Lower Cal vs Restaurant Style Pizza

Welcome back to Episode 5 of the lower calorie series. Today, personal pizza. First, we'll make a restaurant-style version to establish a baseline of calories and more importantly understand the techniques of how it's made, then we'll analyze where we can make lower-calorie substitutions while maintaining the same volume of food and the highest level of taste adherence to the original version. I'll tell you now, this lower-calorie version is mighty fine.

LOWER CALORIE PIZZA

80% Hydration Pizza Dough (makes 4 roughly 160 g pieces of dough)

  • 350 g bread flour

  • 3 g instant yeast

  • 7 g salt

  • 280 g water

  1. Mix the water, yeast, and a spoonful of flour. Let proof for 5 minutes to ensure yeast is alive.

  2. In a large bowl, add the flour, salt, and yeast mixture. Mix with your hands until a cohesive mass forms. Let rest 15 minutes.

  3. Once rested, knead in the bowl with your fingertips for about 10 minutes until the dough passes the gluten window test. Set in a bowl with a couple of drops of olive oil and let ferment for 24 hours in the fridge.

  4. On the next day, divide the dough into 160-gram pieces of dough 1 hour before cooking. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce and any other toppings you are using.

  5. Stretch the dough into a thin 10-12 inch disk. Add the toppings.

  6. Bake in a dedicated pizza oven or a baking stone / steel or sheet pan. Enjoy.

Basic Sauce

  • 1 can San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes

  • Salt

  • Red pepper flakes

  1. Add the tomatoes to a food processor. Adjust salt and red pepper flakes to taste.

Chicken Sausage

  • 250 g chicken thighs (about 2)

  • 1.5% salt (4 g)

  • Red pepper flake

  • Rosemary

  • Garlic Powder

  1. Chop the chicken thighs into 1-inch chunks. Set on a plate in the freezer for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the partially frozen chicken, salt, and spices to a food processor. Blitz until a rough ground meat mixture is formed that sticks together.

  3. Cook on a cast iron.

Toppings

  • 113 g cooked Chicken Sausage (recipe above)

  • 60 g shredded mozzarella

  • Pickled chili peppers, sliced.

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60% Hydration Pizza Dough (makes 4 roughly 160 g pieces of dough)

  • 240 g warm water (~100 F)

  • 4 g instant yeast

  • 8 g sugar

  • 400 g bread flour

  • 8 g salt

  • 20 g olive oil

Method

  1. Mix the water, sugar, and yeast. Let proof for 5 minutes to ensure yeast is alive.

  2. In a large bowl, add the flour, salt, olive oil, and yeast mixture. Mix with your hands until a cohesive mass forms. Let rest 15 minutes.

  3. Once rested, knead for about 10 minutes until the dough passes the gluten window test. Set in a bowl with a couple of drops of olive oil and let ferment for 24 hours in the fridge.

  4. On the next day, divide the dough into 160-gram pieces of dough 1 hour before cooking. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce and any other toppings you are using.

  5. Stretch the dough into a thin 10-12 inch disk. Add the toppings.

  6. Bake in a dedicated pizza oven or a baking stone / steel or sheet pan. Enjoy.

Toppings

  • 113 g cooked Italian Sausage

  • 60 g shredded mozzarella

  • Pickled chili peppers, sliced

  • Garlic butter (7 g butter, garlic powder, oregano)

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Ethan Chlebowski