Empire State Pizza

My friends and I decided we wanted to do a pizza and game night. Originally, the games were supposed to be of the board game nature. The "game" portion of pizza and game night ended up turning into Patriots vs. Jets and "night" turned into an 11:30am kickoff. I had my usual spread, spinach and artichoke dip, onion dip, chips, margaritas, etc. I was planning on just ordering in pizza but decided instead to take on an adventure of making homemade New York Style pizza.

Mushroom and Sausage pizza, yum!



Nalani snapped a pic of the spread

I had bought a pizza stone a couple weeks ago and decided I would need another since I had to make multiple pizzas. I stopped at Target and got a pizza stone kit. It friggin cracked in half when I made the first pizza! Fail. Anyways, the pizzas ended up coming out really good so I'm gonna go ahead and share the recipe for the dough and sauce. I usually make my own recipes but this one I got from a website. The biggest tip I have is to preheat your oven to 500 degrees with the stones inside. This website doesn't tell you this until the very bottom of the recipe. My issue with that is if I hadn't read that I may have not given myself enough time to be able to preheat the stones for one hour.

Pizza Dough

http://www.recipepizza.com/doughs/ny_style.htm

Ingredients Required

• 1 1/2 cups warm water (105F)
• 4 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 1/2 teaspoon of granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of yeast
• 1/2 cup cornmeal

 Step by Step Procedure

1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar and salt in water.
2. Add oil and flour and stir with heavy spoon for 1 minute.
3. Turn out to a lightly floured surface and press into a circle.
4. Sprinkle yeast evenly over dough and knead for 12 minutes.
5. Divide dough into portions: 6 oz. for Calzones, 18 oz. for 12 inch, 25 oz. for 15 inch
6. Roll each portion into a ball. You want a dough ball without visible seams except the bottom.
7. Place dough balls in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to proof for 1−2 hours at room temperature to use the same day, or store in refrigerator to use the next day.
8. Place dough ball on lightly floured surface, and lightly flour the top. Use fingertips to evenly flatten out the dough ball. Work from the edges to the center press dough into a 12" circle. Place both hands within the shell edge and stretch with fingertips and palms maintaining an even pressure. Or, use a lightly floured rolling pin to stretch to desired shape.
9. Sprinkle cornmeal or semolina on pizza peel (a wooden paddle with a handle to slide the pizza in the oven) or a cutting board. The cornmeal allows the pizza to slide onto the stone easily.
10. After topping the pizza, when you are ready to cook it. Shake the peel or cutting board to make sure none of the dough is sticking.
11. Carefully slide the pizza into the oven.
12. Bake in a 500 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until crust is golden.

For the sauce, I chose to use their uncooked sauce recipe because it seemed more along the lines of what I would have made for the sauce myself. They also have a cooked sauce recipe on the site.

Pizza Sauce
http://www.recipepizza.com/sauces/uncooked_pizza_sauce.htm

Ingredients Required

• 28 oz. of can crushed tomatoes
• 3 oz. of tomato paste
• 4 tbsps. Pecorino Romano
• 1 tsp Oregano
• 2 tbsps. minced fresh garlic
• 1 tbsp. black pepper
• 3 tsps. of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of dried basil

 Step by Step Procedure

1. Whisk all together.
2. Allow flavors to blend for one hour before using.

Feeling confident before the game that the Pats were gonna win...

Needing a drink after they lost...