Pan Pizzas: Caramelized Onion & Mushroom | Sausage, Pepperoni & Mushroom
As it turns out, making pizza dough isn’t difficult, and doesn’t require much to make.
For the dough, nearly three cups of flour, 2 tsp. kosher salt, and 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast mixed in a large bowl. Added 10oz room temp water, and formed into a ball. The original recipe called for two cups of flour, but the dough was too wet, so I added small amounts of flour until it was solid and no wet parts remained on the outside.
Placed dough in another large mixing bowl coated with olive oil, covered with plastic wrap (closed tight with a rubber band), let rise for six hours at room temp, then put in the fridge overnight. Apparently dough rises faster at room temp, but develops more flavor at colder temps, so I did both.
Today, first thing I made was the pizza sauce. One can of whole tomatoes (28oz), dried oregano, dried basil, red pepper flakes, three cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, and a little olive, blended in a food processor. Started with a little bit of each seasoning, adding more of whichever flavors weren’t coming through enough as time went on. Best I can tell, the sauce is perfect when you’re tempted to eat it on its own.
Added a tiny pool of olive oil to the two round bake pans I used, then put an equal sized piece of dough into each pan, stretched out to the sides. It won’t stretch all the way at first, so I covered for nearly an hour at room temp, then stretched the rest of the way.
For the toppings, I caramelized one and a half onions, sautéed two small packages of mushrooms, then browned and diced four Italian sausages (without casing). Also used some packaged, pre-sliced pepperoni. For the cheese, a mix of shredded cheddar and shredded low-moisture mozzarella. Note on the sausage: cook through, but nothing more. Otherwise it’ll start to burn in the oven (like it did for me).
Spread just enough sauce (with room for crust on the edges) on each pizza so that I could still see a little dough underneath, then added the cheese mixture, then the toppings, then brushed the crust with a little olive oil. Baked at 450° for almost 20mins, and done.
Make your own:
•Pizza Dough & Sauce*
•Caramelized Onions
•Sautéed Mushrooms
Recipes used in the meal above accompanied by an asterisk *.
