Redneck Pizza Oven

I've been playing with pizza for several months now. Of course, to really make pizza, you need a brick oven. I've been trying to figure out how to do that for a few months. Then one day, my boss sends me this link, of a guy who turned a Weber 22" grill into a pizza oven.

"Hey," I thought, "I can do something even easier on my grill! If a Weber can make pizza, a real grill can too!"

So I decided to make a redneck pizza oven.

We're on our third pizza stone since July. I bought one by Oneida, and it worked fine until it cracked (about 4 weeks after I bought it). Oneida kindly replaced it (with no questions asked, I might add), but the replacement cracked 6 weeks later. I finally bought the good one: the Williams Sonoma version. So far no cracks.

But since we have two broken pizza stones, I decided to reassemble them, jigsaw-puzzle-style for my pizza oven floor.

From Redneck Pizza Oven

The oven itself is made by placing four landscape bricks on my grill. They prop the lid open and shield the walls to keep heat in.

From Redneck Pizza Oven

So with the landscape bricks in place and the two Oneida stones shoved back together, we have the start of a pizza oven.

From Redneck Pizza Oven

I've found my pizza peel is sticky. I thought that was just my own incompetence until I used a friend's. The thing is, I have a $5 pizza peel, and it's varnished. So I took sandpaper to it. The improvement is indescribable. This afternoon I tried putting some cornmeal on the peel under the pies, and it worked like a charm. Not one pie got folded! I might have used too much cornmeal on the first pie.

From Redneck Pizza Oven

From Redneck Pizza Oven

From Redneck Pizza Oven

We realized with the first pie, the lid is too high. We ended up taking too long to get the top of the pie cooked appropriately. I didn't get any pictures of it, but we solved the problem by putting a reflector atop the bricks. So you can't see it, but there is a secret lid about 6" over the pizza stones under the grill lid.

The first reflector was cardboard. It burst into flames after two pies. Ames suggested we try the vanity cover I took off the front of the grill a couple years back (she is, after all, the brains of the operation). Whaddya know? It fits perfectly, it's steel, and it doesn't sag. The pies got a lot better after that one.

We made half a dozen or so pies. They all had a nice char on them, and a hint of smoke

From Redneck Pizza Oven

I soon realized I needed more heat, so I started shoveling burning charcoal right onto the cooking grates next to the pizza stones. It made the pies a little more ashy, and the effect was fabulous

From Redneck Pizza Oven

From Redneck Pizza Oven

Of course, one of the pizza stone pieces cracked again where one of the coals was touching it.

So the Redneck Pizza Oven worked like a champ.

But of course there are some improvements to be made. We need to find a better cooking surface. Reassembling the pizza stone jigsaw puzzle is going to get old pretty quick, and they're just too small. I'm open for suggestions: I've looked for unglazed tile and quarry stone, but I can't find either around here. I've thought of using a cast iron griddle too. Either way, I have a 19.5" deep grill. I want a cooking surface big enough to make at least 18" pies, if not full 19 inchers.

I'm not convinced our reflector is as good as it could be. I'd like to see if I can get something a little more draping. But Ames' version is a lot better than the cardboard ghetto-lid I had made.

And of course we need more practice.

But all in all, the experiment was a success.

From Redneck Pizza Oven

The right pan

I was given one of these French Loaf Pans as a gift. I must say, the right pan helps incredibly with the finished product.

From Bread

Those loaves are my own "recipe." I'm actually kinda proud of them...

Hairy ride

I spent the last week on Vancouver Island. I went up to be another pair of hands to help out Mum and Dad last week, so I did no touristy things, and only a couple "I'm back home and like to do this when I'm back" things.

We left late yesterday and got off the ferry at Tsawassen at 5:20 PM. We actually cleared the US border at 6:20, and were heading back south. We experienced no obvious Olympics-related delays, for which I am very grateful.

A couple miles from home, I came around a left turn and Ames shouted "Look out!" There was a small black dog (Shi-Tsu? I don't know, but short, furry, and black) standing in the rain in the middle of the road, in the dark, where there aren't any street lights. I slammed on the brakes and stopped just short of hitting the dog. But he panicked and jumped straight in front of the oncoming traffic.

The oncoming car hit him. I saw it briefly, but definitely heard it.

So I pulled over and ran back to check the dog. He was lying whimpering in the road. The woman in the car behind mine had stopped right there, and was already at the dog. She scooped him up, checked the tag, and told me to get a cell phone. So I ran back to my car, got the cell phone, and headed back.

"Call 911," she said.

"911?"

"Yeah, 911!"

I thought she meant for the dog, until I saw the woman lying in the ditch.

Apparently one of the people in the car that had actually hit the dog had gotten out to check on him. The ditch is very deep and there aren't any street lights there: she misstepped, fell right into the ditch and busted up her leg. She was sure it was broken, I didn't know and didn't want to poke and prod when I'm unsure what I'm doing.

So there we are: we've got a dog that's at least got a broken leg, and was apparently bleeding from the mouth. There is a woman in her 50s lying in the bottom of the ditch with a broken leg, and it's raining.

The paramedics did arrive. They got the woman in the ditch onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. She was conscious and lucid the whole time, but I'm not sure what that means.

The woman living right there called about the dog and ended up with someone from the humane society. She and her husband/boyfriend/partner were to take him to an emergency vet, who'd be able to contact the owner via the dog's tag. I assume she got there all right, they were getting ready to leave when I drove off.

The son of the woman in the ditch had been driving: he left to follow the ambulance.


So that was a pretty rotten end of a long trip home.


As my mother would say, "Well glory be!"

Happy New Year

I don't usually make a big deal out of New Year's Day, but it seems like this one is significant. I keep having images of Arthur C. Clarke's famous sequel run through my head:


Let's see, we got married in '95, so this will be 15 years. That's something. We moved from Grand Rapids back to Charlotte at the end of '99, so it's been ten years since coming back to NC, and ten years since the Wayne Division that tore our Christian friends apart. Again, a significant milestone.

I stopped staying up for New Year a long time ago: between the realization that the New Year comes regardless of my approval or even my attention and my habits of staying up pretty much until midnight most of the time anyway; the whole prospect loses what appeal it had. But it's fun for the kids.

Willy-Sono

I've only been writing about food recently. That seems odd, and yet unsurprising. There's a reason I look like this.

I made a trip to the nearest Williams-Sonoma recently (in Bellevue!). I had to pick up a couple specialty kitchen gadgets, so Williams-Sonoma was the obvious choice. Why is it the obvious choice? Let me share a little experience of ours...

Ames had a cookie press. It was a gift 4 or 5 years ago; the press was from Williams-Sonoma. So we took it out, and realized it wasn't working. There was a problem with the spring in it, so there was no tension on the plunger. As a result, it was totally worthless.

Ames called Willy-Sono, and they told her to bring it in. So in we go, taking a four-year-old defunct cookie press and no receipt.

"Yep, that's one of ours," the sales guy says. He looks it up in the book and tells us they don't carry it any more, but the sale price on it was $35. He gives Ames $35 store credit.

Then he shows us the model that replaced Ames' defunct press, explains why it's better and tells us it cost in the neighbourhood of $10 more. But of course, he assures us, it's a store credit so we can use it on anything.

If we had brought in a receipt, he tells us, he could have given us a refund.

That's for a four-year-old cookie press that's stopped working, with no receipt.


Where am I going to spend my kitchen budget from now on?


So I bought a pizza stone and a french bread pan this week. Are they a little spendy? Absolutely! But they both include a slip that tells me to take them back at any time if I decide I don't like them. I didn't pay extra for the quality (although they're obviously of superior quality to other offerings I've both purchased and researched). I paid extra so I can deal with people who treat me like I matter.

I'm sold.

That's Amore! (Reprise)

I had previously posted a pictorial step-by-step to how we've been making pizza. The pictures Ames took were fabulous. But two things have made me decide we need a follow-up:

1. a couple people have asked me about the technique, and seemed to think what I posted before wasn't too clear


2. we've made a couple recipe and technique adjustments.

From Pizza Reprise

So here's an update of our step-by-step pizza making guide:

The Crust
The place to start is with the crust. I originally used a recipe I found online, but I've adjusted it to our taste. My recipe uses sourdough: I have a starter that took some sweat and tears to get to its current maturity. If you're in a hurry, you can make a starter that works by just throwing a tablespoon or so of dry yeast into two cups of flour and two cups of water; put them all into a jar and put it into the fridge. Feed it once a week. If you want something more authentic, you can check out some recipes on sourdough.com, Accidental Scientist, or S. John Ross. You can also buy a starter from Sourdoughs International, among other places. My own starter is an adulterated biga, as I mentioned before.

So here's the crust:

• 2 C. sourdough starter


• 4 C. water


• 2 tsp dry yeast


• 3.5 tsp salt


• 8--14 C. flour

Put the water, yeast, salt, and sourdough starter into your kitchen machine (or bread bowl) and let it sit for 20--30 minutes. Then start kneading. Knead it wet for 10--20 minutes, then add enough flour to make a sticky ball of dough. Turn it onto a floured board and shape it into a ball. Refrigerate this overnight.

That's enough dough for six 16-inch pizzas or 8 12-inch pizzas. Always make the biggest pizzas you can handle! the best pizzas I've ever eaten were 20-inch monsters from Luigi's Pizza in Charlotte, NC. Larger pizzas have better sauce-to-crust ratios, and more manageable slices. I make 16-inch pies, because that's all I can fit into my oven.

The Sauce
The crust is the heart of your pizza: the sauce is its soul. I made horrible pizza for years, until I learned my sauce was too complex. To make truly great pie, use the simplest possible sauce.

• 8 whole peeled tomatoes from a can. I find S&W is the best, but Hunt's are good too. Don't buy crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce your pie depends on getting this right!


• 1/2 tsp. salt


• 1/4 tsp. white sugar. I like to use berry sugar, but granulated sugar works just fine.


• a hint of oregano. I used to use 1 Tbsp., but I've come to believe that's vastly too much. I now use just enough to see.
  Less is more, in this case.

Rinse your tomatoes in running water, pour off all the liquid. Put all the ingredients into a food processor or blender and pulse until it is a fine sauce. Don't puree!!! there needs to be some texture to your sauce. This is pizza sauce, not ketchup. I use a hand blender and a measuring cup. This picture is old, I use a lot less oregano now. But you get the idea.

From That's Amore

Assembling the Pie
Shaping the pie takes some practice. I can describe it to you, but you need to make a bunch and learn the feel.

First, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it warm a couple hours.

Preheat your oven to 500F.

Put some flour on the counter, put the dough ball on it, and gently pat the ball into a disc. Turn it over several times so both sides are well floured. You don't want to dry out your dough by over-flouring, but you need to ensure it's not sticking. Once you get a fat disc, it's time to start stretching it.

From That's Amore

So lift the dough, and start to gently stretch the edges. The middle will begin to stretch to fit the edges. Once it gets loose, toss it hand to hand. The trick here is to gently tease it into a more or less uniform disc about 16 inches in diameter.

From That's Amore

If you feel adventurous, you can toss it overhead. I have had only small success actually tossing dough. Sometimes it works, more generally it doesn't. Be careful catching it, if you catch it on your fingers, you might well puncture your crust.

Once your dough is more or less the right size, place it on a well-greased pizza pan. Now's the hard part: gently shape it to the pan. Whatever you do, don't push the dough down onto the pan, lift and stretch. Using gentle lifting and teasing motion to shape the dough. If you keep upward motion, the pizza will be looser in the pan.

Once the pizza is in the pan, sauce it. Cover the crust, but don't overdo the sauce. Less is more.

Over the sauce, sprinkle some dried (ground) parmesan. This will add a hint of salt to the pie that's very subtle.

Over the parmesan, sprinkle mozzarella generously. It's easy to overdo the cheese, so use caution. But cover the pie up to the edges.

From That's Amore

Baking
I put my pizza stone on the bottom rack and but the top rack on the second-highest level.

The pizza goes on the top rack until the crust and cheese begin to brown. I used to put the pizza pan right on the stone, but I found I get better spring in the crust if I let it cook to firmness on a higher rack with more airflow.

Once the crust is starting to brown, I move the pan down to the stone. From this point, I check it every minute. When it's almost done, the pie will release from the pan. As soon as it releases, I slide the pan out from under the pizza and let the pizza finish on the stone. It only takes a minute or two, but the final couple minutes on the stone crisp up the crust and let the cheese caramelize a little.

If you do it right, you end up with a pie that's a little brown on the top, browned on the edges, and puffy on the edge, thinning in the middle.

From Pizza Reprise

So that's it. Let me know how this works for you.

Lasagna

I have a sort of sehnsucht for good lasagna. On Vancouver Island, pretty much any restaurant that advertises lasagna serves a wonderful concoction of pasta, rich brown meat sauce, and toasted cheese in a small casserole dish. What people cook and serve in their homes is more like the traditional lasagna you might find anywhere: a tomatoey, tangy sauce between somewhat dry layers of cheese and pasta.

When I left the Island, I realized that those lasagnas of my youth were in fact somewhat rare. I launched on a long quest to find lasagna, and ended up eating many cubes of layered tomato and pasta. I ordered lasagna in good Italian places, and got a very tangy, creamy, cheesey pile of noodles. The best lasagna I had of that sort was at Fontanella in Charlotte, NC.

But I was longing for the lasagnas of those elder days. The greatest of those is the lasagna of Romeo's Place in Nanaimo, Duncan, and Victoria.

But the key to my search was when I discovered Julianna Pizza and House of Pizza in Charlotte, NC. It was at Juliana that I first recognized a very important correlation, "Say, everywhere I find that makes the kind of lasagna I like is owned by Greeks..." And so I added a criterion to my list of lasagnas: only order lasagna where there is at least one picture of the Parthenon on the walls. I have yet to find a Greek-owned restaurant without at least a picture of the Parthenon on one wall and an ikon of the Theotokos on another.

When we moved back west, I took the opportunity of being back on the Island to revisit my lasagna haunts. Memory hadn't exaggerated the goodness: the lasagnas and baked ravioli were every bit as good as I had remembered.

So a couple months ago, I went out on a limb and googled "Greek meat sauce recipe". I was curious what I'd find. What do you know, I found some recipes for kima. It looked interesting, and got me to thinking...

For a couple months now, I've wondered if I'd been the victim of marketing. Although all the lasagnas I'd truly enjoyed were listed as "Italian Fare" in the menus of those Greek restaurants, what if they were actually Greek fare?

So yesterday, I googled "Greek meat sauce recipe" again, and picked what looked like a winner: http://www.grouprecipes.com/3403/greek-meat-sauce.html. It looked possible, so I decided to try it.

And while I was at it, I spent some time doing some "research" online, and found some interesting articles about Greek pasta dishes (here's one: http://www.in2greece.com/english/food/greek-pasta-dishes.html). And lo and behold, they claimed that pasta with meat sauce is extremely popular in Greece: they're eaten baked and steamed... like the pasta menu items at my favourite lasagna joints.

By now I was pretty sure I had figured it out: places like Romeo's were serving Greek pasta dishes and calling them "Italian Fare."

So last night I made the kima from that recipe. It ended up looking like this:

From Lasagna

That's promising. And the smell... it smells just like Romeo's...

Tonight we assembled it into some crocks we had bought to make onion soup (a story for another time). We used a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella, as we had asked one time what Romeo's uses to top their pastas:

From Lasagna

And we baked them long enough to put a little toast on that cheese:

From Lasagna

From Lasagna

The verdict? It's not Romeo's or San Marcos'. But it's very, very close. Like, we figured out how they make it and just need to tweak the recipe to taste.

This is a major breakthrough for me.