Flat is Beautiful V - Recap

Two people share pizza in a restaurant, as a sky-high viewpoint looks down on them. One notes that the other likes the pizza from that show “Tastes Good” or whatever it's called. His friend agrees, but states that while Alton's crust is thick and chewy, tonight she wants a pizza with a thin and charred crust like she had in Italy.

A few booths away, Alton is “happy to report” that this conversation was a dramatization. It never actually happened, but it could happen, and Alton wants to head that off. The original Good Eats pizza is chewy and puffy. Alton's willing to admit that one cannot thrive on a single pizza; some might want a crisp and thin pizza. To that end, he will revisit pizza to offer alternatives that will still qualify as... Good Eats!

When making dough, Alton has long favored allowing it to rise in cold conditions (such as those inside a refrigerator). Cold slows the life cycle of the yeast (here demonstrated by a sluggish sock puppet) and the rate at which it produces both carbon dioxide and flavor compounds. The slower rate of production allows rising dough more time to absorb these elements at an even rate, yielding a superior product. But there might be an ingredient that offers slow rise flavors at fast rise rates and temperatures.

Alton's dough starts with all-purpose flour (not bread flour). For a longer, slower rise he'd use bread flour because it contains more protein. But for a faster rise situation, the lower protein content of all-purpose flour will do. To that he adds rapid-rise yeast, prompting a discussion of the ways manufacturers sell yeast (along with an sock puppet show).

Cake yeast has that name not because it is used in cakes, but because it comes in the form of a cake that is mostly water (around 70%). Such yeast is live and ready for use as is, but this form is very perishable, so it is suitable only for those who bake frequently. Around the turn of the twentieth century active dry yeast appeared. This dried, granular form contains living yeast cells wrapped in capsules made mostly of dead cells (killed by the drying process). Active dry yeast must be proofed – dissolved in warm water – before it may be used. This washes away the dead cells and reanimates the living cells. That's a certain amount of work, and recipes must account for the extra liquid. Worse than that, the yeast in these packages is often less than robust, and takes a great deal of time to begin growing and producing the carbon dioxide needed for dough to rise. Rapid-rise yeast is a most recent innovation. Dried differently, it contains a higher percentage of living cells. It is also packaged with a dash of acid (citric or ascorbic) which helps it revive quickly.

To the flour and yeast mixture, Alton adds some kosher salt. Flouting common wisdom, he dumps that right onto the yeast. That brings him to the “wetworks.” These are water (heated to about 105° F), a little oil, and his secret ingredient, barley malt syrup.

Thick, brown barley malt syrup contains a lot of maltose, a disaccharide made of two glucose molecules. Manufacturers allow barley to germinate in water, which yields enzymes that disassemble the grain's starch reserves chiefly into maltose. They place germinated grain into a kiln which dries it, then mixed the dried grain with water and other cooked grain products. Enzymes further convert the starches, ultimately producing a slurry containing a lot of maltose. Filtration followed by slow cooking drives off water to produce a thick syrup that is mostly maltose. A home cook could certainly make barley malt syrup, but the investment of time, effort, supplies and equipment lead Alton to recommend purchasing it by the jar.

Yeast breaks maltose down very slowly, more slowly than sucrose (table sugar). Feeding them maltose ensures there will be food for a second rising phase, because the yeast will not be able to digest all of the maltose in the first rise.

Alton uses a dough hook to mix his ingredients until they just come together – roughly a minute and a half. At that point, he turns his to a higher speed to knead the dough, which will take fifteen minutes. Kneading cross-links the proteins gliadin and glutenin into net-like gluten, which forms the stretchy structure of the dough. Without this step, the dough would be crumbly.

To determine when his dough is ready, Alton uses the “window pane test”. He takes a small piece of the dough (which may be sticky) and forms a kind of mini-pizza by stretching and turning it. He holds this up to the light, looking for a mesh-like structure inside. When he sees this, he knows the dough is ready to rise.

Alton uses a small amount of oil to lubricate a tall container, then drops his ball of dough inside and covers it with a clean dish towel, setting a timer for one hour. While that rises, he considers his baking venue.

Conventional ovens top out around 550° F, which is too cool to bake pizza properly. Even if one were courageous (or foolhardy) enough to modify an oven to bake using its self-clean cycle, that only reaches about 800° F, still low by pizza oven standards. A real brick pizza oven often reaches an internal temperature of 1200° F. Since Alton does not (yet) own a pizza oven, he heads out of doors and to his gas grill for the heat he needs.

First he makes sure the grate is clean (since anything on it will be transferred to the pizza, after all), then he fires up all the burners and closes the lid, allowing the box to heat.
Back inside, the magic of television time means his dough has finished its first rise. Removing it from the container, he punches it down to remove any really large voids, and then weighs it. He'll need three equal portions, and weighing is the best approach to getting them. To split the dough, he rolls it into a kind of log and then uses a dough scraper to slice it.

He pounds out the first piece nice and flat, then punches it down a second time and folds it in on itself at the bottom, pinching it closed. Using is hands as a guide, he rolls this portion on the counter. His goal is a nice, evenly shaped ball with a smooth outer “skin”. That skin will simplify rolling later. Once he's satisfied with the first portion, he repeats this exercise twice more for the remaining two portions, then covers all three dough balls with a clean towel for a second (bench) rise of 45 minutes. The maltose in the mixture ensures that sufficient food remains to support the yeast for the bench rise. While the dough rises again, Alton builds a sauce.
To make that, he slices a tomato thinly and adds garlic, olive oil, kosher salt and red pepper flakes, setting that aside to marinate.

Operating a remote control, Alton reveals a collection of peels – broad, long-handled spatulas made of wood or metal used to load pizzas into the oven, move them around inside, and unload them when they're baked. Alton's choice is a wooden variety he has named “Emma”. Wood is easier for a home cook to use, and one may even safely cut the pizza right on the peel.

Again thanks to television time, Alton's dough has completed its second rise. First, he flours his peel. Those without a peel can use an inverted cookie sheet or any other large flat surface that can deliver pizza to an oven. Using his knuckles, he presses the dough into a round shape. For really thin pizza, he recommends rolling (his choice is a handle-less French-style rolling pin). He rolls the dough out to form a 12” to 16” disc, always rolling away from himself and turning the dough about a quarter turn between rollings. When he's done, he slides the dough onto his peel (the adventurous may throw it; the spinning motion further things the dough and helps even out the shape).

Alton brushes a little oil on his grill (using a rolled up towel), then turns the grill burners down to medium. Then he brushes a little more oil onto the pizza before using the peel to flip it onto the grill oiled side down. Next to it go those marinated tomatoes.

Two minutes later, that side is grilled. Alton oils the top side and then uses the peel to flip the pie. He also gathers the tomatoes and spreads them over the pizza, mashing them around to break them up before topping them with mozzarella and basil leaves. Two more minutes later, his fresh, hot, crispy pizz is ready. There will be some edge puffiness, but a few minutes cooling time will set that nice and crispy.

Alton shares his favorite combination for pizza next. It starts with fresh mozzarella, the kind sold packed in water or brine. Using paper towels, plates and a heavy can, Alton compresses this cheese to drive much of the water out of it. While that happens, he grabs a few thin slices of prosciutto and uses his pizza cutter to slice them into small pieces – once lengthwise per piece, and many times across the grain, creating pieces the size and shape of broad egg noodles.
That brings him to his secret ingredient: dates. These dried fruits of the date palm tree provide sticky sweetness to contrast the saltiness of the other ingredients. Using a pizza roller, Alton halves each date so he can remove its pit, then continues cutting each half into smaller pieces.
As before, Alton oils the grill's grate and one side of his raw pizza dough. This time he chooses a slightly higher grill temperature because he wants a little more char. In two minutes he oils the top side and flips the dough. A little more oil on the new top side (the cooked side), some Parmesan cheese, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, dates, and fresh thyme. Two more minutes later Alton's favorite pizza is ready: crispy and a little burnt around the edges, salty and sweet. Just the way he likes it.

Now Alton's only problem is choosing which delicious pizza to eat – and he solves that by stacking a piece from each pie!

But what about those city dwellers who can't grill? What can they do? Well, if they have a gas range, a cooling rack, and a pair of vise grip pliers, they can prepare a pizza. Everything about preparing the dough goes the same: the mixing, raising, bench proofing. Using a combination of rolling and stretching, Alton makes a rectangle that fits the cooling rack, then attaches a set of needle-nose style vise grip pliers to the rack. He oils, salts, and peppers the dough, then cooks it over the highest flame of the largest burner for a couple of minutes, ignoring any bubbles that form (the dough will be extra crispy in those places). When he's satisfied with the bottom color, he flips the dough, and oils/salts the other side, but skips the pepper here.

Alton cuts this while it is hot, favoring random geometric shapes, then allows these pieces to cool into chips. These pizza chips work well for dips (Alton demonstrates with hummus he has flavored with cumin seeds). They're deliciously crispy and good.

And for those who need their pizza even faster? Well, for them Alton can only recommend... The view pans to a pizza delivery man, who opens a box revealing a nasty-looking half-crushed pie.

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