Ep. 4: The one with the Risky Business Good Friday
A few months ago when I was still recipe testing for my almost-mother-in-law, I was tasked with recreating a pizza. More specifically, a pizza from a beautiful photo of another pizza that had been made…in a wood-fired oven…in Montepulciano, Italy…with no actual recipe to test. Madonna (to be said with Tony Soprano exasperated emphasis)! With the help of my younger brother, Michael (a very skilled cook at an Italian restaurant), we managed to make an ad hoc pizza dough recipe that worked brilliantly using a jar of dry pizza yeast. Since that inaugural ‘za, all my doughs (including a gorgeous batch of pretzels) have worked just fine. That is, until last night.
I’ve clearly been taking my good dough making experiences for granted. I confess, I have never once watched for anything in particular to happen when I proof the yeast. I drop it into room temp water, let it sit, give it a little swirl, and add it to my flour. Two hours later my little blob of flour, yeast, water, and salt has doubled in size and become a pillowy delight to poke. Not actually proofing the yeast and checking to see if it’s viable is clearly a rookie mistake. Because I assumed everything was fine, and didn’t notice anything was wrong with the mixture, my dough didn’t stand a damn chance and thus our dreams of recreating our favourite Killer Bee pizza for dinner last night died with our unrisen dough.
Usually I’m a real recipe follower, much to Max’s dismay. He likes to work off of a feeling (?), while I’m more of a “concept” kinda gal (I’m fun in many other ways, I swear). That’s why Max had to ask me some skill-testing questions to confirm I had not been kidnapped and cloned when I suggested we take our pizza ingredients and create a whackadoo pasta dish. We had a bowl of rock hard dough. Pizza wasn’t happening unless we wanted to shell out $30, which I didn’t, so instead we created a delicious rigatoni recipe that my Italian ancestors would slap me in the face for dreaming of, let alone making. It shouldn’t have worked, but guys - it totally did.
We made a base sauce using red onions, garlic, thyme, the lovingly slow roasted cherry tomatoes I had made for the pizza, and a can of hand-crushed, whole plum tomatoes. In a separate dish we sizzled up some jalapeños and hot Italian sausage in a mix of EVOO and truffle oil. Once the noodles were perfectly cooked in water that was salted like the sea, we mixed everything together with a healthy dose of grated Parmesan. Then things got a little crazy, y’all. To achieve the same flavours as our beloved pizza, we lightly drizzled honey on top of the dish to create what is now known as Ape Assassina (Italian for Killer Bee) - the most dangerous pasta ever created.
It didn’t seem like it should have worked, but it totally did. We ate it in happy disbelief as we watched something that given its popularity I assumed also totally worked, but soon discovered was trash: Risky Business. Who decided that story needed telling?! “A teen coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by Paul Brickman”, says Wikipedia. Let’s just say that Paul Brickman’s adolescence scares me. In short, sometimes you just gotta say, “What the fuck!” and make an unconventional recipe (or take a role in a truly problematic film). Most of the time, it will work out just fine.
