The Boomtown Rap

As promised in the previous post, here’s my recipe for DIY pizza. This is the result of a lot of research, trial and error. Over months of systematic tweaking (one change at a time, so the results could be validly compared), I am now satisfied that I am turning out pizzas that are pretty damned good. The benchmark by which I gauge pizza excellence is set by Sandrino’s wood-fired pizzas in Fremantle - the best I have had in Perth.

Mine are not yet quite as good, but they are close - if you can turn out better pizzas than these from a domestic electric oven, PLEASE post your suggestions under Comments. This is not about ego. It’s about sharing the love! And if you love pizza as I do, I know you’ll know exactly what I mean.

OK, on to the recipe.

First, read the following:

Right, are you all sitting comftibold, two-square on your botty? Then I’ll begin….(If you haven’t heard Stanley Unwin’s intro to The Small Faces’ eccentric and wonderful Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake album, you’ll be WTF-ing all over the place…see here and here if you require further illumination).

Equipment
30cm pizza pan
pizza stone
egg flip or bakers’ peel
large mixing bowl
smaller bowl for yeast/water mix
bread-and-butter knife for mixing

Dough Ingredients (for two 30cm pizzas)
1 satchel dry yeast (5gm)
1 cup cold water (yes, cold)
3/4 to 1 1/4 teaspoons salt*
1/2 tablespoon unrefined brown sugar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 1/4 cups pizza flour, sifted
3/4 cup fine semolina**
1 tablespoon rye flour (processed, not whole-grain)***
milk (as needed - see Method below)

*I use a bit over 1/2 teaspoon of salt, due to my partner’s low-sodium requirements…you do need that much, because salt assists the yeast to perform its rising duties properly. If flavour was the sole consideration, I’d use 1 - 1.5 teaspoons of salt.
** I’ve found the semolina keeps the risen dough more flexible and workable than using flour alone.
***Optional, but rye is a natural dough enhancer and adds to the flavour.

Method

Tomato Sauce for Base
Ingredients
1 clove garlic chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
basil
oregano
black pepper (freshly ground)

Method
Heat olive oil in frypan over moderate heat. Add garlic, fry for 30 seconds (don’t let it colour), add tomatoes and herbs. Mix, add black pepper (and salt if you want - I leave it out). Cook gently to a thick, spreadable sauce consistency. Leave to cool.

Heat your oven to 230 degrees, with the pizza stone inside on the uppermost shelf. Leave enough room beneath for the pizza to go in on a pizza pan.

Assemble pizza
Divide dough into two balls. Leave one aside, covered, in bowl.

If you’re experienced in tossing pizzas to shape them, this is your chance to show off. If you’re a mere mortal, don’t use a rolling pin, which tends to iron out all the air from the dough - do it this way:

Flatten the dough out on your bench top, using the heels of your hands and fingers. Work the dough outwards into a circular shape, trying to keep the base even and avoiding any tears or thin patches. If the dough contracts and is hard to work, let it rest for 5-10 minutes, during which the gluten will relax.

When it is about the right size for your pizza pan, sprinkle the pan LIBERALLY with corn meal. Without this, your pizza will stick to the pan while baking. Pick the pizza dough up carefully and place in pan. Gently work the edges to the sides of the pan (or don’t bother if you are not fussy about shape). Make sure you have a raised rim to give the pizza a nice edge.

Add your toppings
Start by smearing olive oil over the base with your fingers, making sure to include the rim, then lightly sprinkle with dried oregano. Now spread the tomato sauce thinly. Then add your toppings. Less is better than more! Don’t overburden your base.

Baking
Put pizza (in the pan) on bottom shelf of oven. Bake for 5 minutes.

Now to the tricky part. Quickly remove the pan and slip the pizza off it and on to the stone, using the egg flip to gently free any sticking sections. If you have spread enough corn meal on to your pan, you should be able to ease the pizza over the edge of the pan and shake it on to the stone easily. If not, you might have to bake it a bit longer in the pan before again attempting to transfer it to the stone. (Don’t feel too bad if you stuff up - it’s almost a given that you’ll make a mess of a couple of your first pizzas before you get this step right. They might not look great, but the flavour will still be there).

Bake for another 7 minutes or so on the stone. Timing the baking perfectly is partly a matter of experience and feel. If it is nicely browned on top, that is often the best indication that it’s ready. Bake it too long and the crust will be hard and brittle, too short and the base won’t be cooked through. There is some margin for error here, but it is small. Keep the faith - you will get better with a bit of experience.

Toppings Suggestions
The good ol’ margarita (or margherita, if you prefer the Italian spelling) is hard to beat IMO. That is, slices of fresh tomato, mozzarella (pieces distributed over the top, rather than grated), with black pepper ground over the finished pizza and a few fresh basil leaves scattered around.

Another one I love:
Fresh ricotta crumbled over the tomato sauce topping, with mushrooms, pre-fried eggplant slices, red onion slices and pepperoni, with pieces of mozzarella here and there.

Or:
Tomato sauce topping, plus pipped olive halves and pepperoni (Mondo Doro hot cacciatore is the best I’ve come across in Perth - IGA stocks the Mondo Doro lines), and mozzarella scattered around (or grated), finished off with fresh-torn basil leaves.

Oh, and I always serve my pizzas with fresh-cut chilli in quality olive oil. I’m salivating all over the keys as I type.

Experiment! Do it YOUR way - this is the beauty of home-made pizzas! You can make them exactly how you want them. And once you’ve got the hang of it, you can expect to turn out something like this (one of my earlier efforts, before sodium content was an issue):

Happy baking! But a warning: once you start turning out masterpieces of your own, you’ll never be able to look a Domino’s, Pizza Hut or Eagle Boys abomination in the eye again - not without feeling compelled to sneer contemptuously at the sorry-looking plastic mutant, anyway.

Best of baking to you!

Related posts:

A great pizza is special, a joy like no other. So what makes a great pizza great?

The base is crucial. Not too thin, not too thick, not too brittle, not too chewy, not too much crunch on the outside crust, not too little…and the flavour has to be right. You can go quite a way to find a truly delectable base.

I went as far as Rome before I experienced one. This was back in the dim ages, though - the early 80s, to be specific, when the Aussie idea of a good pizza was all about the topping. More is better was the simple rule. Read the rest…

A positive piece to finish the week.

I’ve been looking for a pair of good quality binoculars as a birthday present for my partner. A couple of weeks ago I embarked on the usual research fest that precedes any significant purchase of mine, and after much to-ing and fro-ing, concluded that the Nikon Travelite V 8×25 CF best fitted the brief.

The hard stuff done (I thought), I moved on to Phase 2: comparing prices at local retail outlets. Annoyingly, forays to department stores and a multitude of camera outlets scattered around the Perth CBD were fruitless. Ditto the nearby suburbs. The ranges were generally poor, prices high, and none of them had the Nikon Travelite Vs.

Camerahouse in Leederville had the best choice of binoculars, but again, not the Nikon Travelites! These had been well reviewed and widely recommended on various web forums - I assumed they would be readily available locally.

Slightly daunted and running out of time, I hit Google and found a few Australian-based online stores that looked promising. I noticed their prices varied considerably, but were generally much lower on a model-for-model basis than those the Perth retail outlets were offering - and the range available online was far better. Read the rest…

As expected, ABC’s Four Corners piece on the gang bang culture of NRL lit the mainstream blogs up with comments from a ranting public. Predictably, they’ve ranged from boofhead defences of Matthew Johns and his mates to indignant condemnations of all males as rapists and calls for mass-castration. (Why do I keep reading this shit? Out of some perverse anthropological investigative urge, or an enduring trash aesthetic, or…nah, it’s something baser, but let’s not waste time on damaging self-reflection here.)

The unfortunate New Zealand “bun’s” description of what went on that night set me pondering. She painted a picture of debauchery that could have inspired Fellini to surpass the decadent reaches of Satyricon: NRL buddies queued up for their turn at her, while others sat around the room naked, watching on and masturbating. A retired ex-coach explained this sordid scene away as a form of “team bonding”.

Amongst all the online banter I have not seen a single post expressing my reaction, though I can’t imagine I am alone in formulating the following question. Slap me down with a sweat-soaked jockstrap if I’m astray here, but for all the blokey posturing, isn’t the notion of a group of buff young male athletes sitting around bicep to bicep, disrobed and wanking over their peers stirring each others porridge, a trifle…erm…gay?

Melbourne’s Pasquale “Nic” Ciampa may have ruled himself out as a contender for MasterChef Australia (see his post-wimpout interview here), but he sure as hell qualifies for a less prestigious award - MasterSook Australia.

This pathetic twat quit the show in a blubbering mess, insisting that he and wifey were “one and the same unit” - or some such shit - and just couldn’t bear to be parted any longer. 2 weeks with the other contestants in a lux Sydney apartment overlooking the harbour was too long for mummy’s boy Nic, and too long for wifey, it seems. Sobbed Nic as he announced his departure from the series: “It just shows how much we love each other.”

Bullshit, mate - it shows nothing of the sort. It shows that you and your wife have major dependency issues. This ain’t love that’s calling you home - it’s need. Read the rest…

A while ago, in one of those bored moods sitting in front of the monitor googling old school peers, ex-lovers, ex-wish-they’d-been-lovers, distant family relations etc, I thought I’d drop in on my old mate Matt from abstractgourmet. Many moons ago, we enjoyed an “exchange” in the Comments thread of my post And the Boomtown Rap Silver Spoon Best Perth Food Critic Award goes to… . I was out of inspiration for further aimless stone-turning on the web, so why not pay ol’ Matt a visit and see what he was up to, I asked myself. Go on, Self urged in glad response. So I did. Read the rest…

I usually take some care over my movie reviews, but I’m not going to waste time on appraising The Boat That Rocked in any depth. This crock of shit isn’t worth the effort.

My best hope for this post is that it might provide a community service - with any luck I might spare a moviegoer or two the ticket price, tedium and irritation I went through watching a long, long 2 hours and 14 minutes of this dross. Come to think about it, this review is probably too late to accomplish its mission, having been sitting around growing mildew while I was engaged in other projects and too despondent to make time to finish it. Oh well, maybe I’ll save someone the cost of renting the video - and the time they would have squandered watching it. Read the rest…

OK, this is a somewhat gratuitous post. I admit it - it’s all about the title. Couldn’t resist.

I should preface the following by declaring that John Worsfold contributed the most unforgettable and thrilling moment of poetic justice in the history of Subiaco Oval footy when he shirtfronted Hawthorn bullyboy, weight-thrower and general wanker Dermot Brereton on August 18th, 1991. The ecstatic crowd response was something I was part of, for which I thank Woosha, God and the fates for all eternity.

For those who would like to relive that magic moment, here it is:

Of course, Woosha was an intrinsic part of the coming of age of the Eagles, and of the legendary team that took off the club’s inaugural flag in 1992, and repeated the feat in 94. And he coached a succeeding generation to their third Premiership win in 2006. Bouquets, brickbats and bent-low bowings. Thank you, Woosha.

But what happens to this esteemed hard man of WA footy when he gets in front of the camera? It’s like Superman changing into Clark Kent! With the possible exception of Kylie Minogue, John Worsfold would have to be the blandest interviewee of all time. Kyles is urgently in need of a personality transplant, but Woosha’s interview impotence is all about attitude - he refuses to take a stand on anything but not taking a stand on anything! That’s wishy washy, Woosha! Read the rest…

Boxing has an enigmatic magnetism for me. Enigmatic, because I was born without a fighting gene. If you don’t count clench-eyed childhood fisticuffs flurries with my brother, I’ve never hit anyone. I copped a whack to the jaw once, in primary school, when I accused an opponent of cheating in “handball” (no resemblance to the European game). Came out of nowhere, sat me on my arse and shocked the hell out of me. I’ve never forgotten it.

So what attracts a wuz like me to boxing? My initial interest probably derived from watching championship title bouts on TV as a kid with my father and brother. In those days, there was no pay TV - all world title fights were broadcast, and were events not to be missed. This was the time of local heroes Lionel Rose and Johnny Famechon, and of course the great icon of the 60s/early 70s, Mohammad Ali.

Ali embodied the paradoxes that made boxing so compelling for me. The showbiz pizazz, the sense of theatre. The bemusing cohabitation of bone-rattling brute power and grace that tipped over into kinetic poetry. The pre-fight bragging and playful wit that charmed the media and public while serving a dual function as the psychological weapons of a smiling assassin. The nobility of the great warrior superimposed on the primal savagery that lurks within the athlete killer in the ring.

Then there is the backdrop - the flood-lit roped-off square of canvas sanctifying grievous bodily harm and murderous intent. The crowd baying its blood lust. The enormous stakes, the terrible risk of annihilation, the sweat and the fury, the impossible art of it all.

In the combination of these disparate elements lies boxing’s allure.

My interest in boxing does not generally extend to boxing movies. However, I attended an advance screening of Two Fists One Heart last Sunday with a heightened sense of curiousity, firstly because it was filmed in Perth, and secondly because I was aware that it was the culmination of a 10 year dream of “Northbridge identity” Rai Fazio. Rightly or wrongly, I associate Fazio with seedy suburban gyms and the shady mythologised figures of Perth’s underworld - not the sort of demographic that typically spawns movie makers and artists, you’d think. Intriguing. Read the rest…

The reviews of The Secret Life Of Bees have been mixed, swinging between quiet acclaim and charges of sentimentality amidst much eye-rolling and honey-based punning. A whiff of American schmaltz and my custom is to affix peg to nose and walk on by at conspicuous pace; although I don’t have much faith in most critics, I would have been inclined to weight the saccharine accusations with more cred and steer clear of this one. Happily, I scored a free ticket to the Perth preview. Happily, because this bribe overrode my mush detector system and cleared a way through the cynicism - this is a little gem of a movie.

A couple of days after I attended the local premiere, those two old crocs of cinema critique, Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, reviewed this movie on their ABC TV show At The Movies. More on their findings in a moment, but here we come to an aside. Read the rest…