My most recent pizza making experience led me to an interesting technique. I made a batch of pizza dough, yielding enough for two pizzas. I originally planned to save half for a later day so I put one in the refrigerator and left out the other for a few hours to rise.
My stretching technique resulted in this misshapen blob, typical of my previous efforts. I cooked and ate the pizza, then decided to try one more time.
The dough was cold after its time in the refrigerator. Cold dough doesn't sag and is much easier to stretch into a regular shape. I had read about this technique before but its importance hadn't sunk in. I probably could have made this dough both larger and rounder but I was so happy with my success that I decided to declare victory.
The result was this very pleasing pizza. The pizza guys in New Jersey don't need to refrigerate their dough but they have both talent and skill. Since I have neither, I plan to refrigerate my pizza doughs from now on.
Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course)
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