A while back, the folks over in the Food Lab at Serious Eats got my attention, as they so often do, with a salivation-inducing headline – Deep Fried Pizza.
The purist in me scoffed. The fatty in me clicked.
Fried pizza has been making the rounds in New York over the last year, so it’s bound to find a home in Atlanta. I have no interest in waiting so I promptly got to work in the kitchen.
The dough is basically a lower hydration version of Jim Lahey’s () no-knead pizza dough.
I made four that evening. To put it short, they are good, but not foolproof – more practice is needed. This methodology isn’t going to satisfy a true Neapolitan seeker, though I enjoyed the crisp exterior and thicker puffier interior with substantial chew. A nice change from the ordinary.
There were some sauce leakage through the holes in the dough, though my sauce was a little thinner than I normally like. The first couple must have been too thick, as the dough puffs up quite a bit and the inside was a little raw and gummy. On the second set of two pies I stretched the dough much thinner (could have gotten even thinner if I was patient and let the gluten relax) and enjoyed the texture much more.
By pressing down the center of the pie with my spider, it sometimes created this unnatural lip between the cornicione and the rest of the bottom of the pie, so the pizza wasn’t completely flat.
I also had problems getting my dried (Polly-o) cheese to melt, which may be another reason to use fresh mozz, but it’s all I had on hand. I ended up using a torch on the cheese so that the crust wouldn’t burn while I waited for it to melt.
frying
classic with fresh oregano
side boob
“Mexican Pizza” – beans, cheese, sausage, salsa, scallions, cilantro, sour cream