Pizza? Again? Yes, A Grandma Pie this time! (Plus can you ever really get too much of pizza?)

Saturday was a fun surf day. The waves were pretty mellow, and I did pretty good paddling into them. I am starting to time my paddling better, and slowly but surely I am making progress. I had been accused of selecting waves I know I can't catch, but I'm trying to change that, and that's slowly working too. Also, I am starting to think about adding a new surf spot into my rotation since I've been doing mostly Santa Monica and Zuma. What about Venice? Or El Porto, birthplace of Osoporto? (side note: Osoporto's Jon Berry also puts out a cool little paper called the OsoDaily. Here's a link so check it out: http://paper.li/itsOsoPorto/1396689451). Anyway, it may be time to change things up a bit -- just like it was nice to mix things up and have a patty melt instead of a cheeseburger. And while we're at it, what about mixing things up a bit when it comes to pizza?

That same issue of Bon Appetit that had the Patty Melt recipe? Well, it also had the recipe for this pizza you see below, which we had the other night.

It's called a Grandma Pie. I'm usually partial to thin crust NY style pizza slices. But when I was growing up back east all pizza joints also had Sicilian pies on hand, and this Grandma Pie is closer to that. Sicilian Pizza has a thicker, almost focaccia-like crust. If done right, it should be a little crisp on the bottom and at the edges, but softer in the middle. It was, and it was really, really good. The master recipe calls for just mozzarella, and tomato sauce, but I had some fennel-garlic sausage in the freezer from McCalls Meat and Fish (www.mccallsmeatandfish.com) and so ours had sausage on top too. Plus some of the anchovies leftover from mixing up the sauce were added. If you like thick crust, Sicilian style pizza, try this recipe (just keep in mind this is another dough that requires an overnight rise, so plan ahead!).

Grandma Pizza (or Sicilian-Style)
(recipe courtesy Bon Appetit - for 1 pie, serving about 6)

Dough

1 envelope active dry yeast (about 2 1/4 tsp)
1 1/2 cups warm water (105-110 degrees)
2 tbsp. plus 1/2 cup olive oil, divided
2 tsp. kosher salt
4 cups all purpose flour

1. Combine yeast and warm water in a large bowl.  Let stand until yeast starts to foam, about ten minutes.
2. Mix in 2 tbsp. olive oil, (reserve the remaining 1/2 cup olive oil until later, see below) then 2 cups all purpose flour and 2 tsp. salt.  Add another 2 cups flour, a cup at a time, mixing until incorporated and a shaggy dough forms.
3. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until soft, smooth and elastic, 10-12 minutes. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Chill 24 hours.

Sauce

1 28 oz. can peeled tomatoes

2 anchovies

2 garlic cloves

6 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup basil leaves

Salt and fresh ground pepper

1. Drain tomatoes and in blender or food processor pulse with anchovies, garlic, olive oil and basil. Process until mostly smooth. Season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Toppings

12 oz. grated Mozzarella (or do like me…mix Mozzarella with fontina)

1-2 sweet or spicy Italian sausage, removed from casings and browned in skillet

Anchovies, if you like

Putting it all together

1. Preheat oven to 525, or as high as it will go. Place rack in lower third of oven.
2. Once dough has risen 24 hours, coat a 18x13" baking rimmed baking sheet with the reserved 1/2 cup olive oil. Place dough on baking sheet and gently press and stretch dough until it reaches edges. If dough springs back or is stiff to work with, let it rest ten minutes before continuing.  You may have to do this a couple of times (although I didn't find that).
3. Cover dough on baking sheet tightly with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place until it is puffed and full of bubbles, 30-40 minutes.
4. Once dough has risen on baking sheet, top with the mozzarella. Dot pie with 1 1/2 cups sauce.  Scatter over cooked sausage and lay on anchovies if using.
5. Bake pie until golden brown and crisp on bottom and sides, about 20-30 minutes.

So here are some pictures of the process, starting with the dough, after its overnight rise.

Here's the sauce coming together. It doesn't need to be cooked, so super easy, right? I even used my stick blender, which means no clean up of the food processor or blender.

Now the sausage browning in the skillet. McCalls makes their sausage in house. There are many different varieties. Get some!

Now here's the dough in the pan, all stretched to the edge and after having risen:

And here's the pizza just out of the oven before it was cut into slices.

Like any pizza, you can pretty much customize this any way you want. You could do Pepperoni.  You could do a veggie pizza with chard or kale. Whatever you like. So if you like to make pizza at home, change it up: make a Grandma Pie. And of course leftovers make great eats at the beach. Who doesn't like cold pizza, huh?