Kathleen Flinn‘s Pizza Grillée, Sauce Tomates aux Herbes et à l’Ail
The most awesome and fabulous Genie Sea at Reality Insanity commented on my post about travelling the world through food her desire to go to Italy. Although homemade gnocci is still a little out of my league (but not impossible, I will try this one day!) I thought I would start with pizza instead. Shell, soon we will go to France together, perhaps next week through some kind of pastry?
I wish I could share the entire recipe with you but author and Cordon Bleu chef extraordinaire Kathleen Flinn does not have her recipe online so I will respect her copyright and just talk about technique with you. I will be reviewing her book The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School
Pizza dough is simple. All you need is some dry yeast, water, flour, oil, sugar and salt and you have everything required. I know working with yeast can be intimidating. All you got to do is make sure the water is warm, not hot or cold. What does that mean? Make sure it is just warmer than body temperature. Like a baby’s bottle, or so I’m told…LOL. I took a risk by using breadmaker’s yeast, the bottle said you can use it like normal yeast so that’s what I did. I put it in warm water with a little sugar and let it sit and “proof” for 15 minutes.
I tell you, I was tempted to use my breadmaker when I was running out of time and had an appointment in the afternoon because if my yeast didn’t work, I would come home to this tiny little dough and have nothing for dinner. Money is tight right now, I couldn’t just order a pizza when I got home to a potential disaster so this was a risk. But I did this entirely by myself with my own hands. If I can do this, you can do this! And look!
Thankfully this is what I came home too! Oh and all those flecks? Italian herbs! Yummy!
I brought out my $9.99 cast iron stovetop seasoned grill pan and turned up the heat until the grill was pretty darn hot. I tore off a piece of dough and made this rustic looking pizza crust and grilled it for three minutes on each side. If you don’t have a grill, I bet you could could fry it up in a frying pan as well. The idea is to cook the dough before it goes in the oven.
After grilling/frying it on both sides, add your sauce, toppings and cheese and put it under the broiler to warm up the toppings and melt the cheese. I even made Kathleen’s pizza sauce which was very good and was inspired by her list of toppings to create this pizza. The artichoke hearts were a wonderful addition to my pizza palette.
I know that times are hard for a lot of people and suddenly those who would just pick up the phone and order a pizza when they are hungry no longer can do so because of financially challenging times. Not to worry, you can still eat pizza! You don’t have to pay $25 for it either. A lot of what goes into a pizza is probably in your pantry and/or fridge. It just takes a little time and effort but you can still enjoy this delicious food and when you make it yourself it’s healthier. I used lower-fat fresh mozzarella cheese and vegetarian no-fat pepperoni.
These basic foodie tutorials will be offered for free here because I believe everyone really needs to know the basics of preparing food. I will be offering later on advanced classes for a nominal feel and let me know if you’re interested in joining my free foodie club. I’m thinking of putting up a recipe for us to do once a week together. Food is so much fun! I hope you join me on this adventure. Who knows where in the world we’ll go through food.
Wow, that looks amazing. I absolutely love the feel of yeast-risen dough. How would you make the dough it in the breadmaker?
I love the idea of your foodie club and lessons! You’ve got so much food wisdom to share, Suzie. What a treasure.
Wow! THis pizza looks awesome! I’ve never attempted making my own crust – but as I’m changing my diet for my diabetes diagnosis, I’m guessing that this would be a healthier option for me than takeout pizza!
I have a small stove-top grill pan – so I could make individual size pizzas I think! I totally love your idea of the basics here, and then an advanced class! I’m in whenever you get it going!! 🙂
YUM! You can buy uncooked balls of frozen pizza dough in the bakery section at Sobeys. They are quite good really and are about $1.75 each. Worth a try:)
Recipes have no copyright. It is the way the recipe is written down,(the words)that have the copyright. There are so many similar recipes out there that it is an impossible task to police them and claim copyright to one. I published a cookbook and had to check on that.
Oh yum I want pizza for breakfast! I have been buying the 1.50 dough at the store and cheese and then use the spaghetti sauce we already have for pasta. I hadn’t thought of grilling it so I should try that next time. Thanks for the tips!
Jamie, it’s true, there’s nothing like the feel of fresh risen dough! The breadmaker has a dough setting so it’ll do all the hard work for you if you want and then you can shape it and bake it up as rolls, pizza….in your own oven.
Thank Tammy! Absolutely, you could use your grill pan, that’s a great idea and yes, it’s so much better for us to make it ourselves. I like doing the individual size, that way I stopped myself from eating too much.
Alice, I had no idea Sobeys sold the dough, that’s great, especially if you don’t have time. I like trying and doing things myself but that isn’t always an option. I had no idea recipes had no copyright! Wow! OK, that’s interesting, thanks for letting me know.
MagicalMuse, you know, I bet you could make a breakfast pizza?! Absolutely, if you prefer just buy the dough but do try grilling/frying it, what a difference it makes!
It took a few moments to comment because I had to wipe the drool off the keyboard! 🙂
Grazie Mille! 🙂
Wow! That’s an amazing way to make pizza. I’ve never even thought of that. It looks SO yummy.
I am looking forward to going to France next week for some delicious pastries. My mouth waters just thinking about it.
Genie Sea, wow, I guess I was successful in bringing Italy to you!
Tori, the smokey flavour of cooking the dough on the grill is out of this world, you would love it.
Shell, I can’t tell you how excited I am to go to France with all of you through food. Now I just have to find a recipe!
Hi, Suzie!! SO glad (like all of us 🙂 that you’re back!! & what a great idea to grill the crust first!
I just found a fun pizza post on the kitchen sink recipes.com – a gal who had been to Italy & talked about making the dough very thin, & putting it on a piece of baking parchment – then adding just a tiny bit of sauce (2 T for a 10″er) & a few slices of buffalo mozarella & 3 thin slices of proscutio, preheating the oven VERY HOT (450-500*) with a pizza stone on the bottom shelf, then sliding the pizza (with oven mitts & the parchment paper) onto the stone! Bake only 5 min, ‘watch like a hawk’ to bake longer.
She tops the pizza with fresh arugula (YUM) & a drizzle of olive oil!!
I haven’t made it yet – used to make pizza when my kids were young, but haven’t done a homemade one for quite awhile! SHe sug. the dough recipe from ‘the fresh loaf.com’ – & cutting the dough into 4ths, freezing each in a little bag (spritzed with oil) so you have your own frozen dough!
I’ve been loving COCONUT & got some coconut flour – made some yummy things using 1/2 C coconut flour in a recipe with ww flour.
I am so loving this new blog Suzie! I think I could use my cast iron fajita skillet for this…..
Thank you so much for the welcome back Dia! 🙂
Oh I wish I had a pizza stone, if I did I would totally use it that way. I had to keep my crust kind of think because of the grilling. I will add the drizzle of olive oil for sure, the good stuff so I can get those Omegas!
I had no idea there was such a thing as coconut flour! I’ll have to look into that.
Oh thank you so much Kim! Absolutely, you could use your cast iron skillet for this!