Pizza di Collards
Pizza and fish tacos, these are the two recipes that pop up everywhere. Somehow the media is trying to convince the world that you can make pizza at home, well maybe some people can, but I don’t think that itis within my ability. My dough, as you can see from the photos, was gorgeous, light and easy to manage. It rose to perfection and I thought to myself, ah ha I can do this. This will be the most delicious pizza outside of Naples.
I was so sadly mistaken. I don’t know if it was the temperature of the oven, that there were too many things in the oven or that you really can’t make pizza at home, but the crust was hard as a rock. Luckily one of my pizzas came out edible, hard like peanut brittle, but edible, no broken teeth, otherwise we would have had to order a pizza from Orlando’s.
I figured that I would share the recipe, despite my disaster, because I think that something went wrong here, maybe I didn’t preheat the oven for long enough, though my husband is convinced that it was too hot. Who the hell knows.
I used the leftover collard greens that I had made with raisins and pine nuts a few days before, in the same vein of a pizza di scarola which is usually made at Christmas in Naples. I added olives to this for an added tanginess that the collards had lacked. The crust may have been terrible, but the filling was great.
Pizza di Collard Greens
Overnight Pizza Dough from Bon Appetit, April 2009
Sponge
- 1 cup lukewarm water (110°F to 115°F)
- 1 envelope active dry yeast, divided
- 1 cup all purpose flour, divided
Dough
- 1½ cups lukewarm water
- 2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 envelope active dry yeast
- 6 cups all purpose flour
- Olive oil
- Yellow cornmeal
Sponge: Place 1 cup lukewarm water in large bowl of heavy-duty mixer. Sprinkle 1 tsp yeast (reserve remaining yeast for dough) and ¼ tsp flour over water. Let stand until yeast dissolves and mixture looks spongy, about 4 minutes. Add remaining flour and whisk until smooth; scrape down sides of bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let sponge rest at room temperature in draft-free area overnight (about 12 hours; sponge will look bubbly).
Dough: Add 1½ cups lukewarm water, 2 tsp salt, 1 envelope yeast, and reserved remaining yeast to sponge, then add 6 cups flour, 1 cup at a time, beating with dough hook to blend after each addition. Continue to beat until dough is smooth, comes cleanly away from sides of bowl, and is only slightly sticky to touch, scraping down bowl occasionally, about 5 minutes. If dough is very sticky, beat in more flour, ¼ cupful at a time. Scrape dough onto floured surface; knead into smooth ball.
Brush inside of a large bowl with oil. Add dough; turn to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; chill 6 hours, kneading dough down when doubled (after 2 hours).
About 1½ hours before baking, dust 2 baking sheets with flour. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Knead gently; shape into 16-inch log. Cut into 8 equal pieces (I cut mine into 4). Knead each piece into smooth ball. Arrange 4 (or 2) balls of dough onto each sheet. Cover loosely with kitchen towels and let rise until almost doubled, 1 to 1¼ hours.
Preheat the oven to 500°F for 45 minutes. Working with 1 dough ball at a time, dust dough with flour. Press into a 5 inch round, then gently stretch and roll out into a 9-inch round.
A pizza di scarola is more like a pie, so I stretched my dough into a pie dish, drizzled it with olive oil and scattered my collards into the pie, covering it with another one of my dough balls.
I attempted a pizza bianca with this, the pizza in the picture below and the edible pizza pie with collards. Too many things in the oven? I think so. Bon appetit suggests 14 minutes for the cooking time, it took a lot longer. Too many things in the oven.
Italicious 