Whole Wheat Sourdough Pizza by Mike

For my first contribution to Charleston Pig I figured I'd chronicle my attempt at making super thin whole wheat sourdough pizza. Not only is there no pig, but there's no meat or grill involved whatsoever. So....here's a picture of a porterhouse and a bison sirloin marinating next to a beer and a bottle of olive oil just to sort of tie it all together...or not.

The Sauce
I started Saturday afternoon making the sauce since I like to give it a day for the flavors to do whatever they do. I opened a 28 oz can of San Marzano whole tomatoes and went through a ridiculously tedious process to strain out the seeds and remove the bitter excess liquid. After that I just used an immersion blender to crush the whole tomatoes until there are no large solid pieces left but still had some texture too it. To this I just added a pinch of dried oregano, a pinch of sea salt, a pinch of sugar, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. I mean just a pinch because I like to taste the tomatoes. That's it, no cooking, just let it sit in the refrigerator over night.

The Dough

• 3 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour
• 5 1/4 t wheat gluten
• 1 T olive oil
• 3/4 t dry yeast
• 1/3 cup sourdough starter
• 1 1/2 t honey
• 1 t sea salt
• 3/4 cup room temp water

After finishing the sauce I started on the dough. I took a dough recipe from some pizza dork website and wanted to alter it a little to use my sourdough starter and then substituted honey for the original sugar. First I sifted the flour and gluten in order to lighten up the whole wheat flour, supposedly this will keep it from being too dense. Next I mixed the water, oil, dry yeast, salt and honey in the mixer until it was thoroughly mixed. I then put the dough hook on and added the sourdough starter and started mixing on low while gradually adding the flour. The original recipe said to only mix until it forms a ball....this took about 3-4 minutes. I let it sit for a few minutes in a lightly oiled bowl and then covered in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator overnight. It is suggested you let it rise in there for 24 hours. Here's an exciting picture of a dough ball.

The Pizza

Sunday evening I pulled the dough out and let it come to room temp while the oven heated up to 500 degrees. I tossed some flour on the counter and started to roll out the dough trying to get it as thin as I possibly could. I could have gone thinner but it was evident that I wouldn't be able to easily get the dough on the pizza peel so I stopped before I screwed up 24 hours of preparation. after getting it on the peel and pinching the rim up in an attempt to create a lip I used a chop stick to put a bunch of little holes in the dough. This keeps big bubbles from forming. Typically there is a tool called a docker to do this but I found the chopsticks to work just fine.

Finally I put the sauce, fresh mozzarella, Parmesan cheese, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, and artichoke hearts on the dough and tossed it in the 500 degree oven on a pizza stone. after 7 minutes I took it out an threw on some fresh basil leaves and put it back in for 5 minutes. I was satisfied with the results. I think I would double the honey to a tablespoon and maybe cook it on a pan so I could brush it with olive oil to give the crust more flavor. It was a bit on the bland side but had good texture.

The End
I promise the next installment will have pigs on smokers.