Pizza Made in Indoor Electric “Pizzaiolo” Pizza Oven

After my wife gave me this indoor electric pizza oven for my birthday (at the end of March), I have made quite a few pizzas (4-5 times, total of 10-12 pizzas) in the past 2 and half months. The  pizzas I made were quite good (better than the ones I made using our regular oven) but they can be improved and I kept changing the settings and dough recipes. I also got a pizza steel made for the Pizzaiolo and tried that too. 

Compared to the pizza stone, the steel retains and conducts heat better. When making multiple pizzas, the pizza stone requires a few minutes to recover and reach the correct heat settings after making each pizza. The pizza steel appears to stay hot.  The bottom of the crust gets carbonized a bit too much, though. I only used the pizza steel once.  I have to try a few more time before I can evaluate properly.  I am sticking to the pizza stone for now. 

In any case, picture #1A is my most recent pizza (using “00” flour, half Margherita and half pepperoni). To me, the crust charr marks are just right (“Darkness” setting at 11 o’clock) as compared to #3 which was too charred with the “Darkness” setting at one o’clock.

The next pizza (picture #1B) is our first attempt using pesto (from the basil on home-grown on the window sill) and red pepper sauce. The cheeses are low moisture Mozzarella and fresh goat cheese.

The picture #2 is another Margherita I made earlier. It looks “charred” but the taste was not bad, it did not taste like you are eating pure carbon but it was too much charr. This was the “darkness” setting at one o’clock.

Picture #3 is one of our most popular pizza; artichoke hearts (from a jar) with olives. Cheeses are mozzarella, Irish cheddar, smoked gouda and fresh goat cheese. This was baked immediately after the #3 pizza (I prepared this pizza in a wooden pizza paddle while the first one was being cooked). This made this pizza crust bottom not as crispy and charred since the pizza stone was not completely recovered heat.

Although this is still on-going process, the below are my current set-ups for the oven and dough.

Dough: I tried both “00” and bread flours with and without addition of olive oil. “00” dough without olive oil is a bit too chewy for us but addition of a small amount of olive oil appears to make it better (may not be authentic for Neapolitan or New York pizza). For us, the bread flour or “00” flour does not make a big difference but  we may even prefer “bread-y” consistency of crust using the bread flour.

Ingredients:
3 and 1/2 of flour (either bread or “00”)
2 tbs olive oil
1 (or a bit more) cup of water
2 tsp Kosher salt
2 tsp instant yeast

Directions: (I use the food processor fitted with a kneading blade in low-speed up to 4 cups  of flour).
After running the blade to mix all the dry ingredients, I drizzle the water in a thin steady stream as it is running until the dough forms above the blade (the surface is a bit sticky). Let it sit for 5 minutes for better hydration and run another 1-2 minutes. Take it out on a floured board and hand knead until elastic. Placed the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turn it over to coat all the surface, cover it with a plastic wrap and place it in a proofing box at 85F for 1 hour or until doubles.

Deflate gently, fold several times and divide it up into 4 equal dough balls (I weigh making 4 balls of a bit over  200grams each). After the first rise, I divide the dough and form 4 balls with a smooth surface. Place it in a small Ziploc bag coated with olive oil inside and let it sit in the refrigerator at least overnight or up to  several days. I take out the dough balls one hour before baking and let it come to the room temperature. If I do not use it within several days, I freeze them. (to use the frozen dough, I transfer it to the refrigerator one day before to completely thaw).

I hand stretch the dough to make 10 inch pizza, coat it with olive oil with crushed garlic. I place the slices of  low moisture Mozzarella first and then tomato sauce.

Oven settings: “Wood fired” and the darkness setting to “11 o’clock”. Preheat for 30 minutes. I use the modified the wooden paddles which fit the oven perfectly. I use corn meal on the paddle so that the dough slides better. I cook for 2 minutes (as it is the automatically setting). Steam and some smoke come out during cooking so I use the oven under the hood with the exhaust fan running. For the next pizza, I wait until the stone temperature completely recovers (a few minutes until the “at temp” indicator light stops blinking).

Is it worth it?? Although pizza I made using the regular oven and pizza stone was quite good, pizza cooked in the Pizzaiola is definitely much better. They cook so quickly (instead of 6-7 minutes in the conventional oven they’re done in just 2 minutes). So if you have a pizza party, you could turn out a few pizzas in a jiffy. I am trying to keep this oven clean but it is a bit of a chore. Other use of this oven may be to bake focaccia (which we tried with a good result) or naan (which we have not tried yet).

Pizza BBQed in Weber kettle ピッザバーベキュー

Although I generally don't do anything particularly extraordinary, it appears,  based on the reaction of my dinner guests, that my pizza is not bad, decent pizza. They appear to really like it and some have even been unabashed in trying to emulate what I do. (I suppose this is an ultimate flattery--which I fully support by coaching them in achieving good results). As I posted before, I use a hot oven with a pizza stone but for some time I’ve wanted to make pizza in the Weber kettle. I bought a pizza stone for the Weber more than 1 year ago but I did not have a chance to try it until this Memorial day. I decided to make a pizza Marguerite as shown below.  
Mine is very basic without any special ingredients. The amount here is more than enough to make two pizzas (about 8 inch in diameter). I first added light olive oil (4 tbs) in a pan on low flame. I then add chopped garlic (3 fat cloves, finely chopped) and let it fry slowly for several minutes or until fragrant but not browned. I added one can of whole Italian tomatoes with its juice (cut into small chunks, 15 oz). I seasoned it with dried oregano (1/2 tsp),  dried basil (1/2 tsp), black pepper, and salt. I simmered it  for about 1 hour with a lid off (left upper in the image below). I made a sauce dry without any extra moisture (right upper in the image below).

: There are quite a few different types of Pizza stones for grills being sold. What I got is semicircular shaped which fits into the 22.5 inch Weber Kettle perfectly and the bottom cutout precisely corresponds with the grill's hinged grate so that you could add coals and wood chips during the cooking. It came with instructions but I could not find them. So I used my common sense but obviously some more refinement is required to perfect pizza made on the Weber grill as you can see below. I prepared the lump hardwood charcoal using a Although I generally don’t do anything particularly extraordinary, it appears, based on the reactions of my dinner guest’s that my pizza is not bad chimney starter as usual. I spread the hot coals in the bottom of the grill, placed the grate and the pizza stone over them. I let the stone warm up with the lid on for 30 minutes. Just before putting on the pizza, I threw in apple wood chips soaked in water.

Dough: This is my usual pizza dough. I proof the yeast by dissolving yeast (1 package) in ⅕ cup lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar. After 5 minutes, the mixture got bubbly indicating good vigorous yeast. I added cold water to make it to 1 cup. In a food processor with a dough blade, I added bread flour (3 and ¼ cup) and salt (1/2 tbs). While on low speed, I drizzled olive oil (2 tbs) and then 1 cup of water and the yeast mixture. I watched until a dough ball formed on the blade and added a little more water (2-3 more tbs). I stopped the blade and touched the dough to make sure the dough was soft and slightly sticky. I let it sit for 5 minutes to distribute the water evenly. I turned on the food processor on low speed for 30 seconds or so. I dumped out the dough on a well floured board and kneaded for 5 minutes until the dough was nicely elastic and the surface was smooth. I sprayed the inside of a one-gallon size Ziploc bag with PAM and placed the dough inside and squeezed out the air as much as you could and sealed it shut. I let it raise for 1-2 hours on the counter top (the volume doubles). After deflating the dough, I divided it into 4 and made small balls. I let it rest for 5-10 minutes so that the dough will relax. I made it to a 8 inch round by stretching the dough (first the edge of the dough and then center which was repeated).

Cheese: For one pizza, I used fresh Mozzarella (high moisture content) and for another smoked one with low moisture content. Both are sliced but not shredded.

Assembly and baking for the first pizza: I first placed the stretched dough on wooden pizza peel which is covered with cornmeal. I brushed the dough with garlic infused olive oil (finely chopped garlic placed in olive oil. You should do this just before baking pizza. If you keep garlic under the oil too long, you may risk botulism). I first placed the slices of fresh Mazzerella cheese on top of the dough followed by my tomato sauce. I put the cheese next to the crust and the sauce on top of the cheese for several reasons. First it provides a barrier between the crust and the moisture of the sauce preventing the crust from becoming soggy. Second, if the cheese is put on top of the sauce the molten cheese sometimes slides off the pizza like a magma flow while you’re trying to eat the slice because the sauce underneath provides no traction for the weight of the cheese on top (common among chain-store pizzas). I slid the dough with the topping directly on the top of the stone (image above), closed the lid and baked it for 7-8 minutes.

Assembly and baking for the second pizza: For this one, I first baked the dough blank on the stone (This is what I do if I am not using the stone) for 3-4 minutes or until the bottom of the dough was firm and the surface started puffing up. I flipped it over and place the sliced smoked Mazzerella cheese and spread the tomato sauce on the top. I closed the lid and let it bake for another 5 minutes.

For both pizza, after baking, I grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on the top and garnished it with chiffonade of fresh basil (top picture).

Well, both were more than edible but not my best. The bottom got a bit high-done on the first one--it was quite crispy but basically carbonized. The second one was much better. I may have to do some rearranging to the charcoal next time; maybe using semi-indirect heat. Both pizzas, did not have the wood smoke flavor I was expecting. I may have to add more wood chips and few minutes before baking pizza especially since the pizza does not stay in the Weber for long. But with a good red wine, the pizza was great. After two pizzas, I also baked a blank dough brushed with olive oil and torn leaves of fresh rosemary from our herb garden with some kosher salt sprinkled on after baking. This makes a sort of thin crunchy foccasia bread. Of course, we did not finish the pizza especially since we also cooked teba gyoza and beef back rib. The leftover pizza re-heated well in the toaster oven on ensuing weekday evenings which was a wonderful appetiser to come home to after a hard day of work.

Pizza Margherita and Pizza with caramelized onion ピザ

When we had our wine party/tasting, I made pizzas as a starter. They were a big hit but were eaten so fast we did not have a chance to take pictures. So, next day, I made a half-and-half pizza Margherita (left) and pizza with caramelized onion (right) from the left over ingredients. I already posted my pizza dough recipe. (Please note this image was not doctored up by Gimp or Photoshop.)

Garlic infused olive oil: I just crush several cloves of garlic using a garlic press and add good extravirgin olive oil and mix. Use this to brush pizza dough and crust.

Tomato sauce: Tomato sauce was made similar to my Marinara sauce but I added a small amount of port wine (Cheap Ruby port from Taylor) and simmered it longer so that the moisture level was very low.

Cheese: I used fresh cow's milk mozzarella. I usually use smoked mozzarella for the caramelized onion pizza but I used up all the smoked cheese I had for the pizzas at the wine party. So, for this pizza I used regular mozzarella and small chunks of fresh goat cheese. I do not shred the mozzarella but slice it (the reason becomes clear in the assembly part below). It is easier to cut thin slices when the mozzarella is cold using a thin bladed knife. 

Caramelized onion: Simply saute halved and thinly sliced onion in olive oil. This requires some patience until the onion become wilted and dark brown (15 minutes or longer). When enough brown "fond" appears on the bottom of the saute pan, I deglaze it with small amount of water which helps to color and flavor the onion but you need to saute further to evaporate most of the liquid.

Pine nuts: We keep pine nuts in a freezer. Just dry roast them in a frying pan until slightly brown.

Assembly: I sprinkle corn meal on a pizza peel and place the stretched and formed pizza dough on the corn meal before starting the assembly. Give the peel a quick tug to make sure the dough moves freely before adding the topping.

Pizza Margherita: I brush the garlic infused olive oil on the prepared dough. I put the slices of mozzarella cheese on the pizza first and then place a small amount of the tomato sauce on top of the cheese slices. (Usually the sauce is put on first and then the cheese). While my method is the opposite of what is usually done, I think this makes a better pizza since the cheese protects the crust from the moisture of the sauce. The result is a crispier crust.

Caramelized onion: The same as above but I spread the caramelized onion over the slices of cheese and then dot it with small chunks of the fresh goat cheese and sprinkle the pine nuts.

Baking: I bake for 8-9 minutes directly on a hot pizza stone by sliding the assembled pizza off the pizza peel. I preheat the oven for at least 30 minutes to 450F before baking--with the pizza stone in.

Take the pizza out and brush the edge of the crust with olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese. For Margherita, I garnish with a chiffonade of fresh basil.

We had this with the leftover wine from the day before, The 2005 Clos Mogador (about half the bottle left). The wine was much better than the first time we tasted it. The funky nose was totally dissipated. This wine has a very nice complex taste and went particularly well with the caramelized onion.

Ricotta cheese tart リコッタチーズのタルト

I know I keep deviating from my theme. Some Izakayas serve non-transitional small dishes such as German potatoes (now this has become a classic Izakaya "teiban" dish), Poutine-like French fries and cheese dish, taco, and even variations of pizza. We saw pizza in the menu at one of the rather inexpensive chain Izakayas last time when we were in Japan. We refuse to order pizza at an Izakaya, though.  Although there are many "excellent" pizza places in our neck-of-the-woods, we are partial to my home-made pizza. (Certainly, my pizza is much better than any chain Pizzaria pizzas and we usually make pizzas without much sauce and without meat unlike American Pizzas which usually have too much cheese, too much meat and too much tomato sauce). I promise I will post some of my pizzas which are not bad at all for a home-made pizza (this is called "Jiman" 自慢 which literally means "boast" or "self-praise" but it is with some sense of "pride" such as in the name of sake "Isojiman" 磯自慢 which means both "Pride of shore" and "Beach boast".)

I was somehow coerced (which is not a right word but can't think of an alternative) into making this dish "Ricotta Cheese tart" using my pizza crust. We found this to be very good and can be reheated very nicely in a toaster oven. We recently served this as a starter with champagne when we had friends over and it went very well.

Pizza dough: There is nothing unusual about my pizza dough. For 4 pizzas (about 8 inch), I add bread flour* (3 1/2 cups) and salt (1 tsp) in a food processor with a dough blade. While the food processor in running at a low speed, I stream in olive oil (2 tbs) and stop after few seconds. I proof one package of active yeast in a small amount of tepid water (1/5 cup) with just a pinch of sugar dissolved. Once proofed, I add cold water to make it one cup. Stream the yeast mixture into the tube of the food processor with the blade running at a low speed until a ball is formed above the blade. You probably will need a few more tbs of water. Open the food processor and touch the dough. It should be rather soft and slightly tacky. I let the dough sit in the processor for 5 minutes so that the moisture will distribute more evenly and then, run the blade for 30 more seconds. The dough should be soft, elastic and somewhat tacky. Take it out on a floured kneading board and hand knead for 2-3 minutes until dough is smooth, elastic and no longer sticky. For raising the dough, instead of using a bowl, I use one gallon Ziploc bag which is sprayed with PAM or a similar non-stick spray and wrap it with towels in a warm non-drafty place (on the center island counter top in my case) for 2 hours or more until the volume doubles.

(*Sometimes, I use King Arthur brand double zero ("00") Italian flour. This flour has much less gluten and makes a delicate dough which can not be tossed into the air. The resulting crust is thin, crisp and cracker-like probably similar to this one.)

After the volume doubles, I deflate and fold the dough several times I then cut the dough into 4 equal portions and make them into 4 nice smooth disks by pinching the cut surface together and stretching the surface to make a round ball. I, then, press lightly to make a disk. The portions I'm do not going to use immediately, I put it into a Ziploc sandwich bag and place in the refrigerator (will last at least overnight or more, which even adds more favor but, after that, you need to freeze the dough. The dough freezes well but the characteristic of the resulting crusts change a bit--the previously frozen dough will yield less bready and crunchier pizza crusts). Let the dough ball rest for 10-15 minutes by covering with a floured tea towel (otherwise the dough will be too elastic and resist stretching).  I never use a rolling pin to form pizza dough but use the traditional way of stretching the dough using the back of the knuckle of the hands (I will even toss the dough into the air if our guests request it.) For a regular pizza, I do not crimp the edge but, for this tart, I did crimp the edge as seen below since the filling is rather runny. You need to have corn meal on the pizza peel before placing the formed dough on the peel. Then give the peel several sharp tugs to make sure the dough slides nicely before filling the dough.

Filling: I mixed Ricotta cheese (1 cup), large eggs (2), chive (fine chopped, 1/2 cup), shallot (one finely chopped), dill (1/2 tsp dried since I did not have fresh one), salt (1/2 tsp) and black pepper (1/4 tsp). This filling made two 8 inch tarts (see below).

Baking: I had my convection oven set at 450F with a Pizza stone* in and preheated for, at least,  30 minutes before sliding the filled tart directly onto the hot pizza stone. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the surface of the filling becomes slightly brown.

(* I have a square pizza stone almost the size of the inside of my oven. I keep it (almost) permanently in the lowest rack. It is essential to have a pizza stone to make a nice crust.)

I took it out on to the cooling rack and graded Riggiano-Parmigiano cheese. I cut the tart into 4 wedges and served. The filling is nicely eggybready crust, this is a very good dish. This can be breakfast as well.

Meat pizzas 肉入りピザ

I occasionally make pizza but most of the time our pizzas do not have any meat as a topping. We are not intentionally trying to make vegetarian pizza, they just seem to come out that way. This time, I made two meat pizzas because we had leftover meat balls and pork chops cooked in BBQ sauce. Also, because of the Covid-19 related yeast shortage, my wife made a starter (biga/poolish) for me so I could make pizza dough. In addition to saving our yeast, this method results in a very flavorful and nicely chewy crust.

The picture below shows the meat ball pizza. I made the meat balls from the trimmings of pork tenderloin. After a week, I heated up the meat balls in some tomato sauce which I make from skinned Campari tomato. This reheating serves to make the meatballs last a little longer. But the time had come. We needed to use them up or we would be making an offering to the garbage-disposer god. This is a pizza similar to Margherita with the addition of the meat balls. After the pizza came out of the oven, I garnished it with a chiffonade of fresh basil leaves and grated parmesan cheese.

The picture below shows the pizza before baking. I brushed the dough with garlic oil (olive oil with crushed garlic). I then covered the dough with thin slices of fresh Mozzarella cheese, spread the tomato sauce on the cheese, placed on the sliced meat balls and basil leaves. I baked the pizza in a 480F oven on a preheated baking stone for 6 minutes.

The second pizza, shown below, is topped with shredded pork chops cooked in BBQ sauce my wife made several days ago. The cheeses are a mixture of Mozzarella, Double Gloucester and Monterey Jack.

The pizza is shown below before going into the oven.

This was evening so we had red wine with the pizza. We ate one quarter of each pizza and wrapped up the the rest to enjoy at other times. These leftover pizza heated up well in the toaster oven making a perfect snack in the evening with red wine. Because of the meat, the top was kind of heavy but it is quite satisfying and the crust was unbeatable.

Pizza two kinds ピザ２種類

Although I posted my pizza recipes before, since I am running out of new dishes I decide to post these two pizzas I made recently which were really enjoyable with a glass of red wine. The dough was hand stretched (not rolled) then transferred to a wooden pizza peel coated with cornmeal (for easy sliding off the paddle). Then bushed with garlic infused olive oil (crushed garlic plus oil).  The first one is Pizza Margherita. Instead of plain Mozzarella cheese I used smoked Mozzarella for this (more details of the recipe have been posted before).

As before I put slices of Mozzarella on the dough and then placed my marinara sauce on the slices of cheese. (the sauce was made from garlic, onion, skinned Campari tomato and several spices).  I put the sauce on the cheese instead of vice versa to prevent the moisture from the sauce making the dough/crust soggy, I put half of the torn basil on top before baking and added more after the pizza came out of the oven. I brushed the crust with the garlic infused oil on the outer edge and added grated Parmigiano Reggiano on the top.

The second pizza included ingredients my wife's suggested. The cheeses were Mozzarella (leftover from making the Margherita pizza), Double Gloucester and smoked Gouda, all finely diced and mixed.  I topped everything with oil cured black olives (stones removed) and pimento stuffed green olive (these olives were ear-marked for the Martinis I have on occasion...oh well).

I garnished the pizza with torn fresh basil and grated Parmesan.

The oven I use; (Miele) has an "intensive" mode which is set at 480F with intense heat from the bottom. I preheated the oven for 30 minutes with a pizza stone on the lower rack. I then slid the pizza onto the stone. It took less than 5 minutes for the pizza to cook. We ate one slice each from each of the two pizzas and then (we couldn't resist) shared one more slice. Luckily, our gluttony still left us with enough slices for leftovers. We wrapped the remaining pizza into 2 slice packets wrapped in plastic wrap and kept them in the refrigerator.  The slices heat up very nicely in the toaster oven (we use "toast" mode with the pizza slices on the aluminum foil). This is a great snack with a glass of red wine to look forward to after we come home from work.

No knead pizza dough 捏ねないピザ生地

Since we are into "no knead" breads, when my wife found a recipe for "No knead pizza dough", I had to try it. Using this dough, I made my usual version of Pizza Margherita.

The pizza shown below was my wife's suggestion including several cheeses (mozzarella,  Monterey jack and smoked gouda) with baby artichoke herts, black and green olives (Devina brand).

No knead pizza dough recipe came from King Arthur flour web site.

Ingredients: (this makes two pizzas like above)
250gram AP flour
1/8 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
185gram lukewarm water

Directions: (only making dough part was quoted here)
1. Stir all of the ingredients together. Cover the rough, sticky dough and let it rise at room temperature for 24 hours. After this first rise, you may choose to refrigerate the dough for up to 6 days, which will help develop its flavor.
2. Divide the dough in half. Shape each piece into a ball. Place each ball seam-side down into a floured bowl.
3. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to proof (rise) for 45 minutes to an hour, while your oven preheats.
4. Scoop the dough onto a well-floured work surface and dust the top with flour. Using your fingertips, gently depress the dough, being careful not to touch the outer edge of the crust; you want it to remain thick.
5. Lift up the pizza and use your knuckles to gently stretch the dough into a circle about 10" to 12" in diameter. Move it to a well-floured pizza peel (I use yellow corn meal).

The topping and baking parts I followed my usual way. Although I cooked the pizza the usual 5 minutes, because of the high water content of the dough, retrospectively, I would have cooked the pizza longer maybe 7-8 minutes.

This pizza crust was a bit more flavorful but not that much different from my usual crust. Handling the dough was much more tricky since it was so wet. I may try it again with a longer cooking time.

Two Pizzas; Baby artichoke with goat cheese and Margherita ピザ２種類

I make a pizza every-now-and-then from scratch (dough and sauce). I do not go fancy in terms of the cheeses, dough, and tomato sauce and use a regular oven with a pizza stone (on "intense heat" setting at 470F). It takes only 5-6 minutes for the pizzas to bake. We really like it (so do our friends). For sure, they are much better than the ones from a chain pizzeria. Since I made baby artichokes braised in olive oil and lemon juice a few days prior, I made artichoke pizza with oil cured black olive and three cheeses (smoked mozzarella, double Gloucester, fresh-not aged-goat cheese).

I finished with grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.

The goat cheese and garlic infused olive oil (1-2 cloves of garlic, through a garlic press, mixed in 2-3 tbs of olive oil) which I paint the pizza dough before baking, really makes this pizza. It is a perfect match to my home-made baby artichoke hearts. I used home-made frozen pizza dough I made some time ago. Compared to freshly prepared dough, this pizza came out cracker-like consistency (rather than bread-y), almost like one I occasionally make with Italian "00" flour.

At the same time, I made a variation of pizza Margherita with smoked mozzarella and black olives. I put the cheese on first and then the sauce to prevent the dough from getting soggy.

I added fresh basil and graded parmesan after the pizza was out of the oven but did not take a picture. I made the tomato sauce from skinned Campari tomatoes, onion and garlic. Compared to using canned plum tomatoes, the sauce came out much less acidic.

We had this as a weekend lunch. We had to resist the lure of drinking red wine with this lunch. But the leftover (we each ate three 1/8 wedges each which leaves ten 1/8 slices) are great snacks for weekdays when we come home. It heats up nicely in the toaster oven and we can have a glass of red wine with it.

Focaccia Bread Baked in Breville Pizzaiolo Indoor Pizza Oven

I have made focaccia bread and its variations baked in a convection oven. We liked a thicker and breadier version which was cooked in a baking pan in lower temperature (350F) for longer time (30 minutes). 

Recently, my wife gave me an indoor-electric pizza oven, Breville Pizzaiolo as a birthday gift. I am making pizza several times using different flours, dough recipes and temperatures. Generally, I am quite impressed with the quality of pizza that can be made in this oven but I am still making pizzas to find the best combination for me. Once I have enough information, that will be the subject of a separate post. This post is just to note a few things I can do to improve the focaccia. The focaccia was great albeit one side of the top was a little too high done (#1). The result of  using the top heating unit is a bit uneven for heating.

I used the carbon iron pan that came with the oven for baking the focaccia. I pre-seasoned the pan as per the instructions and it worked great. With a 30 minutes secondary rise, the bread has nice texture and flavors (#2). We really like the crusty surface and nice soft interior.

The recipe is just for my notes so that I can improve it next time.

Ingredients:
3 and 1/2 cup bread flour
2 tsp Kosher salt
2 tbs olive oil
2 tsp instant yeast
1 cup and a bit more  lukewarm water

Olives, black and green, sliced
Fresh rosemary, leaves removed and roughly chopped
4 or more tbs olive oil

Directions:
Add the flour, salt and yeast to a food processor fitted with a kneading blade. Mix briefly and pour in the olive oil in a thin stream. While the blade is turning in low-speed, add the water in a thin stream. Look carefully until a dough ball forms above the blade (the dough ball is slightly sticky). Let is stand for 5 minutes for even hydration. Turn the processor on low speed for 1-2 minutes. Turn the dough ball out on well floured board and knead for 3-5 minutes making a smooth elastic dough. Shape the dough into a  smooth round and place it in lightly oiled bowl, turning to coat. Let it rise for about 1 hour (I use a proofing box at 87F).

Deflate the dough and fold several times on well floured kneading board making a disk of dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 10 minutes (so that the gluten relaxes and it becomes easier to stretch). Meanwhile lightly oil the carbon iron pan. Add the disk of dough in the pan and using your finger tips spread the dough to fill the pan. Add the rosemary to the olive oil and spread over the dough and scatter the olive slices. Using your finger tips, press and embed the olive (picture #3). Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes (or skip this and immediately proceed to baking*). 

*I like the fluffy texture and usually let it rise second time but baking in the pizza oven, it may better without the second rising since the top heating element is very close to the surface.

Using  the pan pizza setting (475F for 18 minutes) and the top heat in the middle (I may reduce the top heat to prevent the surface scorching too much, see picture #1).

Remove the bread from the pan using spatula and let it cool on the cooling rack.

We really like this version of focaccia bread. Compared to my usual focaccia, it has nice crust and the texture is much better. With a good flavorful olive oil with salt and a glass of good cab, we made the dinner from this bread.

Basil pesto pizza ペストジェノベェーゼピッザ

Every year we used to plant basil in our herb garden but, in general, it did not do well. Maybe it was too much sun; it bolted very quickly and the leaves were tough.  So, we went back to buying basil in small packets from the grocery store. Most of these store-bought basils clearly had a hard life. They were a bit pathetic and already wilted by the time they came to reside in our refridgerator.  Since, due to covid, we have not been going to the grocery stores often nowadays, and we could not get out to buy herbs for our garden, my wife decided to try rooting some of these sad store-bought basils. She was generally successful. About 70-80% of the basil she tried, developed roots and 95% of those really started to grow after she transplanted them in soil. (The ones she planted in top soil did not do quite as well as those planted in potting soil). So now, we have a small collection of basil pots sunning themselves in the kitchen windows. 

Since the plants were in need of trim, one day my wife recruited me to make pesto. The above is after my wife harvested leaves for the pesto. I made pesto in standard way (Just add basil, pine nuts, garlic, and salt into the mini food processor and add olive oil while the processor is running. Finish by adding grated Parmesan cheese). Next question; what to do with all this pesto? She then suggested making a pesto pizza. Which I did (shown below). 

This was entirely her idea. She asked me to use both fresh and low-moisture mozzarella cheese and two kind of olives (Karamata and anchovy stuffed green olives, which we happened to have). I brushed the dough with garlic infused oil, placed the slices of mozzarella cheese and spread the pesto over the cheese slices, then placed the olives. This came out rather nice with a fresh basil taste that worked well with the olives and mozzarella. Of course, we had to make our usual Margherita pizza as well. (Note the basil chiffonaid on top).

So, this is a good use of the basil forests now growing on our kitchen window sill. We restrained ourselves to having just one slice from each pizza, so we would be sure to have left overs to crisp up in the toaster oven during the week. Of course, to be heart-healthy, we had red wine which went so well with pizzas as usual.

Salmon salad focaccia bread sandwich フォカッチャのサーモンサラダサンドイッチ

One weekend, we baked several breads. I have been lazy in terms of baking bread and my wife took over most of my baking chores. I decided to bake a simple focaccia bread to use it for sandwiches during the following week. I baked two focaccia which were a bit over 11 x 13 inches. When the bread comes out of the oven, I usually cut off the four edges and eat these pieces like grissini dipped in salted olive oil while hot, which is very good. After the remaining bread cools down, I  cut the sheet of focaccia into eight uniform rectangular pieces for sandwiches. The picture below is half a sandwich.

For a lunch on Sunday, I made salmon salad from leftover salmon. The salmon was our regular menu. It was simply salted, peppered and cooked in a frying pan and finished in an oven. We usually leave half of the salmon (although we finish the crispy skin) and use it for something else later.


Salmon Salad: I just flaked the cooked leftover salmon (about 1/3 lb). I realized we were totally out of celery but if we had some, I would have used it finely chopped. Instead, I used cucumber (one American mini, cut in half lengthwise and then thinly sliced, salted and excess moisture squeezed out). I also added finely chopped parsley (few sprigs), finely diced Vidalia onion (small, half) and cornichon pickles (5-6 finely diced). For dressing, I mixed mayonnaise (2 tbs), Greek yogurt (2 tbs), Dijon mustard (1 tsp), and lemon juice (1 tsp), salt ad pepper.



I sliced the focaccia bread into two layers and put the salmon salad on top (picture above). I served this with coleslaw and sliced cucumber, skinned and sliced Campari tomato.

Focaccia bread: I essentially used the same dough as for my pizza. I placed bread flour (3 and half cup), Kosher salt (1 tsp) and light olive oil (2 tbs) in a food processor with a dough blade installed. I mixed them by running it at low speed for 10 seconds. Meanwhile I proofed the yeast by adding a package of dry yeast into 1/4 cup of lukewarm water with a small pinch of sugar and mixed well. I let it stand until it started foaming. I added enough cold water to make it 1 cup and mixed it well.


While the food processor was on low speed, I streamed in the water yeast mixture. I usually add a few more Tbs. of water as I watch the dough form above the blade. I touch the dough to test its consistency. It should be slightly sticky and rather soft. If not you can add more water. I let it rest for 5 minutes so that the moisture distributes evenly. I then ran the food processor on low speed for 30 seconds. I dumped the dough out on the floured board and hand kneaded to finish until it was elastic and smooth (about 5 more minutes). I made a tight ball with the surface of the dough stretched and place it in a one-gallon Ziploc bag with the inside sprayed with PAM non-stick spray (or use olive oil). I removed as much air as possible, sealed, left it on the counter top loosely covered with towels and let it rise for 1-2 hours or until the volume doubled.

I deflated and folded the dough, divided it into two equal portions and formed them into rough rectangles. I covered them with a dish towel and let them rest for 10-15 minutes until the gluten relaxed. I then formed the dough into about 11x13 inch rectangles (If you like, you could make thicker and smaller rectangles, in that case I would use lower temp, 350F, and longer baking time, 30 minutes).

I put a thin layer of cornmeal on a wooden pizza peel and place the dough on top. I slid the dough back and force on the peel by jerking the peel to make sure the dough was not sticking at the bottom. I generously brushed the dough with olive oil/ fresh chopped rosemary mixture and garnish it with oil-cured black olives (pitted and chopped). Using my fingers, I made multiple indentations especially over the olives so that they don’t not come off easily. Finally I grated Reggiano parmigiano cheese on the top.

I slid the dough onto the baking stone in a 400F oven (preheated for at least 20 minutes after it reached 400F) and baked the dough for 20 minutes (below).


My foccacia was rather thin (but thick enough to cut into two layers for a sandwich) with crust but as I mentioned before, you could make it thicker and less crusty. Sometimes I make another variation in which I formed the dough exactly like pizza to make very thin pizza-like focaccia bread with olive oil and rosemary.

Cheesy Lebanon Bologna bites チーズとレバノンボロニャ ミニマッフィン（バイツ）

 Some time ago, my wife made some small muffin/bites with cheese and Lebanon Bologna which is the perfect small appetizer with wine. We kept them frozen and she served the last two. She wanted to make some more and we naturally assumed we could find the recipe in our blog but after some searching, we could not find it. So, we concluded we must not have posted it. We looked for the original recipe and had difficult time but finally my wife found the print-out of the recipe. The original recipe came from King Arthur Flour web site and called “Cheesy Pepperoni bites”. The original recipe calls for “Pizza flavor seasoning ” to make it taste like pepperoni pizza, I suppose. As usual she took the recipe as “advisory” and made some changes mostly based on what ingredients we had available. So she used Lebanon Bologna (she keeps some on hand frozen) instead of pepperoni, added chopped fresh chives and omitted the pizza seasoning (since we didn’t have it).

I ask my wife to take over.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (180g) AP flour
1/4 cup (28g) Cheddar Cheese Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (57g) butter, cut in pats
1/2 cup (50g) Lebanon Bologna (or pepperoni, diced) (#1)
1 cup (113g) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup (14g) sliced chives (or scallions) (#1)
3/4 cup (170g) milk

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease a bite-sized tart pan; a mini muffin pan, or a baking sheet. If using the pop-up tart pan, have an ungreased baking sheet available to use as a base.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the flour, cheese powder, baking powder, salt.
Add the butter, working it in until the mixture is crumbly.
Add the Lebanon bologna, shredded cheese, and scallions, mixing to distribute (#2 above).
Add the milk, mixing just until everything is evenly moistened.
Scoop the dough by the level tablespoonful (second smallest ice cream scoop we have)  into the mini-muffin pan. 

Place the mini muffin pan onto a baking sheet to catch any drips.
Bake the biscuits till they're a medium to deep golden brown, 10 to 14 minutes.
Remove the biscuits from the oven, and cool briefly on a rack. Use a table knife to pop the bottom of the pan off the biscuits

I am sure pepperoni works well in this but Lebanon Bologna’s smoky and sweet flavors also work well. It is very cheesy with cheddar flavor which may be due to the addition of  “Better cheddar cheese powder” from King Athur. 

Cornmeal Parmesan chicken tender パルメザンチキンテンダー

American kids grow up eating deep fried chicken tenders either from fast food places or frozen ones from grocery stores. We are not sure this is nutritionally sound, but even as an adult, we can enjoy this type of dish every-now-and-then. This is a bit more refined version and pan fried instead of deep fried. This is perfect for wines either red (we are red wine drinkers for sure) or white. But of couse, beer and sake will go well with it. I promise that this is much better than the chicken tenders from your childhood (that is if you enjoyed chicken tenders in your childhood).

As usual remove the sinews from the chicken tenders. Season with salt and blacked pepper. Dredge in a mixture of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and yellow cornmeal (half and half). Pan fry with a light olive oil (use a bit more oil than for sauteing), turning over once. It takes about 3 minutes on each side. I served this with my marinara sauce. This marinara sauce was leftover from when I made a pizza few days ago for company (although this is not Izakaya food, I may post my home-made pizza sometime in the future). My recipe for marinara sauce is very simple. Add 1/3 cup of good light olive oil in a deep pan, add red pepper flakes (as much as you like), chopped 3-4 cloves of garlic, fry until fragrant, add two 8oz cans of whole Italian tomatoes (crush them as you add) with their juice. I add 2-3 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp each of dried oregano and basel, a pinch of sugar (1/2 tsp to cut acidity), salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes or more (I make it rather dry as a topping for a pizza). You can also serve the chicken tenders with a honey mustard (mix honey and Dijon mustard - 1:2 ratio).

Wonton Skin ravioli ワンタンの皮のラビオリ

When my wife made cheese pockets, some extra cheese stuffing* was left over. I decided to use the cheese stuffing to make ravioli. Although I have a pasta machine (a hand cranked one), I wasn’t up for making homemade pasta so, instead, I used wonton skins. I also had left over marinara sauce from my pizza margarita that I made the weekend before.  I added light cream to the sauce put it over the ravioli and served it with green beans (steamed and then sautéed in butter).

Since I had leftover sautéed chicken breast**, I also served that to make complete meal.

*Cheese stuffing: This is a mixture of cheeses;
7 1/2 oz Ricotta cheese
1 egg (She used a fork to beat the egg and used approximately 1/2 in the cheese mixture and the rest as an egg wash to seal the pie dough. you could use the yolk in the cheese mixture and the white for the egg wash.)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup Feta cheese
1/4 cup smoked mozzarella cheese
One small onion finely diced and caramelized
1/8 cup parsley finely chopped
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

**Sautéed chicken breast: I used the technique I learned from the recipe blog site, in which I sliced chicken breast across the grain of the meat, pounded it with a meat pounder. I then massage the meat in sake and potato starch and let it marinate for at least several hours. Just before cooking, I seasoned it (I used dried oregano, basil, salt and pepper) and cooked it in a frying pan with a bit of olive oil. The starch and sake mixture appears to hold moisture in the meat so it came out very moist.

I did not take pictures of the process of making the ravioli using the wonton skins. I just placed a wonton skin on the cutting board and put on a small spoonful of the cheese stuffing. I painted the wonton skin around the stuffing with egg white, and layered the second wonton skin over it. Trying not to make any air pockets, I pressed it all around the stuffing to make sure the two wonton skins adhered together. Using an appropriate size round biscuit or cookie cutter, I cut out the the ravioli. Just to make it more visually appealing, I used the tines of a fork to make indentations around the edge (also to make sure the edges would not separate). I cooked the ravioli in boiling salted water with olive oil added for a few minutes. I removed the ravioli using a slotted spoon and put them on a plate coated with a small amount of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. After they cooled down, I put them in a sealable container in the refrigerator (below).

I served this one weekday after coming home from work. I heated up the marinara sauce in a frying pan (below).


When the sauce was warm, I added light cream to make a saucy consistency and warmed up the ravioli in the sauce.
Wanton skins don’t not have the same consistency as pasta but they work fairly well as a substitute. The cheese filling also works well especially since this is leftover from another dish. Adding cream to the marinara sauce reduced the acidity and added a richer smoother taste.

We happened to have a very reasonably priced Super Tuscan red called “Brancaia 2011 Tre”. To us this is a bit too austere but it got better as it aerated. Not bad especially considering the price (significantly less than $20).
Decanter gave 95 and James Suckling 93 which appeared too high a score to us. Regardless,  it went very well this instant ravioli dish. This wine is also great with pizza.

Garlic Mozzarella bread ニンニク、モッツァレラチーズパン

Somehow my wife found a YouTube video of this recipe and I follow the link to the recipe. The next day which happened to be Sunday, I made this bread. Although I followed the recipe and baked at 400F for 20 minutes, it was a bit over done (I used "intense heat" setting for the oven and the baking stone was in place. Next time I will bake this bread at 350F). The surface was nicely crunchy (essentially "fried" with butter).

The melted Mozzarella cheese made nice layers.

We started enjoying this bread as soon as it came out of the oven and it was still steaming. Since this was evening, we had it with a glass of Napa Cabernet. Within an hour the loaf had been reduced by 2/3's to the the size shown below. If you are wondering 'was the bread good' this should say it all.  This was sort of modified pizza or focaccia and yes, it was really good.

This recipe came from the blog "Baking and cooking with Ninik".


Ingredients:
Dough:
250g (2 cups) all-purpose flour/plain flour
5g (1-1/2 tsp) instant yeast
25g (2 tbsp) sugar
1/2 tsp salt
42g (3 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
125ml (1/2 cup) warm milk
1 egg, whisked
Flour for kneading, if necessary

250g lactose-free fresh Mozzarella cheese (125g of each) (I just used cow milk fresh Mozzarella) .
Slice into small pieces.
Other cheese could be used if Mozzarella isn't available.

Garlic Scallion butter:
2 tbsp softened butter
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp chopped scallions
1/2 tsp salt
Mix well

A sharp blade or regular knife.
Egg to brush the edge, if you are using.
Freshly cracked black pepper

Method for the dough:
In a mixing bowl, stir all the dough ingredients into a soggy dough.
Transfer to the counter, use flour if necessary to fold the dough with your fingers, fold, and press to guide the dough into a ball.
Put the dough ball on a baking tray (or we can use a round baking pan/pizza pan).
Cover until almost doubled (#1). After the dough expands, flatten with hand into a circle (#2).
Using a sharp blade, score the dough crisscross style (#3). Brush with egg at the edges if you like.
Spread garlic butter on the surface evenly (#4). Mark again the scored with a spoon for easier putting the cheese.
Insert pieces of Mozzarella cheese to fill the scored dough (#5). Add freshly cracked black pepper on top.
Bake at 200°C (400°F) preheated oven, top-bottom heat, for 20 - 25 minutes. An oven may vary.
During baking, you might find the butter leaking out to the baking tray (#4) (My oven appears to be hotter, I will bake it at 350F next time).
Best to eat warm to get the stretchy melting cheese. (Although, believe me, it is mighty-fine even when not piping hot.)

I think the scallion butter really made this bread special. The scallions became caramelized in the butter. The dough itself was very tender and almost slightly sweet. It made a nice contrast to the crunch of the crust and the toasted cheese. Wine and this bread, what else do you need? I will try it again for sure.

Version #2: The first version of this bread did not last long so fairly soon I made a second version with some various tweaks to hopefully improve an already pretty good final product. I decided to include my notes as an addendum to this blog. One of the changes I made was to score (cut) the loaf after I spread on the garlic onion butter as seen below (instead of before as suggested by the original recipe). This way, the cuts stayed open and it was easier to stuff them with the cheese.

Cheese stuffing is still a bit tedious but easier than with the previous version.

Another change was that I lowered the temperature to 350F. The original recipe did say the temperature may vary based on the oven. The oven I use is a convection oven and may run a bit hot. As shown below the loaf came out much better.

As before we had this with a glass of red wine. As before the bread was great and the changes I made were an improvement. The cheese was better distributed and cooking at the lower temperature resulted in a better texture to the bread. It was much more tender with an almost cake like crumb that was very pleasing.  As before the scallions caramelized beautifully and permeated the flavor throughout. As before, the only problem with this bread is that it pulls a pretty quick disappearing act. It's hard to resist going back for just one more piece--just another little one.