Do-It-Yourself Pizza

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Dough (recipe below, or purchase pre-made from the grocery store)
• Nello’s Sauce*
• Peppadews* or other piquant peppers
• ‘Sardinia Gold’ Pecorino*
• Farmhand Foods’ Spicy Italian Sausage*
• Wine!* Pictured here with the Vinosia Aglianico, but also highly recommended with any of our dry red or rosé Lambruscos among many, many others.

*All conveniently available at The Raleigh Wine Shop

PREP

• Make the dough, allowing at least an hour to rest
• Pre-heat oven to its highest possible temperature. For best results, cook on a pizza stone that has been allowed to fully pre-heat.
• Sauté the sausage; remove casing, and pull sausage apart into bite-size chunks. Sauté over medium heat until cooked through. Drain off excess fat.
• Slice or tear Peppadews
• Grate pecorino

ASSEMBLE AND COOK

• Roll out dough by hand or with a rolling pin.
• Sprinkle pizza stone with masa, cornmeal, flour or dry polenta/corn grits.
• As quickly as possible, lay out pizza dough on the stone and add a couple heaping spoonfuls of sauce, followed by the grated Pecorino, Peppadews and sausage.
• Cook roughly 10-12 minutes, or until dough is cooked to your liking.

PIZZA DOUGH

• 3/4 cups warm water (105°F-115°F)
• 1 ¼ tsp dry yeast
• 1 ¾ cups bread flour
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• More flour as needed

Combine warm water, yeast, olive oil and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Stir and let rest five minutes. Add in flour and knead by hand, adding more flour as needed until dough no longer sticks to your hand. Form into a ball and let rest in a warm place for a minimum of an hour. After dough has double in size, punch it down and knead again for a couple minutes before forming pizza.