Perfect Tortillas

I never considered making tortillas until the day when I wanted to make fajitas for dinner and found that tortillas are somewhat scarce and expensive in France. But as it turns out, tortillas are super easy to make and ten times more delicious than store-bought. And fun! If, you know, you happen to find bread baking types of activities fun. Recipe via The Fresh Loaf. Go there for pretty pictures and an enlightening discussion about various fats.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup lard (this is the Secret Ingredient)
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup warm milk (or water, for somewhat less tender results)

Throw the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine. Add the lard, and mix by hand or with a mixer until the mixture is grainy. By hand isn't as difficult as you might think. I use a fork and a spoon and it works just fine.

Add the warm milk and mix until it becomes dough that you can pick up with your hands. If you use some fancy cooking equipment, like a wooden spoon, this will work better. It's not that tablespoons don't work, it's just that they become a bit...bendy. Such are the perils of cooking abroad with an understocked kitchen.

When the dough comes together, lightly flour your hands and scoop it up. Or just turn on the stand mixer for five minutes. If you're doing it by hand, knead it and squeeze it and squish it and dance with it for a few minutes.

Divide into twelve equalish balls. Put them in time-out for thirty minutes.

After the thirty minutes is up, flatten them with your hand and use a rolling pin (i.e. an old wine bottle) to roll them into 6 or 7 inch tortillas. The idea is to make them round, but splatter-shaped tastes just fine.

Lightly grease a griddle or a skillet or a crêpe pan (I am in France) and throw on the tortillas. As many as will fit at a time. They cook very quickly. Regrease, repeat, and try to avoid eating them all before dinner.

Artisan Pizza

This is the ultimate pizza dough. It sounds like a lot of work but it's really just a few minutes, plus lots of down time in the fridge. It's also fairly fail-proof, provided that your yeast isn't dead - overcooked, undercooked, dough too wet, dough too dry - it's very forgiving.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast
  
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 4 teaspoons olive oil

In a small bowl, proof the yeast by combining it with the sugar and slowly stirring in the warm water. Put in a warm place (an oven that's been briefly preheated then turned off, for example) for 10 minutes. If your yeast mixture has become cloudy and ferment-y, you're good to go.

During those ten minutes, mix together your flour and salt in a smallish mixing bowl. Add the proofed yeast and stir until just combined. This is a very wet, sticky dough, so don't freak out.

Pour the olive oil into something like a 2-cup measure, and swirl to coat the sides. Drop/scrape/scoot your dough in there and turn it so that it gets completely covered with olive oil.

Then cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and let it sit out for 30 minutes. Then stick it in the fridge.

You'll want to do all that in the morning, because it needs to sit there in the fridge for at least 6 hours. If you don't have six hours, you can do it one hour by setting it somewhere warm. If you have more than six hours, don't worry about it. You can even leave the thing in there overnight, no worries.

An hour before you want to bake, preheat your oven to 475, and sit a baking stone in there if you're fancy. Take your bowl of dough out of the fridge, pour some of the olive oil onto your hands so you're nicely greased up, then take the dough out, hold it in one hand, and pour the rest of the olive oil out onto your pizza pan or cookie sheet. Spread it around, then plop your dough on it. Pat it into a ball, press it down gently, then ignore it for 15 minutes. Go work on your pizza toppings, this is a great recipe for multi-tasking.

After it's set for 15 minutes, shape it into whatever pizza shape you want, then cover it with plastic wrap and leave it alone again, this time for 30-60 minutes.

Now it's time to bake it. You can do something fancy with your baking stone if you want, like setting the pizza pan on it for five minutes, then adding your toppings, then sliding the pizza directly onto the stone for a couple minutes. But if you don't have a pizza stone, then just bake the dough 5 minutes on its pan/sheet, add your toppings (your extremely delicious, high-quality toppings), and then slide directly onto the rack to finish baking.

Perfection.

You can put anything on this pizza, but I've found I prefer it without sauce, or with something extremely minimal. My favorite thing to do is to brush the hot crust with a halved clove of garlic, then add caramelized onions and red bell peppers, grilled chicken, and sliced Munster cheese.

My other favorite thing is to use a base of garlic-herb cream cheese, topped with caramelized onions (it's my thing, okay?),wilted spinach, and roasted grape tomatoes.

Makes great dessert pizza, too.