Rhode Island Pizza
yes, rhode island does things.
guest: greg masi
Full Recipe Video:
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
All purpose flour
1 lb. pizza dough (not Trader Joe’s-see notes below)
Olive oil
Garlic powder
Sea salt
2 15 oz. cans Hunts tomato sauce
1 8 oz. container Locatelli Pecorino Romano
Dried oregano
Fresh ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 375.
Put a small pile of flour (about 1/4 cup) on large cutting board for rolling your dough. Before rolling your dough, bring to room temperature for at least an hour. Cold dough is hard to manipulate. Put dough ball on your cutting board, letting it fall out of the bag. Start tossing it through the flour and spreading the dough. You’re looking to create a large rectangle to fit on your baking sheet. If your dough is cold, you will need to roll it to spread it out and get it to the shape you want. If your dough is warm enough, you should be able to spread and pull it with your hands.
Drizzle olive oil on a baking sheet (standard 9x13), enough to coat the surface. Pick up baking sheet and move oil around so the whole surface is coated. Sprinkle a generous amount of garlic powder over the olive oil on the baking sheet. Do the same with your sea salt over the garlic powder. This is going to stick to the bottom of your pizza crust.
Place your dough onto your baking sheet, spread and work edges of dough so it covers the baking sheet as much as possible. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil on top of your dough, and spread it around with your fingers to mostly cover the top of the dough. This will keep it from burning. Put your dough in the oven for 5 minutes. This is going to make it crispy before we add our topping.
Remove pizza crust from oven. Spread 1 can tomato sauce over the top. Use the back side of a tablespoon to spread it around your crust so it’s evenly distributed and bring it right to the edges of your crust.
Add a generous amount of pecorino romano on top of your sauce. You will probably end up using close to 3/4 of your container. Sprinkle oregano across the entire top of your pizza. Grind your peppercorn across the top as well.
Place pizza back in oven for 25 minutes on top rack. After 25 minutes, check your pizza. If you would like it a little more well done on top, leave it in the oven a little longer, but watch to make sure you don’t burn it.
Remove your pizza from the oven. Using a spatula, lift the whole pie off your baking sheet and place on a cutting board. Cut your pizza into squares and serve hot!
Notes:
This is a classic grandma (square) pie pizza recipe from the Masi family of Rhode Island. Our friend Greg makes this pizza for many of his house parties, and let’s just say our RSVP is an automatic “yes” when we know the pizza is being made. The simplicity of this pizza is what makes it so good. While you certainly could add to it: fresh ricotta on top, chopped garlic, sausage, prosciutto, etc. it’s so good as is, so we don’t mess with a good thing.
There are a few important notes on ingredients we don’t suggest straying from. The dough: Greg is adamant Trader Joe’s pizza dough is no good. He suggests getting your dough from a pizza place, (yup, your local pizza spots will usually sell you their dough) a local Italian market, or even your local grocery store. The cheese: apparently Locatelli pecorino romano is THE cheese to use for this pizza. So try to get it. The sauce: While it might seem less than authentic Italian to use Hunts canned tomato sauce, it’s again, that simplicity that makes it the optimal choice for this pizza. So in this case, the less fancy, the better.
