This recipe is for home-made pizza with pro­sciutto and arugula. I first had a pro­sciutto and arugula pizza on a date in SOHO. We were at this great little Italian place that had a brick oven for really good pizza. It’s one of my favorites.

This recipe is based on the basic bread dough recipe from Ratio by Michael Ruhlman, with the vari­a­tions for pizza dough. His recipe makes enough for two 12 inch pizzas with a rea­son­ably thick crust (not too thin, not deep dish). I also follow some of the tech­nique instruc­tions from The Pro­fes­sional Chef, which is the offi­cial text­book of the Culi­nary Insti­tute of America. I didn’t bother to make the pizza sauce today, but you can find recipes for pizza sauce online easily enough. Do a google search. It’s no harder than making pasta sauce. In fact, I’ve used pasta sauce before.

Dough:

• 20 oz bread flour (I use King Arthur Unbleached bread flour)
• 12 oz water, slightly heated (30 sec­onds in the microwave does it)
• 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Top­pings

• 1 15 oz. can of Muir Glen pizza sauce (organic); you will have leftovers
• 1 8 oz. package shredded Moz­zarella; you can also add parmesan
• arugula
• pro­sciutto

Other mate­rials

• plastic wrap for cov­ering dough
• flour or corn­meal for working with the dough
• a pizza stone
• a rolling pin
• a peel or two flex­ible cut­ting mats

Dough-making

1. Mix the yeast and 1 tsp. of flour in the warmed water. Let stand 10 min­utes to acti­vate the yeast. Mean­while, mea­sure and mix the flour and the salt in a bowl.
2. Add the olive oil to the yeast/water mix­ture and pour the wet mix into the dry mix. With a spatula, mix the dough until it becomes too dif­fi­cult to work with just the spatula.
3. Turn the dough out onto a work sur­face. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic. This will take a few min­utes. The dough may be sticky if it’s a humid day. Resist adding more flour unless it becomes really impos­sible to work with.
4. In a new, large bowl, pour a 1 to 1.5 Tbsp. of oil. Using your hands or a paper towel, spread the oil to coat the sides of the bowl. Put the dough in the bowl and work it around to coat the dough with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until dou­bled in size.

The Pro­fes­sional Chef says the dou­bling process should take about 75 min­utes, but that time may vary based on atmos­pheric con­di­tions. Ratio says to check the dough by poking it with your finger. If the dough springs back, it’s not done rising. If your finger leaves an impres­sion, it’s ready. Dough will race if it’s hot and humid. It will be slow if your kitchen is cool and dry.

1. When the dough is fin­ished rising, turn it out onto your work sur­face, flatten it, fold it over a few times and flatten it again. This will work out the air that has built up.
2. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces (they’ll be about 450 grams each). Cover one piece with a damp kitchen towel and let it rest for 15 to 20 min­utes. Wrap the other piece with plastic wrap, put the wrapped dough in a freezer bag or other seal­able con­tainer, and save for another pizza.
3. Very impor­tant: Start your oven. Set to the highest set­ting (mine is 500 degrees F) and place your pizza stone in the oven to warm.

According to a post on The Fresh Loaf, you can freeze the extra pizza dough for use at a later time. The key appears to be thawing the dough slowly, in hope that the yeast will become active again. For­tu­nately for pizza, the dough doesn’t need to rise much. If this were bread, it might be better to par­bake the bread before freezing.

A pizza stone is crit­ical to making good pizza. I read some­where that making pizza in an oven at home, as opposed to the tra­di­tional brick oven, is dif­fi­cult because the brick oven is so much hotter. That’s why you want your oven as hot as pos­sible and your stone pre-heated.

1. Dust your work sur­face and the dough with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out your dough into a circle. Make sure it’s going to fit on your stone!
2. If you have a peel, dust your peel with flour or corn­meal and transfer your dough to the peel. If you don’t have a peel, dust a little flour onto your flex­ible cut­ting mats. Slide them under the dough from each side so that the dough is resting between them, half on one mat and half on the other
3. Top your pizza. Start with the sauce, then add cheese and other toppings.
4. Transfer your pizza to the hot stone. Cook the pizza until the crust is browned. This could take about 10 min­utes, but keep and eye on it so as not to burn your pizza.
5. When fin­ished, take the pizza out of the oven (while still on the stone) and let it cool for a while. The pizza is very very hot.

Many pizza dough recipes have you work the dough out by hand into a nice circle. Good for them. A rolling pin makes the whole process much easier. If you want that hand­made look without the fuss, dimple your dough (like as with a focaccia) with your fin­gers after it’s rolled out.

Trans­fer­ring the dough from the work sur­face to the hot stone is a huge trick. This is why a peel is so great. I don’t have a peel, so I came up with the idea of using flex­ible cut­ting mats. By using two, and having the pizza rest in the middle, I can more easily posi­tion my pizza over the stone and slide the mats (quickly, so as not to burn) away from the pizza as it comes to rest on the stone. It’s a process that takes prac­tice. As you can see from my photo, I didn’t get this right today.