Cast-Iron Skillet the Key to "Serious" Homemade Pizza
Earlier this month we pointed out a clever idea for using your cast-iron skillet to cook pizza. Today, The Atlantic goes in-depth on cast-iron pizza cooking, crowning it the "secret to serious pizza."
Writer and foodie Vaughn Tan tested various pizza-cooking methods to get the closest-to-restaurant-quality results possible. Here's what he found:
A cast-iron skillet and a broiler in combination are the easy secret to a light, airy, moist, chewy, crisp, lightly-charred pizza without an expensive wood-fired oven or a potentially-expensive experiment with your home oven's safety lock. This pizza will not be quite as good as something baked in under a minute in a roaring-hot pizza oven, but it comes awfully close, all things considered.
The full recipe Tan followed is available here, but the majority of his recipe details the finer points of the cooking process. For example, to prepare the skillet and the oven:
Turn on the broiler and preheat the dry, ungreased skillet on the stovetop on the highest setting for eight to 10 minutes. As soon as you begin heating the skillet, lightly flour a wood cutting board, or better yet a pizza peel.
It's an intense process, and not exactly something you can throw together in a few minutes (his suggested dough needs four to six days to mature), but if you're looking to make a great homemade pizza, it's worth a try.
Strange to see this posted at Lifehacker just after I used the technique to make Pebble Bread. I'm a believer.