mulberryshoots

As someone who likes to cook, there are a few dishes that I’ve always wished that I could make as tasty at home as they are in restaurants.

One of them is Pizza Margherita (like one that I had in Minneapolis) and some dim sum dumplings (Shray Jow and Har Gow) – water dumplings and those tiny opaque wrapped shrimp dumplings in Chinese dim sum restaurants. Japanese Bento box dishes are another on my list; maybe Asian “street food,” especially “bing” with scallions and sesame seeds; and Asia noodle dishes of all kinds: Korean, Pho, Pad Thai, like that!

Anyhow, I guess you could call this a kind of “food/cooking bucket list” – and I’ve started today by making a pizza margherita crust, using Italian “tipo 00” flour. The dough has a much finer texture than those I’m familiar with made with all-purpose flour. I’ve refrigerated two of them to keep for a couple of days and will use the other one tonight for our pizza. I also watched a video of how to stretch out the pizza dough to begin and then roll it around on your knuckles to make it larger. As with biscuits, stretching and minimal handling (not rolling it out with a pin) makes the texture of the crust more chewy, I guess.

Although I understand why people make their own pizza sauce, we’re fans of Mezzetta brand tomato sauces. I did pick up a fresh ball of mozzarella cheese and we have a large basil plant out on the deck that will provide the fresh leaves when the pizza is baked and ready to eat.

So, here’s a photo of the dough with the special flour to start – more photos to add later on when the pizza is ready for dinner. What’s on your list of food/dishes you’d like to learn how to make? Would love to hear about them!