“Foolproof Thin-Crust Pizza"

Okay the truth is I have wanted to try this recipe for a long time.  And in fact you may see it again another month with a different ingredient!  But as we’ve seen with other Pancetta posts almost anything can have some gourmet bacon thrown on it and it will taste great.

I started talking pizza lingo with someone I work with and he convinced me I needed a pizza stone.  He also gave me a copy of the recipe “Foolproof Thin-Crust Pizza” by Andrew Janjigian from a Cook’s Illustrated magazine (the Jan/Feb 2011 edition).  Before starting with the recipe, the author sets off to prove the science behind the dough.  In summary, he believes the fluffy dough (that rises at room temperate) is less flavorful then the thin crust that rises in the refrigerator.  He also tests the screen pizza pan against the pizza stone and proves that you cannot achieve the same results with anything but the pizza stone.  (Pizza’s are dryer and more cracker-like on the pans.)

If I haven’t lost you yet let’s move onto the dough recipe (he offers a sauce and cheese recipe but the dough is about enough for me today.)

Ingredients:

3 cups of bread flour, plus more for dusting (he recommends Semolina flour for ‘dusting the peel’)

2 teaspoons of sugar

½ teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast

1 1/3 cup (10 oz) ice water (no ice but the water needs to be cold)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus a little more for surfaces

1 ½ teaspoon table salt

1.  In a food processor (I used my Blendtec but almost broke it) process flour, sugar, and yeast until combined.  With machine running slowly add water through feed tube; process until dough is just combined and no dry flour remains (10 seconds).  Let dough stand 10 minutes.  (missed this part, whoops)

2.  Add oil and salt to dough and process until dough forms satiny, sticky ball that clears sides of workbowl, 30 to 60 seconds.  Remove dough from bowl, knead briefly on lightly oiled countertop until smooth, 1 minute.  Shape dough into tight ball and place in large, lightly oiled bowl.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours and up to 3 days.

3.  One hour before baking pizza, adjust oven rack to second highest position, set pizza stone on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Remove dough from refrigerator and divide in half.  Shape each half into smooth, tight ball.  Place on lightly oiled baking sheet, spacing them at least 3 inches apart; cover loosely with a plastic wrap coated with nonstick cooking spray; let stand for 1 hour.

4.  Coat 1 ball of dough generously with flour and place on well-floured countertop.  Using fingertips, gently flatten into 8-inch disk, leaving 1 inch of outer edge slightly thicker than center.  Using hands, gently stretch disk into 12-inch round, working along edges and giving disk quarter turns as you stretch.  Transfer dough to well-floured peel and stretch into 13-inch round.  Using back of spoon or ladle, spread ½ cup tomato sauce in thin layer over surface of dough, leaving ¼ inch border around edge.  Sprinkle ¼ cup Parmesan evenly over sauce, followed by one cup mozzarella.  Slide pizza carefully onto stone and bake until crust is well browned and cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating pizza halfway through.  Remove pizza and place on wire rack for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

After reading this three page instructional article, I thought the end result would be an explosion in my mouth!  With such high expectations the little imperfections made it hard for me to make a fair assessment.  My husband ranted and raved, which gives me inspiration to try again.  A couple lessons learned:  go for the Semolina flour because the baking flour on the bottom of the pie didn’t add to the taste.  I turned my oven down to 450 after I put the pizza in to make the second pie not so brown.  The pizza stone was pretty great, although I think it takes some practice on how you take the pizza that is made up and transfer it to the pre-heated stone without it catching and scrunching up.

The next step will be perfecting the ingredients.  I may go on a pizza exploration over the upcoming winter months.  I'm ready for comfort food season to begin!

Spaghetti with Pancetta

I’d like to dedicate the following post to my sweet firstborn son, Ansen who just turned 5 on the 21^st! In honor of his birthday I made his favorite, favorite meal: spaghetti. But as any mom knows, multitasking is key and I wasn’t about to just make plain ‘ol spaghetti when I had the opportunity to turn this celebration into a blog post. So I made it with Pancetta, our ingredient of the month! I decided to make spin-off carbonarra recipe. Take out the egg, but add red sauce. There are seriously only 5 ingredients in this recipe so there is no excuse why you should not be making it (as long as you can find pancetta). Plus, everyone loved it so much the boys didn’t even wait for us to cut up their spaghetti and just started slurping it down as fast as they could. I love meals like that. They barely ever happen.

The following day we had Ansen’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and it was a truly horrifying experience. I know, you all warned me. And you were right. But the day will never come when he can call me a bad mom for never having taken him to Chuck E. Cheese. So at least there’s that. This is parenting.

Ingredients

1 package spaghetti

1 cup parmigiano reggiano cheese

1 cup tomato sauce/spaghetti sauce

1 package (aprx. 6-8 slices) pancetta

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Directions

Slice pancetta into strips or pieces and crisp in a deep sided pan. Boil spaghetti according to package directions. Add spaghetti sauce to cooked pancetta and heat. Reserve one cup of hot pasta water. Drain spaghetti and transfer the hot noodles into the pancetta sauce immediately and drizzle with olive oil. Mix. Add parmigaiano regiano cheese and slowly add reserved pasta water until desired saucy consistency is reached. Serve with a sprinkle of cheese—the kind we like. Not the Chuck E. kind. That is bad. Very bad.

Wait! You can't eat it yet. Mommy needs to take your bowl outside and take a picture of it. This is totally normal. Everyone does this.

Asher

Ansen - the birthday boy :)

Can't quite put your finger on what that expression is? As his mother I can tell you. This is Ansen's expression of complete trepidation. Over to the right there is this crazy looking Mouse Mascot dancing all around and he keeps trying to high-five me. I have one foot on the floor and an eye on the door.

 



Pasta al Forno with Pumpkin and Pancetta

It turns out pancetta is not the easiest ingredient to find. First I checked my regular grocery shopping locations; Costco, QFC and Safeway, but no luck. My mom told me Trader Joe’s carries it, so I went there, and yes there is a spot on their shelf for pancetta, but they were out! So finally I had my mom pick up some for me at Pacific Food Importers, a awesome store in Seattle where you can find all good food! And not only did my mom pick it up for me, but she delivered it to me at work. Is that a great mom, or what?

I found several pancetta recipes I want to try, but this one really stood out to me because it has pumpkin in it and even though we’re still having summer in the pacific northwest, I’m so excited for all things fall and pumpkin including Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin bread, Costco pumpkin pie and pumpkin risotto. What’s your favorite pumpkin dish?

I took the easy route and didn’t roast a pumpkin or squash, but just used canned pumpkin (Costco size!) which made this a totally doable, easy weeknight dinner. The canned pumpkin made the pasta dish a beautiful orange color and the pumpkin flavor blended so well with all the cheese and pancetta. Both Curtis and I loved it and it got me excited for fall comfort food!

Pasta al Forno with Pumpkin and Pancetta
Recipe from Food52.com

Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients: 
1 3-4 pound cheese pumpkin or butternut squash (I used a 29 oz. can of pumpkin instead)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
1/4 pound pancetta, diced
1 pound conchiglie rigate aka shells (I used rigatoni pasta)
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 pound shredded fresh mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano
1/2 cup fontina, coarsely grated
1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola
2 tablespoons ricotta
2 teaspoons chopped thyme leaves

Directions: 
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Halve the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds. Cut the pumpkin into 8 equal wedges and arrange on two baking sheets lined with foil. Sprinkle the wedges with salt and pepper and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Bake for about an hour, until the pumpkin is caramelized and tender when pierced with a sharp knife. Remove from the oven and let cool until you can handle the pumpkin without burning yourself. Or take the easy route like I did and use canned pumpkin. 

In the meantime, crisp the pancetta in a medium saucepan over medium heat, about 10 minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels, discarding the fat.

Turn the oven up to 500 degrees. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta for exactly 5 minutes, drain and run cool water over it for about 10 seconds. Set aside in the colander.

Scoop enough of the cooked pumpkin from the rind to make 2 cups. Combine this with the cream in a blender and puree just until smooth (be careful not to overblend, or you’ll whip the cream). Scoop out some more of the pumpkin (you probably won’t need the whole thing) and chop roughly to make about a cup and a half. Since I just used canned pumpkin, I skipped the blender and added the pumpkin and cream to the pan I cooked the pancetta in and stirred it up! 

Combine the pumpkin and cream puree with the cheeses, salt, thyme and pancetta in a large bowl and stir gently to combine. Add the pasta and the chopped pumpkin and fold together just until combined.

Spread the pasta evenly in a casserole or baking dish. Bake uncovered for 7 to 10 minutes, until the top is browned and the bottom layer of pasta is just tender.

Yacht Chef Spaghetti Carbonara

Megan Says:  You all requested a post from Michelle, our yacht chef, so here you go!  I attempted Kale Carbonara a while back but this carbonara recipe made with pancetta is even better! This is a crew and guest favorite. Bon Appetite!

Michelle says:  OK so Megan Me Crazy has asked me to write my first blog post ever. My apologies if this is not up to scratch but I will do my best. My mother taught me to cook when I was quite young. I had no choice. I just had to. It kind of stayed with me. I studied in Cork, Ireland and in 1999, after 3 years of studying 40 hours a week, working 40 hours and, what felt like partying 40 hours a week, I somehow qualified. After being verbally abused and suffering the chef’s wrath for so many years, I swore I would never step foot in a professional kitchen ever again. Well … 13 years later, here I am … still working in a professional kitchen/galley. I just hope I am a little bit nicer … sometimes!

My contribution to “Beauties and the Feast” is Spaghetti Carbonara with PANCETTA.

One of my selling points as a chef, is cooking healthy, with lots of taste, and less of the carbs and fat. You can “Americanize” this dish by adding some fresh cream but to be honest, it is so delish if made just right you really should not need to.

Glorious Pancetta

Pancetta is often called Italian bacon. That's a true enough description, but unlike American bacon, which is most often smoked, pancetta is unsmoked pork belly that is cured in salt and spices such as nutmeg, pepper and fennel. It's then dried for a few months. Pancetta adds a distinctive pork flavor to pasta and other dishes, without infusing into them bacon's smokiness. In the U.S., it's a common substitute for “guanciale,” which is the cured pork cheek that is the traditional base for many classic pastas, like carbonara.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Ingredients:
* 1 pound dry spaghetti
* 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (Here is a tip: don’t EVER skimp on good olive oil. Ever)
* 4 ounces pancetta, cubed or sliced into small strips
* 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
* 1 punnett baby bella mushrooms (optional)
* 2 large eggs
* 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, plus more for serving
* Freshly ground black pepper
* 1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
* Red pepper flakes to taste if you like a bit of kick

The key here is to prepare the sauce while the pasta is cooking to ensure that the spaghetti will be hot and ready when the sauce is finished. It is very important that the pasta is hot when adding the egg mixture, so that the heat of the pasta cooks the raw eggs in the sauce.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (I always add the salt only after the water is boiling) add the pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until tender yet firm (as they say in Italian "al dente.") Drain the pasta well, reserving 1 cup of the starchy cooking water to use in the sauce if you wish.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium flame. Add the mushrooms and sauté for about 3 minutes. Set aside. Add pancetta and saute for about 3 minutes, until it is crisp and the fat is rendered. Toss the garlic into the fat and sauté for less than 1 minute to soften. Add the mushrooms and hot, drained spaghetti to the pan and toss for 2 minutes to coat the strands in the bacon fat.

Beat the eggs and Parmesan together in a mixing bowl, stirring well to prevent lumps. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the egg/cheese mixture into the pasta, whisking quickly until the eggs thicken, but do not scramble (this is done off the heat to ensure this does not happen.) Thin out the sauce with a bit of the reserved pasta water, until it reaches desired consistency. Season the carbonara with several turns of freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste.

Mound the spaghetti carbonara into warm serving bowls and garnish with chopped parsley. Pass shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and red chili flakes around the table and ENJOY!