-From special guest pizza bloggers, Lena and Joanna-
On February 11, 2008, a revolutionary declared from a kitchen in Chicago: "It is my firm belief that the current economic crisis in America can be attributed to the low-quality, high-price, corporate lobbyist pizza crooks who prevent millions of Americans from eating high quality, affordable, healthy pizzas every day. Frozen pizzas in supermarkets, and chain pizza restaurants are ruining America."
This crisis has not been manifested more perfectly or grotesquely than in the pizza roll.
This crisis has not been manifested more perfectly or grotesquely than in the pizza roll.
Americans, it is time to stop buying these machine-made, artificial grease-and-sauce turds with your credit cards. The ingredients are in your cabinets. They are in your local market. The labor is in your hands. The knowledge, on this blog:
HOMEMADE PIZZA ROLLS
Methods
We began with Pete-za's recipe for homemade pizza dough
[http://pete-za-pizza.blogspot
We kneaded the dough as instructed, but instead of flattening out one big dough ball, we separated it into mini dough balls and flattened them into thinner, mini crusts.
This step presented our first obstacle. Mini dough does not flatten well into rectangular shapes. Pizza rolls are rectangles, we thought. This isn't right. But then, we realized: THEIR pizza rolls are rectangles. We moved on.
Once our nascent rolls were flattened, we covered them with sauce. About an hour earlier, we had softened diced baby portabella mushrooms, diced red pepper, and chopped garlic in some red wine that had been sitting on the counter for a couple months. (We predicted--and we believe accurately so--that these ingredients would not soften as well within a roll as they would in the open air of an extremely hot oven.) We combined these with pieces of chopped fresh mozzarella, salt, and freshly ground black pepper.
We folded each pizza package over once, sealing the edges with our thumbs, being careful not to allow sauce or toppings to hemorrhage onto the counter or ourselves.
At this step, it did not occur to us to seal the roll all the way around its perimeter, including the folded edge. We believe this would have yielded a more roll-like result, in contrast to the calzone-ish appearance of this first batch.
We transferred the rolls to a well-oiled pizza stone that had been covered in flour and cornmeal. With our oven preheated to 425 degrees, we set our timer for 14 minutes (an estimate). The bottom side of the rolls appeared to be well-baked in that amount of time, so we turned
each roll over for another 14 minutes in the oven.
Results
The rolls were crisp and crusty on the outside while doughier toward the center, which one taster characterized as a "good mouth feel." The flavor of the red-wine softened veggies and garlic came through the higher crust ratio nicely. The fresh mozzarella, though thoroughly
melted as hoped, was overpowered by the breadiness of the roll's crusty shell.
Further experimentation with stronger-flavored ingredients (more spices, fresh basil, more garlic, or pepperoni, for example) and a more powerful cheese (Parmesan would be a good choice) is certainly warranted. Overall, however, the homemade pizza roll was a triumphant
departure from Totinos and would serve as a delicious snack or meal, or even as an appetizer for your next local meeting of democratic pizza chefs.
In solidarity,
Lena and Joanna
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