cast iron – Page 9 – Cast Iron Guy

2021-03-152021-03-15

Making Homemade New York(ish) Style Pizza for Pi Day

The kid was determined to eat round for March 14th.

We’d already made a pair of fruit dessert pies for later, but she decided that pizza was on the menu. What better way to make use of one of those specialty cast iron pieces that doesn’t otherwise see much day-to-day use: the 14 inch pizza pan.

Sadly I didn’t give myself enough runway to make use of my sourdough pizza crust recipe.

Some recipe research and light modification produced the following, which actually turned out fairly awesome from a “reminds me of that time in New York” slice perspective.

recipe

450 g all purpose flour 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon active dry yeast 1 ¹/₄ cups tap water

1 cup tomato sauce blend of pizza spices, to taste 2 cups grated mozzarella cheese assorted pizza toppings

We blended the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a food processor, then drizzled in the water and oil until a shaggy dough ball formed. This was kneaded on the floured countertop to a smooth consistency, then divided into two smaller portions, rolled until smooth. We oiled these up and let them rest and rise on the counter for a couple hours.

I heated up the tomato paste in my small cast iron melting pot, stirred in the spice mix, and let it bubble away for about fifteen minutes until everything was nicely blended.

The proofed dough balls were hand-shaped to two fourteen inch crusts, docked, and baked at 450F for about ten minutes (or until I noticed they were starting to brown on the top.) Ideally you should crank your oven a little hotter, but I need to clean mine and 550F would have smoked us out of the house.

The pizza crusts were topped and then baked back in the still-hot oven for about 12 minutes until the cheese was bubbly.

She missed out on a school trip to New York city last fall thanks to pandemic lockdowns, but with a recipe like this… well it smoothed out the rough edges a little bit.

2021-03-142022-03-09 episode 73

This is Pi Day

Any excuse to bake something, my pie skills are not top game but with the assistance of my daughter we managed to bake a pair of non-standard cast iron pies to celebrate the dad-jokiest of days.

We doubled the recipe below to make a six inch mini (or as the teenager would have it, personal) pie and a super-large double-dip pie in the big ol’ twelve inch lodge pan.

Pi day also falls at the wrong time of year for some proper fresh fruit, so where we’d have a couple thousand baking apples to work with in August, in March we used our fallback: cherry and blueberry pie filling from a can.

Recipe

¹/₂ pound lard 2.5 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt ¹/₂ cup orange juice 1 can of pie filling

The flour, salt and lard got mixed up roughly in a bowl, being careful not to overwork. Unlike with a good gluten-strong bread, pastry and gluten are cautious friends and too much gluten development makes for chewy crust where a flaky pastry is preferred. Blend lightly, my friends. Oh so lightly.

When just mixed, the orange juice was combined in and the whole thing was wrapped tight for a couple hours of rest in the fridge.

Rolled out, panned up, filled, and topped, we baked these at 475F for ten minutes then dropped the heat to 375F for a finishing bake watching for the desired browning. The filling was pre-cooked, so the cast iron pan on the bottom and the hot air on top ensure the whole thing is cooked through.

Happy Pi Day. Enjoy something round!

2021-03-132022-03-09 episode 72

Pi Day, Eve

We spent the evening making pies.

Tomorrow is March 14th.

It’s one of those “we celebrate the day because it’s funny“ kinda days.

The third month.

The fourteenth day.

3-14

3.14

Pi.

Pi day.

Last year I bought a pie on my way back to my office after lunch. It was March 13th. I got called into a meeting fifteen minutes later and didn’t go home until almost 9pm that night having been drafted to the emergency communications team reacting to COVID-19.

I ate a cold piece of pie late the next day after another 16 hour work day, stressed, deflated, and shell-shocked from the pandemic hitting our little city full force.

I went a bit overboard on this baked pie.

I used the 12 inch frying pan as a pie plate.

Two cans of store-bought pie filling.

It’s so big.

The kid helped, and in fact she did most of the work.

This year’s pie is going to be so much better than last year.

2021-03-082021-03-08

Why do I need to put so much work into my cast iron?

Can’t I just beat it up and use it how I feel like?

I was reading a r/castiron post over on Reddit recently and someone asked this simple question. It was along the lines of why y’all putting in so much work to your frying pans? I don’t and it still mostly works. Who cares!

I have so many questions myself.

First and foremost, whose wasting the most time? Someone looking after their possessions to get the most from them, or someone reading a forum about something they obviously don’t care about?

I didn’t reply.

Instead, I made a note to myself to add this terrific question and answer to my website because it’s a complex question with a simple answer.

Do you need to put in a lot of work to your cast iron pans?

No, of course not.

Just like you don’t need to change the oil in your car. It just helps your engine run better and longer.

You don’t need to clean your bathroom, but people might avoid your house if you stop.

And bathing and brushing your teeth is completely optional, but when you start to smell, get sick and lose your teeth it’s your own fault.

So, no, you don’t need to put in any work to your cast iron cookware. But if you do it helps it cook better, last longer, and make delicious, healthy food for you and your friends for a long, long time.