White Pizza

Italian Dinner Recipes

Dough 4 – 4 1/2 c. flour 1 tsp. salt 1/2 c. warm water 2 Tbsp. dry yeast (2 packets) 2 tsp. brown sugar 3 Tbsp. olive oil 1 c. water Topping 2 Tbsp. butter 2 Tbsp. flour 1 c. milk 1/2 c. browned ground beef (optional) 4-6 cloves garlic, crushed 1-2 c. mozzarella cheese

A delicious garlicky white pizza. If you're a New Haven Pepy's Pizza fan, then there probably ought to be some clams on this, but that's another story... Have a light hand with the garlic: this is the recipe that taught me that there is such a thing as "too much garlic." Combine 4 c. flour and salt. Add brown sugar to 1/2 cup warm water in a medium bowl - you'll be adding yeast to this and you need to give it room to expand. The water should be as warm as a baby's bottle, test a drop on your wrist. If the water's too cold, it will take extra time for your yeast to do its trick; if it's too hot, the yeast will die and you'll never get any bubbles out of it. Add yeast to the water. Let stand five minutes. It should be nice and foamy. Add oil, 1 cup water, yeast mixture to the flour. Stir it by hand and then knead, or use a mixer with a dough hook. Add more flour if your dough is very sticky. Add water (1 Tbsp. at a time) if your dough is very dry and won't hold together. Once you have a smooth, elastic dough, place it in a large oiled bowl. Spray the top of the dough with nonstick spray. Cover it and place it in a warm place free of drafts for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk. (At my house, "a warm place" is the oven - turn it on to preheat to its very lowest possible heat. Once it's preheated, turn it off but keep the door closed.) While the dough is rising, make the sauce for the topping. In a large skillet, melt the butter. Stir in the flour to make a paste. Gradually add milk to create a smooth white sauce. Your dough is now ready to make pizza. Makes two large thin crust pizzas, or a whole bunch of individual sized pizzas. Stretch the dough into a pan sprinkled with corn meal. Curl up the edges. Spread with sauce. Add crushed garlic, ground beef (if using). Top with cheese. Put into a very hot oven - 450° F - and bake until the mozzarella is bubbling and golden brown in spots. (This takes 8-10 minutes if you're baking a large thin crust pizza, but time varies with size of pizza and thickness of crust.)

Submitted by Gretchen Grant
Contributed on: Wednesday August 29th, 2007 and modified on Sunday April 6th, 2008