How to Make Pizza Margherita in a Cast-Iron Skillet

[Music] if you want that perfect restaurant style pizza crust at home crispy on the outside soft and chewy in the middle well you got a few options i want one well you can build your own wood-burning pizza oven do you have one at home no i wish no i don't have one either or you can invest in a pizza stone or you can pull out your trusty cast iron skillet that's what we're doing today big cast iron skillet pizza really crispy bottom great toppings very simple but it all starts with the dough now this is two cups plus two tablespoons or if you want to be more accurate 11 ounces of bread flour we're using bread flour because we want some gluten formation this is going to go right into my food processor and now a little bit of yeast this is one in an eighth teaspoon of instant yeast and a little bit of just regular table salt three quarter teaspoon i'll go ahead and give this a whirl just about five pulses just to mix all these things together next we've got a tablespoon of olive oil for some richness i'm going to put the lid back on and i'm going to turn the machine on and i'll add three quarter cup of water this is heated to about 110 degrees now it doesn't have to be warm in order for that yeast to rise but it does give it a little head start i'm going to let that mix until it comes together that's going to take about 30 seconds so you can see it's formed a dough ball a couple scraps in there that's fine we're going to let this rest for two minutes and then i'll let the machine whirl again for another 30 seconds that's to ensure that we've activated enough gluten it is fun to watch that go around i'm glad it's not me i want to lightly flour the bench here there we go take out the big ball now if the dough was super sticky i would have just added about a tablespoon more flour to the food processor and let it run for another 10 seconds or so i'm just going to give this a quick knead really i want the dough to come together and become smooth maybe up to a minute of hand kneading is all that's needed get it this is looking beautifully smooth i'm just shaping this into a nice taut ball and now i've got a bowl that we've greased with a little bit of olive oil i'll go ahead and coat the top of the dough flip it over just to make sure it's all coated with that oil that way the dough does not dry out and we're going to let this sit here right on the countertop until it's doubled in size that's going to take about an hour and a half sounds good [Music] time to make the sauce so we're making a very robust but simple tomato sauce no cook oh i like that super easy but we want it to have the right texture we don't want it to be too thin it'll cause the crust to be very very soggy we've got a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes packed in their juice now we want to get rid of this juice or at least strain it away we might need some of that a little bit later on place them in our food processor we're going to add a little bit of oil this is a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil some good flavor there two minced garlic cloves a little bit of red wine vinegar for some pink just a teaspoon will do you and a teaspoon of dried oregano now we're going to let all this whirl together in the food processor until it's nice and smooth only going to take about 30 seconds [Applause] there we go mmm nice and smooth so now i'm going to go ahead and pour this into a two cup measuring cup because we want two cups of sauce for our pizza and you know a lot of people ask us what's the difference between using dried herbs versus fresh herbs and in this sauce we use dried oregano well we have a very good answer for you if you want to use fresh versus dried the ratio is three to one so if you have three parts fresh it's one part dried in terms of which herbs to use we like dried herbs that are hearty such as oregano or thyme but herbs like parsley or basil we prefer to use those fresh now we want two cups in total and this is actually going to make more than just one pizza so i'm going to add back enough of the tomato juice to this to measure two cups oh very smart now let's give this a quick stir there we go the sauce is easy as that i'm gonna go put it in the fridge now it can stay in there for up to a week but it can also be frozen for up to one month [Music] our dough has risen nicely oh it has doubled in size and we're just about ready to roll it out there you go and get a better view now for your poking pleasure i had to do it i love to see how well the dough is risen and you do that by pressing it and if your little divot in your finger doesn't bounce back the dough has risen now it looks like a bowling ball come on over to the stove now here's a 12 inch cast iron skillet so this is two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and i'll give it a good brush all over the bottom and it's quite a bit of oil we actually want it to start to fry that crust a little bit there we go let's get back to the dough i'm going to go ahead and turn this out again onto a lightly floured countertop i can always add more flour if i need to pretty pretty dough now this makes enough dough for two pizzas so i'll take a bench scraper and just cut it right in half there we go i want to save half and we can have it at another time so i'm going to wrap it in plastic and just put it off to the side i'm going to start to roll this out to an 11 inch circle patting it first now it will snap back a little bit and if it starts to fight me too much i'll just put a piece of plastic on it and let it sit for another five don't have a timeout exactly that's what it is it's a dough timeout you go in the corner mister i'm gonna use a rolling pin now and start working it out and it's a rustic pizza that's my excuse why it's not gonna be a perfect circle that is always my excuse this is actually pretty sturdy so i'm going to go ahead and lift it up we're going to move it over to the cast iron skillet there we go drop it into the pan and now i'm going to press on the sides just a little bit just to move it up now we're going to top it with tomato sauce and we're using a half a cup of our tomato sauce per pizza this actually was a hard lesson for me to learn a restraint on the pizza sauce when you're making a pizza you learn the hard way you start with too much the pizza gets soggy it doesn't get crispy on the bottom a little goes a long way on pizza little dabble do you so sauce on now cheese and we're using whole milk fresh mozzarella so this is 12 ounces enough for two pizzas we've sliced it into quarter inch thick slices and you can see that's a pretty naked pizza that's no problem the cheese is going to melt just a little bit but a lot of that sauce is going to be exposed in the oven and really caramelize and concentrate in flavor now we're not going to go ahead and put this right in the oven we're going to give it a head start right here on the stovetop i'll turn the burner to medium high and we're going to let this cook right on the stovetop for about two to four minutes and that's going to give the bottom a head start i'm going to look for the edges to start to get just set and you're going to see the pizza puff up just a little bit before we head to the oven and if i peek under i can see that there's some nice color right under there this is ready to go into a 500 degree oven it's going to stay in there until the whole pizza is nice and set and also golden brown so that's going to take about seven to ten minutes bye-bye pizza [Music] oh it smells like pizza oh it doesn't look like pizza this is ready to come out of the skillet always wrap the handle because it's super hot so i'm going to take an offset spatula and just loosen the bottom and then i'll tilt the pan and just draw it right out now we just need a last-minute flourish of some chopped basil about a tablespoon per pizza that makes it the classic pizza margarita the fresh mozzarella and the basil and i've got a big old pizza wheel here to cut right through that hearty crust oh i love it when you pick up a piece of pizza and it doesn't flop over so all the toppings fall off onto the plate all right be careful it's hot [Music] the flavor of that dough is terrific i mean store-bought dough has nothing on this and you saw how easy it was to put together yep so move over pizza stones the cast iron skillet is here to cook your pizza pies start with a traditional pizza dough then make a quick no-cook sauce by processing whole canned tomatoes with garlic and dried oregano push the dough into the corners of the skillet before adding the sauce and topping with whole milk mozzarella give the crust a head start on the stove top so it gets a nice golden bottom then finish the pizza in the oven until golden that takes about 10 minutes and there you have it from cook's country a superb recipe for skillet pizza margarita thanks for watching cook's country from america's test kitchen so what'd you think leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or just say hi now you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later alligator

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 300,481

Keywords: cooks country, cook's country, cast-iron skillet pizza, cast-iron skillet, cast-iron skillet pizza margherita, skillet pizza, how to make pizza, pizza in cast iron skillet, homemade pizza, homemade pizza dough, pizza dough, how to make pizza dough, pizza margherita, diy pizza, pizza margherita recipe, pizza recipe, recipe

Id: vuzRPgPASJ8

Length: 9min 31sec (571 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2019