pizza crust

In August of 2001, within the first month that I lived in New York City, I saw a posting on a New York City job listing site for personal assistant to Jeffrey Steingarten. With my heart in my throat, I applied for this position. I faxed my cover letter and barren resume from a bodega down the street. The owner did not speak English, I did not know the area code of Manhattan, and I paid for my three attempts with a handful of pocket change. The owner of the bodega placed three pennies from my handful of change back in my open palm and told me they were useless to him. He ordered me to take my pennies with me and leave his store. I never heard back from Jeffrey Steingarten. Two weeks later the World Trade Center towers collapsed. I stopped feeling sorry for myself.

Jeffrey Steingarten recently wrote an article about homemade pizza for the New York Times Magazine. I admire Jeffrey Steingarten greatly. Here is the recipe for pizza crust recommended by Jeffrey.

Pizza Dough

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour, plus more for dusting

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 1/4 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil.

1. The morning or ideally the day before cooking, prepare the dough. Using a hand whisk, combine the flours, yeast and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir in 1 1/2 cups cold water and olive oil until a rough dough forms. Set the bowl on the mixer and, using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed for 1 minute. Increase the speed to high and beat for 4 to 6 minutes, until it becomes a wet and vaguely menacing mass. (If it forms into a ball, lower the mixer speed to medium-high. If not, stop the mixer to scrape down the sides once.)

2. Scrape and pour the dough onto a heavily floured work surface. Keeping your fingers, the countertop and the dough well floured, fold one dough end over the other so that half the floured underside covers the rest of the dough. Let rest for 10 minutes.

3. Cut the dough into 2 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth ball. Place each ball on a well-oiled plate, generously dust with flour and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until it is at least doubled in size, about 3 hours.

4. Punch the dough balls down, shape into rounds and place each in a quart-size freezer bag. Refrigerate dough between 1 and 24 hours. Makes 2 balls. Adapted from Jeffrey Steingarten.