davidn: (Jam)
davidn ([personal profile] davidn) wrote2007-05-19 07:31 pm
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Dinner, bachelor style

I really shouldn't be posting this. If I kept it quiet, no one would ever know and the whole thing would just go away. But in the interest of finally writing a decent entry , letting the Internet share the story and not worrying about my reputation, this is an account of dinner this evening.

The plan was simple. Home-made pizza. It's not the most amazingly complex of meals, but still respectable enough to be impressive for someone who doesn't normally cook for himself. The last time Whitney and I tried it, it all got stuck to the baking pan and could only be removed by chiselling at it with a fork for hours, and I was determined to do it right this time.

Again, in a none too complicated fashion, I went for chicken and pepperoni as my toppings. I've always found chicken a terribly frightening thing to cook because it'll obviously kill you instantly if you so much as touch it when it's raw, so I always end up frying it for about four hours and it's as dry as a sheet of paper by the time it comes out. Not this time, though - in fact, I'd like to think I got a rather perfectly done chicken thigh.

Rolling the dough isn't a difficult task either, even though the stuff I was using seemed pretty resistant to my efforts to actually spread it out. Nevertheless, I guessed that that was just because it had been in the freezer for a while. After battering it a bit with the rolling pin, I got it into something resembling a circle, oiled a biscuit sheet, slapped it on and threw it in the oven.

About ten minutes later I came back to see that it had formed a huge mountain in the middle. (I was later told by Whitney that you're meant to puncture dough before you put it in the oven to stop it from doing that. Who knew?) Still, this was easily solved by battering it down a bit with a spatula. After that, it doesn't take Gordon Ramsay to know that you slather it in tomato-based sauce and put cheese on top along with your choice of topping - cubed chicken and sliced pepperoni. What could be simpler?

So after about another ten minutes, I went back to check it. It seemed ready enough, so I got it out, tipped it on to a plate and, after a painstaking half hour or so avoiding any kitchen-related disasters, sat down for dinner.

That was when I realized I'd used piecrust instead of pizza dough.

The result was a perfectly formed, crispy, flaky pie crust - one that happened to have a load of cheese, chicken and pepperoni on top of it. Or, to put it another way, the ugliest, saltiest pizza in the world.

After trying a couple of bites, then staring at it with mixed feelings of despair and hysteria, I scraped the toppings off on to a slice of naan. Then I rolled it up and ate that instead in a kind of salad wrap arrangement, cusring the Gods of Home Economics for making a mockery of me once again.

I think I'll stick to salad from now on.

[identity profile] ern56.livejournal.com 2007-05-20 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
As someone whose job it is to make pizzas, I'm not really sure what to say about this. :/

It looks like you did everything right except using the wrong type of dough - I think if you were to try this again with pizza dough you'd actually get a really nice end result.

Still... the thought of pizza toppings in, on, or anywhere near a pie crust kind of makes me sick to my stomach... that combination just really bothers me. :\
kjorteo: Confused Bulbasaur portrait from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. (Bulbasaur: Confused)

[personal profile] kjorteo 2007-05-20 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
That actually doesn't look so bad in the picture, though I imagine it would be pretty salty to the taste. Not to mention the fact that I like my crust to be so soft that I've been known to deliberately undercook things just to savor the doughy goodness, and I have yet to meet a pie crust you could defeat with anything less than a chainsaw, so maybe that's not so good.

[identity profile] ex-gh232.livejournal.com 2007-05-20 11:00 am (UTC)(link)
You could've told me you bought that from the KFB and I'd have believed you...

[identity profile] malefact.livejournal.com 2007-05-20 01:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Looks like a Doctor Who villian. :)

[identity profile] yemminie.livejournal.com 2007-05-20 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh my gosh, that is hilarious. I burst out laughing, and now I'm wiping the tears from my eyes. Oh heavens. Maybe pie crust pizza wouldn't be too terrible if you used non-salty toppings? Maybe pineapple or something? Or maybe you could do like a dessert twist - jam instead of tomato sauce, coconut or shaved white chocolate instead of cheese, and fruit for the toppings? Or perhaps it would just be better never to revisit pie crust pizza again.

[identity profile] stubbleupdate.livejournal.com 2007-05-20 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I've seen uglier pizzas, but they were the result of somebody drunkenly holding the pizza box at an angle of 90 degrees.

It looked like...I don't even want to say what it looked like.

[identity profile] starfishchris.livejournal.com 2007-05-20 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Tomato
Cheese
Chicken
Pepperoni
(and some barbecue sauce if you have it)

in a dish

in the oven

until it's all very hot


Take a spoon and enjoy.

[identity profile] raphx.livejournal.com 2007-05-21 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
D'ough!

Maybe someone should be there with you next time, crust in case.

[identity profile] starfishchris.livejournal.com 2007-05-21 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
I want a pizza this pun action.

[identity profile] raphx.livejournal.com 2007-05-21 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
This could potentially be a thread made in oven.

[identity profile] starfishchris.livejournal.com 2007-05-21 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Personally I think this thread is half-baked.

[identity profile] raphx.livejournal.com 2007-05-21 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
But this is what we were burnt and bread to do.

[identity profile] starfishchris.livejournal.com 2007-05-23 04:26 am (UTC)(link)
I should never have risen to the challenge.

[identity profile] iluena.livejournal.com 2007-05-21 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL! Thank you for making me laugh. I hope the next time you endeavor to make a pizza you will be successful. I made pizza's with my mum once when i was little. I get the urge to make them every now and again but i never bother, so a pat on the back for you for going ahead and giving it a go!

[identity profile] blade05271984.livejournal.com 2010-09-10 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Hehe, good effort! Like a previous poster said, would probably have been 100% fine if it hadn't been the pie crust.

Chicken shouldn't be scary by the way. Just get a basic meat thermometer and make sure to cook it to at least 165 degrees and you are safe. That and wash your hands and anything that touched the raw chicken, just to avoid cross contamination.