sure you don't slice your fingers.

So I'm going to get rid of this and do the rest of my fennel.

My next vegetable is mushrooms.

I'm going to use white mushrooms, and I'm slicing these on the mandolin, as well.

So I'm done slicing.

I'm going to move on to assembling the rest of the salad.

Okay, so the other star performers in this salad are salami, parmesan.

I have some pepperoncini-- remember the brine?

This is the pepperoncini.

And some chopped parsley.

Let's put that all in.

For your salami, I recommend you have it pre-sliced at the deli.

Don't do that at home.

You can just chop it at home, but get the slicing done by a professional.

Pepperoncini.

My parmesan, which has been done on the mandolin.

You can also use a Y-peeler to do this.

Roughly chopped is totally fine.

The jagged edges make it visually really appealing.

Last thing: my parsley.

This is looking beautiful already.

Okay, I'm ready to add my dressing.

It's been sitting for a little while, the garlic's mellowed out.

This flavor is going to be wonderful.

Now, this salad can be eaten immediately, and it also stays pretty well for a day or two in the refrigerator.

Okay, now my favorite time: plate and eat.

Mmm...

I want to make sure I get everything in one bite.

Mm!

This is definitely a big step up from your regular Italian deli salad.

The flavor of the lemon juice and the pepperoncini, that little spiciness, the fennel right through there.

It's so good, I might even skip the pizza and go straight for the salad.

This is our shaved fennel, mushroom, and parmesan salad.

Highly recommend for your next adult pizza party.

- In the cookbook Tasting Rome, we learned about a very innovative pizza method called pizza al contrario.

Basically, that means pizza turned on its head.

It starts out with toppings in the pan first, and then dough gets stretched on top of that and baked off in the oven.

Once it's out of the oven, it gets inverted, revealing beautifully caramelized toppings that have melded into the dough.

And you get a super-crispy crust-- no pizza stone needed.

So let's go ahead and get that started.

Here in this bowl, I'll be mixing together some olive oil.

Along with some honey.

A little bit of salt and pepper.

And for a nice herbaceous punch, some fresh thyme that's been roughly chopped.

We'll mix this together until everything is well-combined.

It doesn't take long for that to happen.

And then we could throw in our toppings.

Now, here we're working with potatoes that have been sliced somewhere between a quarter of an inch to an eighth of an inch.

The best way to achieve completely consistent slices would be a mandolin, but be careful-- use that finger guard.

We'll also be throwing in some thinly sliced onions.

And I find the best way to make sure that each piece is coated with a little bit of that honey-oil mixture is using your hands.

Especially because the potatoes like to stick to each other, it's helpful to get in there and break them apart, and then coat them with a little bit of that mixture.

So now that that's all well-mixed, we're going to transfer it over here to a baking sheet that I've sprayed with a little bit of cooking spray.

And you want to get all of this out into a nice even layer.

Now, keep in mind, these are very high-moisture ingredients, so you do want to give them a little bit of breathing room, so that way, they actually caramelize in the oven.

Speaking of, my oven is set to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, with a rack set in the lowest position.

We're going to bake this off for about 15 minutes, or until all of the onions have caramelized a little bit and you're starting to see some browning on the potatoes.

Now, keep in mind, every oven is different.

If your heating element is at the top of the oven, go ahead and bake it off for the full 15.

But if your heating element is at the bottom of the oven, reduce the amount of time to around ten to 12 minutes.

In fact, it's best to check it right at the ten-minute mark to see if everything is caramelizing nicely.

It's been 15 minutes, and as you can see, the onions have begun to brown and we're starting to see a little bit of browning on the potatoes.

So we pulled it out, and now we can get to the al contrario part of the pizza.

Here we have our dough.

This here has been sitting out at room temperature for quite a bit.

You want to work with a pizza dough that, A, is store-bought, so that way you can make this on any weeknight.

But B, it's warm enough to work with so it actually stretches.

If it's straight from the fridge, it's going to be a little bit challenging.

So give it some time-- if it's not stretching for you, walk away.

Take ten minutes, come back, give it another go.

What we got to do is, we need to roll this dough out into a nice 12-by-16 rectangle, just about as big as this pan right here.

So, on a nicely floured surface... ...go ahead and turn your dough out.

And using a rolling pin-- a well-floured rolling pin-- go ahead and begin to roll this dough out into that rectangular shape.

There's no straight science to this.

Just make it a rectangle.

Don't think about it too much.

It also doesn't have to be perfectly a rectangle.

Consider it rustic.

So, with our pizza dough nice and laid out, something I like to do is just flip half of it over onto my hand, brush off any of that excess flour, because we don't want that in the final pizza.

So from here, go ahead, using the knuckles of your hands, gather the pizza dough and then flop it right onto your pan.

You want this pizza dough to cover everybody in the pan, so take your time, rearrange it as needed, but do be careful, the pan is hot.

So now with your pizza dough covering everybody up, it's okay to get in there with a fork and just brush them under the rug.

We're going to brush the top of this dough with a little bit of oil to help it brown in the oven.

The last thing we need to do before we pop this in the oven is poke a couple of holes throughout the dough to allow steam to rise, because that way, we actually caramelize everything underneath and we get a nice brown, crispy dough.

This is also going to help prevent any massive bubbles from forming in the dough as it bakes.

Now all we got to do is bake this off in the oven for about 15 to 17 minutes.

Or, if you have a bottom heating element oven, bake it for somewhere between ten to 12 and double-check.

After that, we'll turn this dough out, and we'll see all of the beautiful pizza al contrario.

The pizza al contrario is finished baking, and as you can see, beautifully golden.

Now we got to invert it.

So taking a cooling rack, go ahead and pop it right on top with the feet facing up.

And then using oven mitts or towels, very carefully, flip it over.

And it's okay if you slam it down a little bit.

That helps get that pizza off the pan.

(chortling) That makes me happy.

From here, we could very carefully slide this onto our board.

And then we'll give it a couple dollops of ricotta cheese.

Now, this is going to add some much-needed richness and creaminess to this pizza.

You could see as I'm dolloping all of this ricotta on, those toppings have really melded into the dough.

It just makes it so, so delicious.

And a quick little drizzle of oil.

All right, so now we're going to go ahead and cut this pizza up.

I'm going to cut it into 12 pieces, that's four by three, so that way, we have plenty to share.

(crunches loudly) Oh!

You hear that crunch?

All of that happened without a pizza stone.

Oof!

I cannot wait to eat this.

Oh, my gosh.

So I'm going to go ahead and pick my favorite piece, which is not a corner piece.

It's one of the side pieces.

That way, I get a little bit of that crunchy crust and plenty of that topping.

We'll go ahead and give that just a quick drizzle of oil and that's that.

I worked in a pizza shop once, and I have to say I like this method so, so much more.

It's way easier, and frankly, you get that crunchy crust without the use of a pizza stone, and that is really a game-changer for me.

So excited.

Mm!

The sweetness of the onions.

Those potatoes are perfectly cooked.

The thyme comes through really beautifully, and the ricotta just brings it all together.

And, of course, that crunchy crust is everything to me.

This, my friends, is inverted pizza with potato and onion.

You could get this recipe and all of the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sauted, you seared, and you served.

Cooking with All-Clad.

Bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad: for all your kitchen adventures.