Green Pizza
Growing up, my mother made pizza and artichokes every Friday night. It was my favorite end of the school week tradition. My mom grew up in Queens, New York on a diet that largely consisted of cheesy pizza. Even after moving to the West Coast, pizza remained her favorite food–the artichokes added a California twist!
I think she’d love this oblong green pizza that is packed with pesto, mozzarella, green bell peppers, and fresh basil from the garden. Tobi made this thin sourdough crust with doppio zero (00) flour dough. This type of flour has a lower gluten content (~12%) than bread flour (~14%) making it chewy but not too rubbery. Ask any Italian or bread connoisseur and they will tell you that 00 is the best for thin crust pizza.
Tobi and I love to get our flour from Central Milling in Petaluma, an employee-owned company that produces high quality and affordable milled flours.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup pesto
1 ball mozzarella (vegan mozzarella is okay but it will not melt the same)
1 bell pepper
handful fresh basil
red chili flakes
rice flour
pizza steel
pizza dough (recipe below)
Instructions:
Preheat pizza steel in the oven for 45 minutes with the broiler on. The steal should be in the lower-middle rack of the oven
Once the steel is heat and the pizza dough is ready for shaping, use your fingers to shape it. Maybe give it a toss like you see in the movies, but only if you can do so with confidence. The dough should be thin, but take care not to tear it.
Heavily Dust a pizza peel with rice flour before placing dough on top–this will prevent it from sticky and make for an easier transfer to the pizza steel.
Use the back of a spoon to spread the pesto across the top of the dough. It should come close to the edges, but not all the way to the edge. If the pesto drips over the edges, the dough will stick to the pizza peel making for a tumultuous transfer of the dressed dough to the pizza steel.
Cover every inch of pesto with fresh mozzarella cheese. Then cover pizza with green bell pepper, and a handful of fresh basil.
Carefully transfer the dressed dough to the pizza steel. Let it cook for ~4 minutes. You’ll know it is ready when the crust is a crispy brown and the cheese is golden and bubbly.
Recipe for Roberta’s pizza dough adapted by Sam Sifton:
Makes 2 thin crust pizzas
153 grams 00 flour (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon)
153 grams all-purpose flour (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons)
8 grams fine sea salt (1 teaspoon)
2 grams active dry yeast (3/4 teaspoon)
4 grams extra-virgin olive oil (1 teaspoon)
Combine flours and salt in large mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix 200 grams of room temperature water, yeast and olive oil. Pour mixture into flour mixture, and knead with hands for approximately 3 minutes until it’s well combined. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
Knead dough for another 3 minutes. Cut into 2 pieces and shape into a ball. Place on a floured surface and cover with a damp (and clean) cloth. Let it rise for 4 hours at room temperature. You can also let it rise overnight in the fridge (at least 8 hours). If you leave it in the fridge, let it come back up to room temperature before shaping it for pizza.