Basic Pizza Dough

I used to use this one a lot back when I had access to a good grill to cook pizzas in. The grill is actually the best place in a normal home to cook a pizza. Your oven just can't get hot enough. That's the most important part of a good pizza. The other is letting the dough slow rise overnight in the fridge.

Basic Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour. If you want a heartier dough, use half unbleached and half all purpose.
• 1 cup warm water. Too hot will kill the yeast. If it's too painful to touch it's too hot.
• 1/3 cup olive oil. It doesn't need to be super fancy, but please use real olive oil.
• 1 packet or 1 tbsp of dry yeast.
• 1 or 2 tbsp salt

Directions:

Get out your mixer and put the dough hook on it. If you want to do this by hand you're more committed than me. First, put the flour and the yeast in the bowl and start mixing on slow. Second, mix the salt and water together to dissolve the salt, then add it to the bowl slowly. If you add it too fast you'll end up with a ball of dough splashing around. Third, add the oil slowly. Mix on medium to medium low until it forms a single blob of dough. Turn it down a little and let the dough knead in the mixer for 15 min. Keep an eye on the mixer. You can over-knead the dough, but more importantly the big ones like to "walk" off the counter when you leave them kneading for that long. Here's the important part. For maximum flavor you want to let the dough slow rise in a cold place. I put it in the fridge overnight covered with plastic wrap directly on the dough, but loosely so it can breathe.

For a bonus tip add garlic powder and herbs on the dough before adding sauce. I like garlic powder and menudo mix. Which is mostly oregano and red pepper.