Recently I read a question on the Recipe Exchange of our local newspaper which brought back a flood of memories. The request was for a recipe for “Cicola Bread” made with “some type of dried meat”.

In Italy there are many dialects from north to south. The Cicola Bread which was being requested is, I think, the Ciccolini Bread that my grandmother made each year in the fall. I’ll share with you some family history of the ciccolini.
Each year my grandmother would purchase a baby pig, raise it for a few months in a baby playpen in a corner of her enormous kitchen.  As soon as winter was over, she would put it outside near the barn and continue to raise this pig until it was considered large enough to butcher.  She would feed it carefully, cooking food for it each day so that the meat would taste pure and the fat would remain pure and white. Talk about organic.  The neighborhood butcher and my grandfather would butcher the pig and then my grandmother would dress it and proceed to utilize every single portion except the oink.
She would make dry sausages; sausage cured in tubs of olive oil; prosciutto; capicola; saguinaccio (a blood pudding made with nuts and dried fruits); and fresh white lard for cooking.  The innards would be cleaned and diced and together with various vegetables, made into a delicious stew much as tripe is today. There would be roasts and stews galore. With the ears, tail, feet and other portions, my mother would create an aspic with a lot of vinegar and spices which would remain in the fridge in a large bowl, much to my Dad’s delight. I was young and this is about all I remember, but I do remember the by-product of the lard processes, the Ciccolini!
When the skin of the pig was rendered, the fat was strained and solidified, resulting in the pure white lard which was stored in a crock for use in cooking. Then the remaining bits of skin slowly continued cooking until they became little teeny bits of brown crackling heaven. Grandma would then make a crusty Italian bread and before the second rise she would incorporate the ciccolini into the dough. I think that Southern Crackling Bread uses somewhat the same process, probably also brought over by immigrants.
I would imagine that in this day and age an approximation would be to use the fat from a fresh ham. You could also use pancetta or prosciutto, but the taste would be slightly different. A cooked ham would have a smoky taste which would alter the taste considerably, but may be to someone’s taste.
However, I thank the Recipe Exchange for reminding me. Memories are precious and I am anxious to share them with my grandchildren so that they will have family history to share when they are older.

I’ve been cooking pizza at home for years.  I just like to experiment with toppings and, in the summer, I like to grill my pizza dough and put fresh toppings on it and melt some fresh mozzarella or creamy gorgonzola on top.

Recently my new motivation for cooking pizza at home is the cost.  Pizzas in my area cost $15-$18 for one cheese pizza.  It’s more with toppings.  It’s still relatively cheap eats, but it annoys me since I know how much it costs to make it. 

What holds people up so often is the pizza dough.  You can buy pizza sauce at the store and cheese.  Many stores now even have a fair quality pizza dough that you can buy, but it’s not as easy to use and as supple as the dough you make at home.  It can be done and pretty easily.

I have to say, the longer you have to raise your dough, the better.  Time builds up the glutens in the dough and makes it easier to work with all around.  I have a recipe that calls for six hours of rising time for the dough but I don’t often have six hours.  I use fast rising yeast as a rule and haven’t noticed a big difference (in the absence of six hours or more to make the dough).

There are three basic ways to use the dough.  If you are a fan of thick Sicilian style pizza, the only difference between that and thin pizza is the quantity that you use.  So, if you use about one pound of dough for two thin crust pizzas, use the whole pound to make one half-sheet pan of thick crust pizza.  This is also helpful if you don’t have pizza pans or a stone to cook on at home. 

The second way to use the dough is for thin crust pizza.  I find that about ½ pound of dough makes a 12-14 inch pizza.  The dough stays softer if you stretch it by hand only.  It takes some practice and a little more time, but the dough is not tough.

The third way to use the dough is extra thin.  There’s a pizza parlor in my hometown that has been making pizza this way for 75 years.  What they do, I think, is to take dough (less than ½ pound) and roll it out.  Then they “dock” it or put holes in the dough all over.  This keeps the dough from rising.  It comes super thin and the dough doesn’t rise because the steam or air in the dough escapes through the holes instead of pushing the dough up.

Finally, and I have found no way around this at home, I find that the only way to get the dough to be cooked, but not overcooked, before the toppings burn, is to cook the pizza at 550 degrees.  I have tried everything from 400 degrees to 550 degrees.  I find that the dough comes chewy and undercooked at the lower temperatures. 

Many recipes will add a little honey or a little milk or some olive oil (which makes the dough harder to work with) or some other ingredient to differentiate it.  Truth is, they make little difference.  The only element that makes a difference is time.  Therefore, my simple recipe for pizza dough every night is: