The Malnati's Pizza Experiment, Part III

My pizza experiment had a big night tonite with the consumption of four different pizzas at our weekly game night so that our frends could help us test (and enjoy) the pizzas.  They hadn't had Malnati's pizza before, but they were still able to weigh in on the taste and texture of the dough and on the tomatoes and cheese varieties.  In my picky fashion, I gave them the whole spiel about the history of Chicago style pizza and Malnati's.  Hopefully I didn't annoy them too much.  Or, if I did, then hopefully the delicious pizza helped make up for it.

The four pizzas I tested tonite were mostly for the sake of testing the amounts and types of oils/fats in the dough.  After testing several crusts and baking multiple pizzas, I have gotten pretty close to the correct recipe.  However I hadn't nailed down exaclty what sort of fat is used.  It really seems like there should be butter in Malnati's dough, but Marc Malnati always says it's just oil.  Most recipes give a combo of olive and vegetable oil, sometmes corn oil.  I made some with those oils and some with butter - one with cold butter and one with melted butter.  And honestly, the ones with no butter seemed much closer to Malnati's. 

I actually think I am done testing now.  Maybe next time I make some pizza I'll play with the recipe a tad, but mostly I think I'm not going to get much closer.  Tonite's selections were very very close to the real deal.  All of us agreed that Pizza A was tastiest and Dan and I definitley thought it was passable for a Malnati's mimic.  I'm happy enough with the recipe that I'm going to call it good. 

We've had a lot of pizza in the last few days and there is still a ton left over.  Luckily I'll never get sick of it!

Happy eating!

The Malnati's Pizza Experiment, Part II

I am well on my way to discovering a recipe that mimics my beloved Malanti's pizza.  I began by making a pizza with a version of my basic quiche crust, without researching online at all.  I knew that looking online would present me with a neverending avalanche of forum posts and recipe-site trolls and it would just be confusing.  So I did some cooking and tweaking before I even started to do any research online.  That way I could put all the nonsense into perspective.

I'm so glad I waited.  When I finally dove into the online arguements today, I did indeed find what I was afraid of.  Luckily I was armed with the experience of cooking my own pizzas to help me sort it all out.  There is a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding how to reach an actual authentic Malnati's style pizza crust. 

The advice that seemed to ring the most true came down to the use of yeast.  Most people who seem to actually know what Malnati's pizza is supposed to taste like seemed to agree that the yeast in their recipe is just for taste and not for leavening (or rising), the way most breads use yeast (including pizza dough).  I wrote last time that I supsected they didn't even use yeast.  This is because I know that the crust doesn't end up with the texture of something that is leavened with yeast.  However, I hadn't considered that they might just use the yeast as a flavor.  You can put the yeast in without letting it rise and without developing much of the gluten in the dough. 

Essentially, what that would be is a standard savory pastry dough (like my quiche crust), but with yeast added for flavor.  That's what I'm working on now.  And by "working on now," I mean, there's a pizza in my oven as I type.  I'm not sure if it's the right crust yet, but it sure smells right! 

One thing that I'm still unclear on is the type of fat used to make the pizza-pastry crust.  I'm still using mostly butter and a little olive oil, but many suggestions out there in the interwebs say to use a combo of olive oil and some type of neutral veggetable oil, like corn oil.  Perhaps this is indeed what Malnati's uses, instead of butter, I don't know, but it sure tastes like butter in their crust to me, so I'm still clinging to that ingredient for the moment.  I hope this pizza pie gets a little closer to my goal. 

The experiment rolls on...

The Malnati's Pizza Experiment

I'm attempting to make my own Malnati's pizza at home, in a multiple-day experiment to attempt to figure out how to capture mysteries of the Chicago-style pizza.

I feel it's very important for the world to know the truth about Chicago-style deep dish pizza.  It is a subject very near and dear to my heart.  I grew up eating it, and there's nothing like it in the world.  Many people have heard of Chicago-style pizza, and I've seen it put up against New York pizza in taste tests on various television shows.  Such comparisons are pointless.  When people hear the word pizza they think of a particular thing.  Chicago-style pizza isn't really the same thing at all.  I wish it had a name besides pizza, actually.  It's like comparing Texas-style chili to New England clam chowder.  They both go in a bowl, but there's no comparison.  That's the problem with Chicago-style pizza being put in the category of pizza.  It is its own thing.

People's misunderstanding of what Chicago-style pizza is, is exacerbated by the fact that there is a type of regular pizza called 'pan pizza' which many people are familiar with, so when they hear that Chicago-style is deep dish, they think it just means that.  Add to that the fact that there are numerous places claiming to serve "Chicago-style" pizza that simply aren't, and you have a very confusing topic.  There's a pizza place here in Denver whose sign reads "the original Chicago style pizza" and I fume every time I drive by.  They ARE NOT the original Chicago-style pizza!  Their pizza is just pan pizza.  They're not even making it right.

Here is the truth: Uno's first served the original Chicago-style deep dish pizza many decades ago.  However, Lou Malnati's father, who cooked for Uno's at the time, was credited with the actual invention of the pizza.  In 1971, Lou Malnati opened his own restaurant.  Uno's and Malnati's still fight over who actually gets credit for inventing the pizza.  I side with Malnati's.  But either way, if you aren't eating pizza at Uno's or Malnati's, you aren't eating the original Chicago-style pizza.  Many places even in Chicago don't make it like they do.  And if you've never had Malnat's (or Uno's), you don't know what you are missing.  It is something very special, and there's nothing in the world that tastes like it.

There are a few very important things that make Malnati's pizza what it is.  First of all, the crust is totally different.  This is very important:  It's NOT regular pizza crust in a deeper pan.  I've seen restaurants all over take a standard yeast pizza dough and put it in a deep dish pan and call it Chicago style.  But actually, Malnati's dough is more like a pie crust.  It is buttery and flaky and I'm pretty sure they don't even use yeast at all.  Second, they put layers of sliced (not shredded) cheese on the bottom.  Third, they don't use tomato sauce - they use crushed canned whole tomatoes with no cooking or seasoning, layered on top of the cheese.  Really the whole thing is more like a pie or a casserole than it is like what you think of as pizza.

I have finally decided to figure out a way to cook a Malnati's style pizza at home.  The main problem is going to be the crust, since theirs is a secret recipe.  I have determined to turn my kitchen into a test kitchen until I figure out how to make a pizza that is close enough to my beloved Chicago style.  I created my first one tonite.

I started with my basic savory pie crust dough, the one I use for quiches and the like.  That is just flour, salt, baking powder, and cold butter mixed together, and then water added until it forms a dough.  For the pizza, I instead left out some of the butter, which I melted, and mixed with olive oil and water, to add during the water stage.  I oiled my cast iron skillet and pressed the dough into it the way Malnati's does.  For cheese, I used mostly mozzarella and a little bit of provolone because I couldn't find the type of mozz I wanted to use and I thought that combo would get me a little closer to the right flavor.  Then I seeded some whole canned tomatoes and hand crushed them and topped the cheese.

The verdict on my first attempt is, let's say, 6 out of 10.  Cheese was almost perfect.  Tomatoes were great, but I should have put more on.  I used grated parmiggiano reggiano insteaad of pecorino which is what I think they use, and that was fine.  The main problem was of course the crust.  My crust was a good start, but it didn't taste like Malnati's pizza crust... it tasted like my quiche crust.  I'm going to fiddle with the recipe and do some online research and try again in a couple days.  I even made sure to stock up on butter so I could make as many crusts as I needed to get it right.

I am determined to figure out how to make Malnati's pizza at home.  I will keep you updated as I work it all out.  Wish me luck!

Happy eating!

Homemade Veggie Burgers

I like some types of veggie burgers, and I do eat them on a regular basis.  My favorite are the Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime - which are a type that is meant to actually taste like an actual burger.  There are lots of veggie burgers out there, though, and many don't really try to mimic an actual meat burger taste... some just taste like veggies or beans or what have you, and are delicious in that way rather than in a meaty way.  That is the type of veggie burger you tend to find in restaurants or if it's homemade.  I've never actually made a homemade veggie burger; I've always stuck with the pre-made frozen ones.  The closest thing I've come to making something like that would probably be the bean cakes - such as black bean cakes or bean and rice cakes that I've made.  For some reason today I decided to try my hand at making my own real homemade veggie burger patties so I spent all afternoon fiddling around in the kitchen.  I thought I would share my results with you.

I made my veggie burgers out of beans and bulgur wheat.  I get bulgur wheat at the bulk section of my grocery store and it can be used for all kinds of things.  It's a main ingredient in tabbouleh, and that's what I've mostly used it for.  I happened to have some in the house, though, and I thought I might be able to use that in the burger.  I cooked some beans (after soaking them for a while), and ran them through the food processor until smooth but still a little chunky (like refried beans). 

To the beans and bulgur wheat, I also added a little bit of dried bread crumbs, and some minced onion and shredded zucchini (that I pre-cooked).  I was going to serve the burgers with feta and tzatziki so I added marjoram and parsley for a Greek themed flavor.  I was very worried about the burgers being dense and gummy so I tried to mix the mixture gently and keep some air in it.  I had to decide whether to put in egg as a binder and decided against it and figured I would use it as is first.  So I formed a couple of patties and sauteed them with oil on a hot skillet. 

The verdict on the burgers was great!  They got a nice brown crust on the outside and the flavor was good.  However, they did start to crumble and fall apart.  We ate the burgers like that, but then I went back and added egg to the rest of the mixture.  I made six more patties out of the remaining mix and those are in the freezer right now for some future veggie burger meals.  Lack of egg notwithsanding, I'm actually pretty proud of my first foray into veggie burgerdom!  The bulgur wheat was actually a really good addition.  And even though I wasn't really going for meat flavor, they actually were relatively meaty tasting. 

I was worried the results would be somewhere between disaster and meh, but I'm relieved that my burgers turned out pretty good.  The addition of the feta and tzatziki made them actually quite yummy.  Of course it takes a lot to make something with feta not yummy!

Happy eating!

Carrot Butter

I made something that was new to me the other day when I had High Tea with my friends: Carrot Butter.  I'd seen it made by Chuck Hughes on his show, Chuck's Day Off, and thought it sounded interesting.  He served it over risotto, if I recall correctly.  Coincidentally he mentioned juicing your own carrots to use to make the butter and I had recently bought a juicer.  So I figured I would give this carrot butter thing a try and serve it as a topping for the scones with our Tea.

It was a very simple process.  You simply juice several fresh carrots, or pick up a bottle of carrot juice at the store.  I've found bottled carrot juice with the other fresh and organic juices near the produce section.  You have to reduce the carrot juice to a syrup consistency by gently simmering it in a saucepan.  It can take a while, depending on the amount of juice you have, maybe 45 minutes.  Reduce it however much you want - the longer it goes, the more concentrated the flavors are.

When it's reduced, you let it cool a bit, then slowly whisk in about half as much butter as carrot syrup.  Chuck melted the butter first, and he used the carrot butter warm and melty.  I wanted it to be spreadable, so I didn't want to let the butter melt all the way and separate.  So I used room temperature butter and made sure my syrup wasn't too hot before I whisked the butter in.  Then I poured it into a container, and let it cool in the fridge.  I was using salted butter, but if your butter is unsalted you'd probably want to add some salt.  I suppose it would be neat to add other seasonings as well, like curry or cayenne or cinnamon or something.  I might try that sometime.

We had the carrot butter with the savory cheese scones I made and they were great.  I also had it on toasted french bread later in the week.  It is really delicious!  It might seem a little out there, but actually it was kind of a nice way to add a little pizazz to such a common spread.  I vote thumbs up on the carrot butter.

Happy eating!

Homemade French Fries

I love potatoes in general, and french fries are obviously one of the most delicious ways to prepare them.  Even though making french fries is a relatively simple task, I used to always buy the pre-cut frozen bags.  It's silly, really, when you realize how easy it is to just cut your own fries.  Purchasing the frozen bags of pre-cut fries really is unnecessary once you know what you're doing.  Here are a few guidelines to easily making your own fries at home.

Everybody has their own opinion about what sort of potatoes are good for each particular use.  There are waxy, starchy, etc. etc.  For french fries I think good old russetts are great.  I peel them, because I have to limit my potassium intake, but they are great unpeeled too.  To cut fries, simply slice the potatoes into roughly rectangular planks and then cut the planks into fries.

One great tip I've picked up is to transfer the fries to a cold water bath as they are being cut, and let them soak for a few minutes.  Not only does the water help prevent browning, but it washes off extra starch, and keeps the fries cool and crisp. 

There are many ways to fry a french fry.  It's useful to use a deep fryer or cast iron dutch oven, but most sturdy saucepans will do as long as you are very careful.  A lighter-weight pot doesn't hold the temperature vey steady, and it's easirer to knock over or even just bump, sending hot oil sloshing all over the place.  A smaller pot will require multiple smaller batches of fries.  It's very important to not fill any vessel more than about half way, leaving plenty of room for the oil to bubble up without spilling over.  A good frying temp is somewhere around 350, but it really depends on the thickness of the fries and how you like them done.

As far as actually frying the potatoes, I have a two-step method.  After patting them dry (drops of water will cause the oil to spatter), I fry them (in batches) for a few minutes, just until they barely start to take on color, and then drain them on paper towels.  Then I fry them a second time, letting them get nice and golden brown.  Frying them twice helps them get golden and crispy while keeping the insides just right.

Salt, pepper, garlic, or any other seasonings go on asap once the fries are done frying the second time. Yum!  French fries!  There's nothing like a batch of freshly made fries.

The used oil, as long as it's not too dark, can be filtered and used for deep frying again. 

Happy eating!

I Dreamed A Dream

Dream big.

You may recall that in my previous post about High Tea, I mentioned that as I was setting the table I realized I didn't have a teapot to use.  What a silly predicament!  To serve Tea with no teapot.  In fact I didn't even have anything sortof similar to a teapot... no coffee pot either, no jug, no pitcher, not even a camping coffee pot.  I had the carafe from our coffee maker or a good ol' regular saucepan.  I used the saucepan.

We have a gift card to Macy's that we got from returning a few things we got for Christmas that we absolutely couldn't use.  For instance, one thing I got was some perfume.  I won't be able to ever use it because with my migraines I've become extremely sensitive to those sorts of smells.  (I can't even smell Dan's cologne - which I got for him last year because I loved it. Now it triggers a bad reaction.)  I hate having to return gifts, but we may as well get some use out of the giver's effort and thoughtfulness.  I hate to see that go to waste.  At any rate, when I started looking online for things from Macy's to use up our gift card, the first thing I wanted to look for was a teapot.

I found a few I liked and one topped the list.  It was just the right shape, but the design and color were just ok.  After searching through all the teapots and categorizing them by price (and excluding all the freakishly girly ones, which is most of them), this was the one at the top of the list of the ones I could afford.  Our budget is super-tight (medical bills running rampant over it), and if I don't get a teapot with this gift card, I'm not getting one anytime soon.  I had an idea of a teapot style I wanted in my head, and this teapot wasn't it, but it was good enough. 

Then all of a sudden I saw a different one.  It was actually the same teapot but with a different paint job.  And it was AWESOME.  It was actually the teapot I saw in my head!  It was just the right color, perfect shape and size, flowery and pretty but not too girly, cobalt and shades of blue just like I wanted, no pink, etc etc.  I'm not kidding - I'm surprised this teapot even exists: if I were to design one, it couldn't be more perfectly exactly the thing I was looking for!  Even the teacups & saucers are great (if I ever want to complete the set).  I love them!

...And, Macy's has none of them.  The reason it hadn't come up in my search for 3 hours is that they have none of them to buy!  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I did a quick search, and there are plenty of those teapots our there in cyberspace.  Just not at Macy's, which is the only place I'm allowed to shop right now.  Son of a crap.  I showed Dan and whined my best tortured whine, but there's simply no way to fit it into our budget right now.  It's not very expensive, but unfortunately, paying for prescription meds has to come first. 

This photo is the lovely teapot of my dreams.  The pattern is called "Veronica" by Denby.  Cute, right?  I decided not to even order any of the other teapots because I'd rather hold out for this one.  I am spending my gift card money instead on a few other kitchen tools I've been needing.  I'll buy it someday, just not right now I guess.  Everybody needs a dream, I suppose!  Mine right now is a teapot.  Dream big!

Happy tea-ing!

High Tea

In the last few days I have learned a lot about tea and scones.  As I discussed in my previous post, I got two tea-related cookbooks from friends: one with scone recipes, and one that had miscellaneous recipes for tea.  And when I say tea, I mean Tea, the meal, not tea, the drink.  I have never attended nor hosted Tea.  I don't know much about it.  I have never cooked nor eaten a scone. 

Today I wanted to try out a scone recipe from my new cookbook, and I thought, 'why not serve the scones with tea this afternoon for my husband and I?'  But if I were going to do that I may as well make a couple other little things to eat as well.  Then I figured if I'm going to do all that I should invite over our friends Phil and Jenn, whom we haven't been able to see in quite a while (my darn illness).  So instead of having a little tea with my scone, suddenly I was preparing a full High Tea.

High Tea means a tea service that is much more elaborate and meal-like than just Tea, "regular" Tea.  It is more often served later in the afternoon and can substitute for dinner.  This is all stuff I've learned (from my new book) just in the last couple of days.  Despite the trend that many things served at Tea or High Tea are often sweets, I actually made mostly savory things.  I'm actually pretty proud of myself for what I was able to put together, considering we only have the last bits of miscellaneous stuff in the pantry and fridge, since I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow and hadn't planned on Tea when I last grocery shopped. 

I ended up putting together a few finger sandwiches, some mini lettuce wraps, mini lemon tarts, and of course the scones, which were cheese scones.  I also served toppings for the scones: mustard, marmalade, and get this: homemade carrot butter.  I'm going to talk about the carrot butter in a separate post since it deserves it's own.  Then of course we had every type of tea I had in the house, sugar, vanilla sugar, and milk.  I didn't have any lemons left in the house to serve as wedges and I'm sure some people would think that was highly abnormal, but oh well.  I did what I could.

I got out some of my "good" china (which is nice but not extremely fancy or anything) and put the sugar in the nice china sugar bowl and got out my grandmother's silver footed bowl and did the table up.  The odd thing is that, the one thing I don't own is a teapot.  Nor do I have anything that can really substitute for a teapot.  I just put a pot of boiling water out and we ladled it.  Funny having Tea and realizing you don't have a teapot.  Anyway, we sat and tea'd and ate and talked and it was wonderful.  I will definitely make scones again and also I promised Phil and Jenn that we'll doTea again sometime, hopefully soon. 

Happy tea-ing!

It's Scone Day!

We got an awesome Christmas gift a couple weeks ago from our awesome friends Donna and Bob.  They know how I've been entertaining myself while being stuck at home, tethered to my dialysis machine, by cooking foods, old and new, and babbling about it here.  They put together a lovely basket with sortof an English teatime theme, including a tea-time recipe book and a scone recipe book.  I have never made scones and I'm excited to try a few of these recipes, which sound delicious.

I've been thumbing through the books and I picked out a couple of recipes to try.  I'm going to give it a shot and I'll post more when I'm done.  Wish me luck!

Welsh Rabbit

Welsh Rabbit is a funny name for multiple reasons.  It's just silly sounding, first of all, especially since it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what it is (which is cheese sauce on toast), and especially when someone says "rarebit" instead of rabbit.  But once you know where the name came from, it's actually even funnier.  It's basically a big dis of the Welsh.  Since it is a meatless dish, made to use up leftovers or make due when the day's hunt went badly, it came to be known as "Welsh Rabbit" as an insult, as in, "those men in Wales are terrible hunters."  Those crazy Englishmen.  They sure know how to throw the insults!  (Like in Family Guy: "Oh Reginald....  I disagree!")

I love cheese sauce in all forms.  I love Welsh Rabbit's Scandinavian, French-adopted cousin, fondue.  Like fondue, Welsh Rabbit is traditionally a way to get dinner on the table when all you have is stale bread, cheese, and some sort of wine or ale.  However, for whatever reason, I've just never gotten around to actually serving Welsh Rabbit.  Ever.  I am not sure why this would be.  I've made a million versions of cheese sauce to have on and in numerous types of things, just never toast.  Well, I finally got around to serving it for dinner yesterday.  It was delicious and easy and I have absolutely no freaking clue why such a meal wasn't already in my cheese-loving repertoire.  Shame on me.  I'll make up for it by serving it regularly from now on.

I made my Welsh Rabbit with white wine, and I used cheddar cheese, swiss, and a little monterey jack.  The toast I simply brushed wtih a little olive oil and sprinkled with parmesan before baking.  I served half the toasts with chopped tomatoes and half without to see how that went, and I actually did like the tomatoes very much.  But, come on, there's not much you can do to white wine-cheese sauce over bread to make it bad. 

I also boiled some cauliflower to have on the side, so I basically just piled the toast, tomatoes, and cauliflower on the plate and just doused everything in the cheese sauce.  Yum, right?  Of course.

Happy eating!

Scary Things About Juice

We all know that fresh produce is always more nutritious than packaged foods, but recently I learned something that really brought it home, and more than a little freaked me out.  I read an article regarding the process a standard bottle of juice goes through before it gets to your grocery cart.  I'm not talking cheapo juice, or the flavored corn syrup we all just call juice... I mean real, supposedly high-quality juices.

As it turns out, most of what we buy on grocery store shelves has sat around for so long, that manufacturers have to add in what is called a "flavor packet" just to get the juice to taste like what it should taste like.  Most juices sit on shelves for a least a few months and some up to a year before the flavor packet is added and then it's sent to a grocery store.  There are various reasons why this happens this way, which I won't get into, because my point isn't really the reasons behind it, but the impact on us, the consumers.

We all know that fresh produce loses nutrients over time.  Juice an apple and you have a lot of nutrients.  Come back to the same glass the next day and the nutrients have reduced significantly.  Come back six months later, and... well, you see my point.  The fact that they have to add in flavor packets is evidence that the nutritional value is basically nil.  Flavor packets in, for example, apple juice, are part of the manufacturing process for basically every major apple juice brand on your grocery store shelf.  A flavor packte isn't listed on the ingredients because it isn't required to be.  Basically, except for the vitamin c which is added to the bottle, you may not be drinking more than flavored water, from a nutritional standpoint.

You think when you are drinking apple juice that you are getting the benefits of what is in an apple.  But nope!  Just another screw-you from our fabulous food manufacturing system.  If you want your kids to have the nutition of an apple, they are going to have to eat an actual apple.  Or... like I've decided... you could just make your own juice.

Yup, I'm one of those people now.  I bought a juicer.  Take that, food manufacturers!  I will still buy crummy store juice sometimes, but I wanted to give this whole juicing thing a try, now that I know the evils of grocery juice.  It's a little more expensive but it's certainly healthier.  I already made apple juice and it was soooooooo good.  Like fresh cider from the cider mill.  And I certainly will be getting more nutrients than the bottled kind (not to mention none of those evil plastics chemicals everyone is screaming about now). 

I also bought a bag of oranges and I'm looking forward to delicious fresh squeezed oj in the morning.  I guess I'm a juicer-owner. 

Happy drinking!