Perfecting Family Pizza Night: Crispy Potato, Bacon & Chive Pizza

Know Your Dough

My husband is our dough man. He’s perfected the art of the perfect pizza crust. His recipe features a heavy dose of olive oil, which adds flavor, tenderness and the perfect crunch. He usually makes the dough in the morning and sticks it in the fridge for a slow rise time, which helps develop flavor. His recipe makes two generously large pizzas when rolled thin. We’ve found that rolling the dough to 1/8” thickness results in the perfect balance of crunchy, chewy crust.

We love J.K. Adams’ Lovely Rolling Pin, which features slight indentations on the edge of the pin to ensure the dough rolls to a perfect, even 1/8” thickness every time. Incidentally, the owners of Chicago’s Lovely Bake Shop developed these rolling pins. Their bakery is situated right down the street from our first apartment, so using this pin brings back some great memories for us.

Once the dough is rolled and ready, I’m charged with toppings. The kids go fairly traditional – typically they request some combination of red sauce, pepperoni, black olives, fresh spinach, and basil.

The choices for the “grown up” pizza vary based on seasonal ingredients and our imagination. For wintertime, we love a hearty white pizza topped with thinly sliced red potatoes, crispy bacon or crumbled sausage, garlic and fresh herbs. We’ve found the key to potato pizza is to prebake the potato slices until they’re soft and slightly dried. This prevents the pizza from getting soggy and allows the potatoes to get crispy and golden just as the cheese melts on the final pie.

Tools of the Trade

After many years of trial-and-error, our pizza-making arsenal includes a few essential tools:

• A great pizza stone. We opted for a large, rectangular version, which is more forgiving than the round ones if you roll your dough slightly askew. Ours is nearly 10 years old and keeps getting better with age.
• A large pizza peel is ideal for transferring your pizza to and from the oven. This gorgeous Acacia Wood version from Ironwood Gourmet is generously sized at 14 x 14”. Incidentally, we always place our pizzas on a layer of parchment paper dusted with cornmeal, which makes the transition to and from the oven much easier.
• Finally, you’ve got to have a great pizza cutter! We tried (and broke) a ton of cheaply-made cutters before receiving this great one from Rosle. It is constructed entirely from stainless steel so it’s really sturdy. The cutting wheel is firmly anchored and sharp enough to tackle the crunchiest crust with ease.

Winter is just beginning here in Chicago. Most weekends, you’ll find us cozied up with our kids making the most of it with a family pizza party.