Alright, so a couple weeks ago, I promised that I'd write a secondary post about pizza dough a couple days later. To my credit, I actually did make that second pizza, and I had every intention of writing about it in a timely manner. But I'll be honest with you, I totally dropped the ball because I got stuck in an obsessive videogame spiral. I tried so hard to tear myself out of this black hole, but there were a lot of bad guys that needed a good strong whooping. Plus, I was saving the world from violent hooligans, which I'd argue is more or less about as important as blogging about pizza.
Anyway, I dropped the word "magic" when describing how using olive oil can prevent your dough from turning into a sad, soggy mess, but it's really just common sense. Water and oil don't mix. So if you're going to heap ingredients on a sog-susceptible dough, what do you do? Put oil on it. That's your barrier against all your ingredients, so you'll get a nice, firm dough that's crispy on the bottom. If you don't want to bother with brushing, you can just drizzle the top with olive oil and spread it with your hands.
It helps to push a few dents into the dough with your fingertips as well, so the crust doesn't puff up into a giant bubble. You see, when the pizza is heated in the oven, the air bubbles in the dough expand, forming bubbles that can get out of control. To counteract this, a lot of people "dock" the dough, meaning they prick holes in the dough with a fork or other pointy object. (You can also buy this absurd contraption, but seriously just use a fork.) But just pushing dents into the crust should deter any large bubbles from forming, since you're essentially blocking the spread of air bubbles.
This time, I followed the recommendation of The Joy of Cooking and made a prosciutto, artichoke, and olive pizza. Tip: if you're going to use canned artichoke hearts (which mostly likely you will be using), don't forget to squeeze the juice out first! Or else you're going to end up with a soppy pile of mush.
Pizza is so freaking delicious.
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