Cob Oven Pizza
Shared by: hopkins
Ingredients
Directions
Dough:
Mix dry ingredients. Mix oil with dry ingredients, then water. Don’t go crazy kneading, but you need some eslasticity. Coat with some extra olive oil and let rise in a bowl for 30 minutes. Roll out on a floured surface, or use your hands to flatten. I don’t recommend flinging your dough in the air, even if you’re good at it. Tossing dough creates a thick outer crust that doesn’t work well for smaller pizzas. Thin crust works very well.
We keep our pizzas dinner-plate-size, a diameter of about 10 inches. Any wider and they will not handle well.
Sauce:
I adapted this from Jamie Oliver’s very fine cookbook, Jamie at Home. When we cook for a big group, we abandon this recipe. Instead we buy a five-quart can of tomatoes and wing the rest. The point is to keep it simple with good ingredients and enough salt.
Combine a glug of olive oil with the garlic (and onion if using) and some salt in a pot on medium heat. Stir frequently until you can smell the garlic and it’s beginning to brown. Add your tomatoes. Cook for five minutes and see if it needs salt. Let cook until the tomatoes have softened. Add the basil and puree (we use one of these glorious hand wands). Note: Jamie instructs you to strain out the tomato, garlic, and basil bits instead of our puree method. We find no difference in the quality of the sauce with the wand.
Assembly:
We assemble our pizzas on plates with plenty of cornmeal between the dough and plate. Mozarella is simple to make, but I have never done it so I will not give instructions on how. Fresh mozarella is very nice on a wood-fired pizza, and I am thankful I have a friend who knows how to make it well.
A tip on toppings: simple is easier for the cook to manage, and if you have good ingredients, you can’t go wrong.
In the oven:
Small groups of people can probably cook their own. You may not even need coals inside. But for large groups it’s best to keep one person on the oven, doing the cooking. A small spatula, your peel, and oven mits are all you need. The pizzas will cook quickly, so stay vigilant. Keep your flame going. Don’t crowd the hearth. Ask people to remember which pizzas are theirs.