Sunday, August 30, 2009

Homemade #2 - Eggplant


Ingredients
Lightly pan-fried eggplant from our garden (very thin)
1/4 lb Fresh Mozz from Woodstock Meats
Don Pepino Pizza Sauce
Bonelli EV Olive Oil
110g Filtered Water (Room Temp)
168g Bread Flour
1 tsp Iodized Salt
1 tsp Active Dry Yeast

Making the Pizza
Combined and mixed ingredients for 10 sec, let sit for 15 min
Mixed with spoon for 6 minutes, let sit for 10 min
Kneeded for 2-3 minutes, shaped, let sit for 5 min
Placed in plastic container in fridge (few drops of evoo on bottom)
Left in fridge for 24 hours, took out 1 hour prior to baking

Preheated oven to 500 for 30 minutes w/Pizza Stone on lowest shelf
Shaped pizza, added small amount of fine cornmeal to bottom and placed on peal
Added sauce
Added eggplant
Added mozzarella pieces opposite eggplant
Quick/light drizzle of olive oil
Baked for 10 minutes exactly

Results
Crust browned up nicely and was crispier than last time, was expected as I cooked at 500...much better, yet the crust still still had a good amount of springiness. Eggplant and Mozz was delicious too!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Homemade #1 - Eggplant

Ingredients
Lightly pan-fried eggplant from our garden (very thin)
Fresh Mozzarella from Leonardo's
Don Pepino Pizza Sauce
Olive Oil (not sure what kind)

110g Filtered Water (Room Temp)
168g Bread Flour
6g Iodized Salt (maybe more by accident)
1 tsp Active Dry Yeast

Making the Pizza
Combined and mixed for 2 minute, let sit for 20
Kneeded adding bread flour to prevent sticking for 8 minutes, let sit for 5 min
Placed in plastic container with loose top in fridge (thin coat of evoo)
Left in fridge for 3 hours, took out 1 hour prior to baking

Preheated oven to 450 for 20 minutes w/Pizza Stone
Shaped pizza, added small amount of fine cornmeal and put on peal
Added sauce
Added eggplant
Added 12(?) mozzarella pieces (approx 1x1inch or smaller) opposite eggplant
Quick/light drizzle of olive oil

Baked for 10 minutes
Remove from oven and sprinkle 5 leaves of sliced basil freshly harvested from Garden

Results
The crust was the best I have ever made! The middle of the pizza was thin and crispy while the crust had some crisp, but still had the "springiness" that I had been missing in the past. I would have liked to let the crust brown a few minutes longer, but I didn't want to leave it in too long.

The mozzarella was great, just the right amount. I made the eggplant as thin as I could and it really paid off, when taking a bite of pizza...you could bite in the middle of a piece of eggplant and the whole piece and surrounding cheese wouldn't come flying off.

I think my biggest mistake was the amount of salt, my scale increments by 5 and I needed 6 grams of salt. When measuring I thought I was just past 5, but may have been closer to 10. The salt wasn't overpowering, but it was noticeable.

Overall, it was a success. It was by far the best pizza I have ever made, but I learned a few lessons and am sure I can do better next time. Will be sure to take a picture of future results.