Cast Iron Pizza

I have made quite a few cast iron pizzas.  I think it's safe to say that it's a no-fail dish to make.  Once you have a pizza dough to work with, it takes about 12 minutes to make one pizza end-to-end.  We usually make multiple of them consecutively so we can feed the whole family.  The toppings can be anything cooked.  Usually, we use delicious leftover food as the toppings, for example, the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.  In this blog post, we will show you how we usually make the dough and the pizza.






The Recipe

The Skillet

I use a 10" cast iron skillet for this recipe.

The Dough

  • 200g of all-purpose flour.  I tried 250g and it worked.  The dough was drier and bigger.  I am sure you can safely do 180-190g as well.  In that case, the dough will be more wet and stickier.  You can add more oil to the dough so it's easier to work with, just like working with the dough for bread.
  • 1/4 tea spoon of active dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup of warm water.  The water here can be warm enough so your fingers feel it's hot.  But it must not burn you.
  • 1 tea spoon of sugar
  • A pinch of salt
  • 1/2 - 1 tea spoon of cooking oil

Instructions

  1. Mix the dry ingredients well in a mixing bowl.
  2. Add the cooking oil.
  3. Incorporate the warm water.
  4. Knead the dough for about 5-10 minutes until it's smooth without lumps.
  5. Oil the dough and the side of the mixing bowl.  So later on it's easier to get the dough out.
  6. Let the dough rise overnight.  I tried letting it rise for over 50 hours.  It worked well.  I usually just cover the mixing bowl with a piece of plastic and leave it on the kitchen counter.

Tomato Sauce

  • 1 can of whole tomatoes.  I usually buy "CENTO Tomatoes Peeled With Basil Leaf Whole" from Costco.  WARNING: You don't need the whole can.  For a 10" pizza, 4 table spoons would be enough.  I'll cover how to make the sauce below.
  • Some dry herbs of your choice.  I use basil or oregano.
  • 1/2 tea spoon of cooking oil.
  • Optionally, a pinch of salt
  • Optionally, a pinch of sugar

Instructions

  1. Mix all the ingredients well.  Remember for a 10" pizza, you most likely need only 4 table spoons of tomato sauce.  You don't want to flood the pizza with more tomato sauce.  It will rise to the surface of the pizza after it's baked.
I usually pour the tomatoes from its can and grind it down with a tiny food processor.  See the video below for the technique.

The Pizza

  • 1-2 table spoons of cooking oil
  • 4 table spoons of tomato sauce
  • 2 table spoons of grated parmesan cheese
  • 4 Mozzarella cheese strings for kids.  You can try other types of cheese.  I prefer drier cheese.
  • Toppings of your choice.  Some ideas below.
    • Leftover chicken breast
    • Corns.  We use canned ones.
    • Ham or other cooked meat slices for sandwiches
    • Olives.  We use canned ones.
    • Pineapples
    • Onions
    • Shallots
    • Bell peppers
    • Pepperoni
    • Bacon
    • Broccoli
    • Italian sausages

Instructions

  1. Make sure your cast iron skillet is seasoned.  Add cooking oil to the skillet and spread it evenly across.
  2. Sprinkle some Kosher salt, black pepper, dried herbs on the skillet.  Or you can use cornmeal if you have some.  This is to make sure the pizza dough won't stick to the pan.  If you are very confident with the seasoning of your cast iron skillet, you don't have to add these things.
  3. Prepare the cheese and the toppings by chopping them into pieces.
  4. Stretch the dough to pie shape so it covers the bottom of the skillet.  I usually do this by hand in the air.  The gravity will help you.  Don't worry if it fails.  You can always start over by making the dough a ball again.
  5. Now your skillet should be covered by the dough.  Put the skillet on the stove and turn on the heat.  I use medium high.  My burner has a 1-9-High scale.  In my case, I use 6.5.
  6. Set up the timer for 8 minutes.
  7. Spread the parmesan cheese onto the dough evenly
  8. Spread the tomato sauce evenly on the dough.  I use the back of a spoon to smooth it out across.
  9. Spread the cheese evenly on the dough.  You can add the ingredients that are easily to get burned underneath the cheese.
  10. Layer the toppings on.
  11. Wait till the 8 minutes are up.
  12. Broil the pizza in the oven for about 4 minutes, till the cheese is browned to your liking.
  13. Rest the pizza on a cooling rack for 10-20 minutes.
  14. Run a butter knife around the edge of the pizza.  This is so the pizza will release more easily.
  15. Shake the pan a bit until the bottom of the pizza is released from the pan.
  16. Move the pizza to a pizza plate or something else on which you can cut and serve the pizza.
  17. Enjoy!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Family RV Trip and Tips

Image
The Trip We were lucky enough to have a long break.  We went on a 25-day RV trip to multiple national and state parks in Utah, Nevada, and California.  We had originally planned to go across the US in 33 days.  Looking back, it was a good decision not to do so.  On this trip, we saw snow, deserts, the ocean, and mountains.  It is as if we went through four seasons in 25 days.  When we got home, for the last night we had the RV, my daughter and I boondocked right outside our home to close the book properly.  In this blog post, I will go through different aspects of the RV we rented and the RV life we lived.  It is not meant for the trip itself.  I hope this blog post can be useful to people who are thinking about trying out an RV for the first time. How to Get an RV Rent We rented the RV from Cruise America .  I believe they are the largest RV rental chain in the world.  The quality of the RV as well as the service you get seem to de...
Read more

Northern California and Southern Oregon Epic Trip

Image
The Epic Thanksgiving Trip Lava Beds, Crater Lake, Lake Shasta Caverns A few days before Thanksgiving, we embarked on a trip to northern California and southern Oregon.  Little did I know it'd become the best trip under one week we've ever been on.  It was a possibility for some sections of roads to require traction devices.  I think the trip ended up being so fun due partially to the potential severe weather.  If nothing else, we kept the expectations quite low.  It was going to be wet and cold.  We hit the road anyway thinking in worst case, we'd be stuck in a hotel somewhere, which would in itself be an experience.  For the weather, we brought the following items. SAE Class S snow cables.  Our Subaru Forest doesn't allow chains. Knee pads. A backup driver side windshield wiper. A tiny shovel and a small hoe for removing snow and ice around the tires. Gloves as snow and ice can injure hands easily. The video below demonstrates how to install the...
Read more