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An Excerpt from... Stuffed Sausage Pizza (Mom’s New Year’s Eve Tradition) Every New Year’s Eve mom would be in the kitchen at the stove preparing her famous sausage pizza. She timed it perfectly so that it would be hot out of the oven at precisely midnight, so that after we toasted, (adults with champagne kids with sparkling cider,) we would all bite into a delectable piece of her pizza. What is great about this recipe is many of us liked it as much cold out of the fridge as hot out of the oven. So for days following New Year’s Eve you could not pass the fridge without seeing someone’s butt as they stood at the door and picked up pieces of the tasty pizza guarding it from the rest of the crowds.
Pizza or Bread Dough
Soften yeast in ½ cup water. To boiling water, add shortening, sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm. Add 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. Add softened yeast (eggs, if wanted) and about 2 more cups of flour. Beat well again. Cover and let rise in a warm place until light and bubbly (about 45 minutes). Beat down and add enough flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Turn out on floured board or pastry cloth and knead until smooth and satiny. Place in greased bowl cover and let rise (about 1 ½ hours). Punch down. Let rise again and punch down again.
Filling for Pizza · 2 lbs hot sausage · 1 small mozzarella · 2 eggs · Handful of grating cheese (preferably locatelli romano) · Salt (about 1 tsp or to taste) Cut sausage and mozzarella in small pieces. Add eggs, grating cheese and salt. Mix all ingredients together. Put oil in oblong pan (13 ½ by 8 ¾). Divide dough in half, fit to shape of pan. Put filling on top. Cover with remaining dough. Join top and bottom layers of dough together so that filling is completely covered, with fork pinch holes in dough. Coat top of dough lightly with oil. Bake at 350◦ for about 1 hour (after ½ hour turn pizza over carefully, again oil pan) If dough is still oily when removed from oven put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so.
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