Share |

Content about Dough

Homemade Square Pizza February 4, 2010 Focaccia becomes the base of this pizza. Good pizza means good bread. For me, there's just no other way around it. Good bread is the soul of good pizza. But baking has never been a subject I'm comfortable with. Give me a skillet, some pasta, and a well-stocked pantry and I can improvise countless meals. But if I'm supposed to bake something, I freeze. I immediately picture failure, a leaden cracker or a gummy mess. I hate the confusion of baking, the way it never... Read the Full Article	Deep-Dish Pizza: Round 2 April 3, 2009 Nick learns from his mistakes and makes a good deep-dish pie at home. I was determined not to fail this time. My last attempt at deep-dish wasn't an absolute failure, but it was close. It was too soggy and messy, and had none of the glorious qualities that my favorite Chicago pizzeria, Pequods, displayed. I theorized about all kinds reasons for the failure, thinking it had something to do with the crust. Then I just gave up and asked you all to help me. Ended up I was way off... Read the Full Article	Focaccia, the Easiest Homemade Bread March 6, 2009 The best bread to make for those that don't like to make bread. If bread making scares you like it scares me, but the lure of authenticity is irresistible, then focaccia may be the place to begin. The intoxicating smell of yeast; the wet stickiness between your fingers; the magical billowing quality of the dough when a warm spot trns it into a living thing. These are the pleasures of bread making. And these are the pleasures I am almost wholly unfamiliar with. Until now. See, I've... Read the Full Article	Top that Pie: Fresh Italian Sausage February 23, 2009 Make the perfect topping for your pizza. For the sausage novices, nothing could be quite so easy as this recipe from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie. Because I was using it straight away I had no need to stuff it into casing only break them free a moment a latter. I essentially just mixed everything together, ground it on the small die of my meat grinder, and cooked it. It was about as time consuming as cutting up a bunch of vegetables. And since I... Read the Full Article
The Plunge: Homemade Ravioli January 13, 2009 How long do you cook ravioli? I wondered this precisely the moment after I plunged my handmade ravioli into a raging cauldron of boiling water. It didn't occur to me that it might be an issue. I had always thought you pulled them as soon as they floated, or was that just gnocchi? When I consulted my recipe in The Silver Spoon it said I needed to cook them for 10 minutes, which sounded absurd. I had only cooked my homemade tagliatelle... Read the Full Article	Homemade Tagliatelle and the Curse of Fresh Pasta November 16, 2008 I've had a tumultuous history with fresh pasta. Though I adore dried pasta in all its forms and permutations, my adventures with the fresh can best be described as a disaster. I've wasted hours and honestly lost friendships to the stuff. For this I've relegated fresh pasta to something I may order at restaurants but never, ever make at home. Perhaps I wasn't giving it a fair shot. When Blake and I first attempted to make... Read the Full Article	A Night of Broiled Pizzas So Hot, Things Shattered January 18, 2008 What's more fun than a make-your-own-pizza party? Not much. My friend Austin was in town from Providence, Rhode Island, where he teaches Spanish, Latin, and mythology. Often when we get together it's an excuse to do a lot of cooking. Throughout college he would make Nick and me ridiculously good brunches with fresh chorizo, eggs, and breakfast potatoes, and occasionally expose us to his Texas chili, which has an entire... Read the Full Article