Lazy Man Pizza - Oh, Make That Focaccia

Say what? Lazy man chicken is one thing, but lazy man pizza- that's a whole other category!

But it's why I make focaccia and just call it pizza - they're both flatbreads, after all. My main problems when I make (real) pizza are the whole shaping of it and then getting it onto and off of the peel and onto my pizza stone which has been heating for an hour at 550+ degrees...I usually end up with something that looks sort of round (if I'm lucky) and then if I'm really lucky it slides off the peel without a problem...however, after a few disasters with the pizza ending up on the oven door or on the oven floor, I decided to make focaccia my go to flatbread...and just call it pizza. Here's a tip, too - if you serve it already cut into slices, who is really gonna know?

You see, with focaccia, you get to shape it right in the pan in which it bakes, and that's what makes it lazy man pizza in my book. It's also lazy man in that it really only takes a few minutes of work...and a lot of waiting around for the yeasties to do their thing. What could be more lazy man than whipping up some dough and waiting a few hours before the next step? You can nap, shop, surf the webs - all good lazy man projects.

I like to start the night before with a pre-ferment; call it a biga, call it a poolish, call it a starter or call it whatever you wish, it's a mixture of flour, water and a tiny bit of yeast which is stirred till it comes together, covered and allowed to sit in a cool place overnight...next morning, it will be all bubbly and smell delicious...you can use some or all of it when you make your larger batch of dough.

Starter is cool stuff. It will last for a few days (3, at least) if you refrigerate it after it has been fermenting for a while. Frozen, it will last for 3 or 4 months - just put it in the fridge the day before you plan to use it...and take it out of the fridge to warm it up about an hour before you mix up your dough.

At this point, let's see how lazy this all is. A recap, if you will.

1. Night before - whip up starter - go to sleep. 10 minutes work, 8 hours sleep.

2. Mix dough and let rise - 10 minutes work - 2 hours of waiting.

3. Put dough into pan and let proof - 10 minutes work - another hour or more of waiting. By the way, proofing is another term for rising; it just happens after the first rise.

4. Put pan into oven - 1 minute work - wait till it's finished baking. Remove from pan and wait a few minutes before slicing.

Man, have you just been lazy, or what?

By the way, there are a million focaccia recipes out there - I like the recipes in Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice and Carol Field's seminal The Italian Baker...you can't go wrong with either of those.

Now of course, you can go the real lazy man route (and I'm sure a few of you will or have) and buy frozen dough or heaven forbid, that product called Boboli. But it will be so much better if you make your own.

Take a look at a few before and after shots of lazy man focaccia. The first of each is simply sprinkled with a touch of rosemary and sea salt and the second is covered with very thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes, rosemary and French sea salt. And lots of olive oil.

BEFORE

AFTER

What lazy man pizza-making tips do you have?

The Algonquin Cocktail

Looking for something a bit different to drink last night, I came across the Algonquin Cocktail in one of my favorite cocktail books - Dr. Cocktail's (aka Ted Haigh) Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. Back in the 1930s, New York City's Algonquin Hotel hosted any number of "renowned literati of the time," where the group became known as the Round Table, though according to the good Dr., they probably didn't drink the eponymous cocktail...it evidently came into being a good number of years later.

Now, being a slightly obsessed person (shhhh), and just because I like to, I pulled out a number of cocktail books, to check and see what they might tout as "the" recipes. Both Gary Regan and David Wondrich had essentially the same ingredients in the same proportions, but then Dale DeGroff, in his masterpiece The Craft of the Cocktail, had something totally different - and rather weird sounding, containing rum, blackberry brandy, Benedictine and fresh lime juice. Though Mr. DeGroff does write that he served it with great success, for many years at the Rainbow Room, that version didn't sound like the one I wanted to drink, so we went with the majority - democracy rules, after all (well, except in the U.S. Senate, but that's another story).

Back to the Algonquin - a nice, dry, easy drinking cocktail, with a ratio of 2 parts rye, 1 part dry vermouth and 1 part pineapple juice. Shaken or stirred, and you can't go wrong...

Lazy Man Roast Chicken

I know what you're thinking: "lazy man roast chicken, who's he kidding?" Because, you know, roasting a whole chicken, if done properly, is a bit of a pain. There's the cleaning of the bird, the trussing (if you truss), the seasoning, the clean up, etc. etc. To say nothing about properly cooking the breast meat (i.e. not overcooked) at the same time as properly cooking the legs and thighs (i.e. cooked enough).

Don't kid yourself...it's the same with turkey. I remember a Thanksgiving a few years ago where I actually took the bird out of the oven and carved off the legs and thighs and put them back in the oven to roast some more. People looked at me like I was crazy, but then many claimed it was the juiciest turkey they'd ever had.

But lately I've come across a simple fix...let's call it the lazy man roast chicken. Simply roast the parts, many of which are already available cut-up at your local grocer. Sure, I know it's not the same...but really, other than the presentation, it is. I mean, unless you're telling me chicken thighs don't come from a chicken, it's the same. Now, you won't get to gnaw on the carcass, but I'm willing to bet a lot of you don't do that anyway - it's just me and a few heathens that do. But what you do get to do is pick the parts you like the best...and for me, that's legs and thighs, mostly.

Just like with anything you're cooking, the final "product" is only going to be as good as what you start with...so start with decent chicken, please. Purdue, Foster Farms, and that wan store brand chicken just aren't going to cut it; no matter how much you brine and cajole them, they still taste like cardboard. Fortunately for us, we live in a neighborhood that has a big Jewish and a big Chinese population, so other than the battles of the ancient cultures, some pretty decent chicken can be found.

In Chinatown, of course, you can buy freshly killed poultry, with the head and feet still on. And fresh = good. The weird thing is, my grandmother, who to the best of my knowledge was not Chinese, used to get her whole chickens the same way! She even bought chicken feet, which she used to great effect in her soup and fricassée.

Back to the parts - our local grocery carries Empire, and it's a pretty tasty chicken, so that's what I use. As a matter of fact, their thigh/leg combos cost less than whole birds, so it's practically a bargain. After rinsing the parts well (and disjointing the leg from the thigh), I toss the pieces with some olive oil, salt, pepper and lately I've been throwing in some quartered potatoes, lemon slices and fresh rosemary as well. So here's what you start with...

I've been roasting at around 400 F (your oven is preheated, right?), sometimes with convection, sometimes without...I'm trying to find out the best temp/time situation, but because they're legs and thighs, it takes a lot of work to screw it up. Figure about 50 minutes to an hour, and take the roasting pan out of the oven and give everything a good stir every 15 minutes or so.

The chicken soaks up the lemon and herbs, the potatoes soak up some of the chicken juices, and when it's all done, it looks like this...

Perfect for a midweek, casual meal. And perfectly easy too, especially for you lazy man cooks.