Saturday, February 24, 2007

someone's pizza dough recipe:

"my method is agaration.

take about half a cup of water, get it to baby bath temperature. ie hotter than tepid, but not so hot that u burn your finger. put in a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of yeast (1/5 t if u wanna be kiasu)

let it proof = gives the yeast a kickstart. it should rise and foam and it will smell yeasty/beery. this should take 5-10 minutes. if the yeast did not foam, maybe the water was not warm enough, or the yeast was out of date. throw out and try again.)

pour into the foamy mixture, a glug or two of olive oil, salt, any other flavourings you want to put in the dough, and flour. don't add too much flour at once. what i usually do is use a fork to stir until it forms a ball. knead and knead and knead. until your hand hurts and trust me it will hurt if you are not used to it.

cover with tea towel, leave in warm place (i always used the top of the microwave) and let the dough rise. this is beautiful to watch; like a miracle. if your yeast has proofed properly before, the dough WILL rise.

punch dough down, shape into whatever shape u like.
this basic dough can also be used for foaccacia.

once you get the hang of it, it is not difficult. do not be discouraged. i experimented for quite a long time before i was happy with the result. luckily, the ingredients are not expensive. OK the olive oil, but you only need a bit.

alternatives - use tortilla wraps, Turkish bread. I use Arabic bread here, perhaps you might be able to find it somewhere. Or, my friends with breadmakers say they get good results with that!"


I'm going to try the one here today since it gives me proportions, and honey sounds nice. Also going to try meatloaf (found a recipe using banana, but banana has a strong taste so to give the moisture I'll use my leftover courgette).

I made my own pasta sauce 2 or 3 weeks back. I didn't have tomato paste and MFTTW was predicting it wouldn't be flavourful enough, but it was when I tasted it (I asked my brother-in-law, but he is useless in giving feedback about food - after all this is the person who thought Durian ice cream was Pear). Unfortunately it was a bit sour, though I'd added sugar. Also, the thyme and marjoram didn't give enough kick though - she suggested I get oregano. Maybe I should just buy 'Italian Seasoning'.

My brother in law said my potato salad was't flavourful enough. someone suggested I add relish, but the last time what I did was just to use Thousand Island dressing, which was found to be satisfactory. So I'll use salad dressing in the future - less troublesome.