Who can’t use a little help in the kitchen? With ready-made dough, you can easily get a jump on making pizza at home. The fastest pizza dough at your fingertips is in the form of frozen roll dough, says Twin Cities chef and cookbook author Robin Asbell, who created this recipe for Real Food. The dough comes in two sizes,dinner roll (11/4 ounces each) or Texas roll (2 ounces each), which you can press together to make any size pizza or calzone. This makes it easy to count out as much dough as you need, and the small pieces thaw in the refrigerator within eight hours or in less than an hour at room temperature. You can take them out when you get home from work, warm up the oven, prepare your toppings and fillings while they thaw, and pop a homemade pizza in the oven 45 minutes later.
Tips and Tricks for Frozen Roll Dough
• Thaw dough in a lightly oiled container, covered, so the top of the dough balls will not dry out.
• If you are shaping the dough for pizza, you can start pressing it into a disk as soon as the dough is soft.Then let it rise for a few minutes after it is shaped.
• When working with roll dough, press it out until the dough starts to resist, and then let it rest for a few minutes. The dough will relax and be easy to stretch again.
This recipe is a stuffed-crust, deep-dish pie, the kind New Yorkers may refuse to call “pizza.” With a dense mushroom and sausage filling and a top crust crowned with pizza sauce and cheese, this is almost a double-decker pizza, says Asbell. Your frozen dough will make quick work of it, and the buns will thaw in the time it takes to make the filling and open a bottle of red wine.
Deep Dish Sausage and Mushroom Pie
Makes 6 servings
1 pound white frozen dough, or 12 dinner roll portions, divided
11/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
8 ounces Italian sausage, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
6 ounces (2 cups) Asiago cheese, shredded, divided
2 ounces (3/4 cup) shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 cup pizza sauce, prepared
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
1. Place the frozen dough balls in a lightly oiled tub large enough so they are not touching. Cover and thaw at room temperature for 1 hour. Prepare a 10-inch cast iron pan or a 9-inch deep cake pan by rubbing it with 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil, and set aside.
2. Prepare filling. In a large sauté pan heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and stir. Sauté onions until golden, reducing the heat to low as they soften. Add the garlic and mushrooms and raise the heat to medium high, stirring the mushrooms until they are deeply browned and shrunken, about 8 minutes. Push the mushrooms to one side of the pan and add the sausage to the open area and cook until browned and cooked through. Stir in the salt and pepper and transfer to a large bowl to cool. When cooled, stir in the fresh basil and half of the Asiago and Parmesan cheeses.
3. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
4. For the top crust: Place 4 dough balls close together on a clean countertop, and use your fingers to press them into a disc of dough. Press them out to a 10-inch circle, letting the dough rest for a few minutes if it becomes difficult to stretch.
5. For the bottom crust: Place the remaining dough balls in the prepared pan and press them to flatten, pinching the edges together (don’t let the oil come between them or they will not stick together). Press out to cover the bottom of the pan and make a 1-inch high crust at the edges.
6. Transfer the mushroom and sausage mixture to the crust and pack it flat, smoothing the top. Place the 10-inch round of dough on top of the pie, and pinch the edges of the top and bottom crusts together.
7. Bake on the bottom oven rack for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and spread sauce atop crust and top with remaining cheese and parsley. Return to the oven for 20 minutes on the top rack. Let stand 5 minutes before slicing.
Nutrition info (per serving) CALORIES 506 (240 from fat); FAT 27g (sat. 12g); CHOL 51mg; SODIUM 1346mg; CARB 42g; FIBER 3g; PROTEIN 24g
By Mary Subialka
