Broiled Neapolitan-Style Pizza

Ingredients

• About 12 ounces crushed San Marzano tomatoes or another variety of premium plum tomato
• Kosher salt
• No-knead pizza dough
• About 20 thin slices sweet or hot sopressata (optional)
• About 4 cups fresh mozzarella
• Parmigiano-Reggiano
• A couple large handfuls of basil chiffonade
• Extra virgin olive oil

Procedure

1. Season tomatoes lightly with salt. Place in a strainer lined with cheesecloth or paper towels and set over a bowl to drain excess liquid. Reserve strained tomato juice for another purpose.

2. Turn broiler on high to preheat. Place the largest cast iron skillet you have under the broiler, on the stove over maximum heat, or on a ripping hot grill. After about 20 minutes, both the broiler and the skillet should be hot enough.

3. Roll out or stretch pizza dough as thin as possible on a floured cookie sheet. (If you have a pizza peel, roll it out on the counter then transfer it to the peel.) Immediately top with tomatoes, sopressata, and mozzarella, torn into large chunks.

4. Invert skillet and transfer pizza to underside. Slide under the broiler as close to the heating element as possible without generating copious smoke. Cook until dough is puffy and well-charred, about 3 or 4 minutes, rotating skillet 180 degrees halfway through cooking to brown crust evenly.

5. Remove excess flour from crust with a pastry brush and transfer pizza to a plate. Top with finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, basil, and a light drizzle of olive oil. Slice and serve.

No Knead Pizza Dough

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 cups room temperature water
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

Procedure

1. Whisk together flours, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. Incorporate water and olive oil with your hands or with a dampened stirrer until flour is fully hydrated and there are no dry lumps.

2. Drizzle some olive oil around the perimeter of the dough to prevent sticking. Cover with plastic wrap and store in a warm, dry place, such as an oven with the pilot light on, for 12 to 24 hours to let rise.

3. Punch down dough, turn out onto a surface lightly dusted with bread flour, and let rest for 20 minutes. Divide dough into 4 rounds of equal size. Place each round on a heavily floured cotton (not terrycloth) tea towel, flour the top of each round, and fold up the edges of the towels to cover. Let rest for 1 to 2 hours.

4. Working quickly to prevent sticking, turn out dough rounds one at a time onto a heavily floured cookie sheet and roll out as thinly as possible. You don't have to make a perfect circle of dough.

5. Top as desired and bake at the highest possible heat.

Baked Doughnuts

Don't over bake these, if anything, under bake them a bit - they will continue baking outside the oven for a few minutes. You want an interior that is moist and tender - not dry. Also, be sure to cut big enough holes in the center of your doughnuts - too small and they will bake entirely shut. Remember they rise, and they rise even more when they are baking. These really need to be made-to-order, but you can make and shape the dough the night before if you want to serve them for brunch. Instructions: after shaping, place doughnuts on baking sheet, cover and place in the refrigerator overnight. Pull them out an hour before baking, and let rise in a warm place before baking.

1 1/3 cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees (divided)
1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour (alternately, white whole wheat might work - haven't tried it yet)
A pinch or two of nutmeg, freshly grated
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. This is where you are going to need to make adjustments - if your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place (I turn on the oven at this point and set the bowl on top), and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. Most people (like myself) don't have a doughnut cutter, instead I use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes - start checking around 8. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. Eat immediately if not sooner.

Makes 1 1/2 - 2 dozen medium doughnuts.