Wine Lunch!!

I love a cold, crisp white wine. In Italy, Zack and I would always order a quartino (quarter liter) of the house white wine with lunch, which was almost always a perfectly charred pizza to share. Wherever we were, the wine was brought well chilled and often it had a slight effervescence to it. These "wine lunches" are one of our favorite memories of our time in Italy and we try to recreate them here. The inexpensive Italian white table wine of our memory is not as easy to find here as one might imagine, but many varieties hit the spot; prosecco, vinho verde, albarino, and some sauvignon blancs to name a few. Recently though, I came across Albero, a Spanish sparkling white wine sold exclusively at Trader Joe's for $4.99 a bottle. To me, its the perfect combination of sparkles, light fruit and incredible value. It goes great with so many foods and just feels like summer. A definite perfect foil for one of my fresh pizzas. Try a bottle and tell me what you think! Here is my pizza method and a simple one I commonly make. The dough is absolutely awesome and is inspired by this one on my friend Dana's blog. It's great because it only has to rise for an hour, so I don't have to plan far ahead to make this meal. The crust is the soul of the pizza for me and this crust and this method of baking really come close to recreating the Italian pizza memories. Crisp, chewy crust, nice yeasty flavor and plenty of salty bite. Fresh mozzerella is really important here. It gives a completely different and much less greasy result than typical pasturized mozzerella. The reason I use parchment paper is because I can never seem to keep the pizza dough from sticking to the peel and making a mess when I try to transfer it from the peel to the pizza stone in the blazing oven. This alleviates that issue with great success and I always do it this way now.

Calabrese Salami & Oregano Pizza

For the dough

2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp. sugar
2 cups bread flour
3/4 cup warm water plus 2 tablespoons
2 tsp. chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp dry oregano
2 tsp. kosher salt

Toppings (obviously you can use whatever you'd like)

1/2 cup of your favorite marinara sauce (I like Barilla tomato basil or roasted garlic)
15 slices calabrese salami
4 oz fresh milk mozzerella, chopped into nickle size pieces about 1/4" thick
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp dry oregano (or fresh would be even better, in which case put 1-2 tsp on after baking)

1/8 cup freshly grated or shaved reggiano or grana padano

Method:

1. In the bowl of kitchanaid, whisk the yeast and sugar with 1/4 cup of the flour. Stir in 1/4 cup of the warm water and let stand until slightly foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the oregano, salt, and the remaining 1 3/4 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of water; stir until a dough forms. Put the dough hook attachment on your kitchenaid and turn on, kneading in the bowl for 6 minutes. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free spot until billowy and doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

2. Meanwhile, place a pizza stone in the bottom of the oven, and preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Make sure the oven has preheated for at least 30 minutes.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured very large sheet of parchment paper. Press and stretch the dough into a 15-inch round, nice and thin is good. Top with sauce, fresh mozzerella and toppings of your choice.

4. Slide the parchment paper with pizza onto the back of a cookie sheet and slide it from there onto the pizza stone in the oven. Bake for 12 minutes, until the crust is golden.

5. Top with reggiano and final fresh herbs if desired.