National Pepperoni Pizza Day

Mandatory Credit: Andreanna Moya Photography

Today marks another one of the 175 days that recognizes food and drink within the United States.

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Today is National Pepperoni Pizza Day.

When it comes to pizza, I have to say it is one of my favorite foods.  It contains all of the food groups so in itself it is a complete meal.

I always look for a good slice of pie especially when traveling and this takes me back to when I was in Germany with my family.  We were traveling around Europe and had a week long stop in Vienna, Austria.

We were staying at a hotel and looking for a place to eat for the first night.  Doing a search with our phones and trying to find the closes restaurant that everyone would enjoy and that wouldn’t break out pockets either, we came a across a pizzeria that was within walking distance.

The Pizzeria was 2 blocks away on a corner street.  Hesitant, going into a new place with two children, we were also excited.  After a long day of traveling we were glad to be sitting down relaxing and enjoying our first day in a different country.  The owner, we later found out, came and waited on us and spoke very good English.  It turned out he was from Germany but moved to Vienna to start his pizza business.

We kept it simple the first night and ordered pizza.  Let me tell you that this was the best pizza I had ever had.  And working at a pizzeria for 4 years, I have had a lot of pizza in my life.  It was so good that we went back to this pizza place every night that we were there and got to know the owner very well.  On out last night in Vienna, I asked the owner of the pizzeria what his dough recipe was because I have not had one like it.  After going back and forth for a bit and not putting any pressure on him to divulge his secret, he wrote down on a piece of paper his recipe that he uses for a restaurant amount of dough.  He also gave me a stick of yeast that he uses.

I took that piece of paper and worked out the calculations to bring it down to a pizza or two yield for the dough and have been using this recipe each and every time whenever I need dough, whether it be for pizza of stromboli, and there doesn’t seem to be a complaint in the crowd.

So for National Pepperoni Pizza Day here is the dough recipe from the local Vienna Owner that was gracious enough to pass it along to my family and I.

Pizza Dough:

3.5 Cups Flour

1 Cup Hot Water

1 T Yeast

2 t Sugar

1 t Salt

A Dash of Oil

Directions:

Add water and yeast together to activate yeast.  Let sit for about 5 minutes.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until a dough is formed; approximately 10 minutes.  Don’t over mix as flour will cause dough to become hard; which would be good for dinner rolls, but not to stretch pizza.

Let stand for 30-45 minutes so dough can rest and rise.

After dough has risen, portion as needed for pizzas and begin to stretch.

Enjoy!