Pizza is one of those “I had no idea you could do that on a camp stove” kind of meals. It's a crowd pleaser that appeals across ages and cultures, one of the few foods guaranteed to be a hit with kids.
If hunger is the spice of life, pizza is the chipotle of backcountry cooking. The heat builds slowly, steadily outpacing your expectations, the reward looming ever greater, a study in delayed gratification. The longer it takes, the hungrier you get, and the better the taste... up to a point, of course.
I provide directions without specific measurements because your senses are all you need; trust yourself, develop your skills, and you'll be able to make pizza any time without any extra gear.
Remember the old adage, "give a person a pizza recipe, and they'll need that recipe. Teach a person to make a pizza themselves..." yeah, something like that.
The dough
Wet: sugar water yeast + milk powder + egg
Dry: white flour / wheat flour mix, Italian seasoning, salt
- Sugar the water, add yeast.
- Heat sugar water to activate yeast. Take off heat well before boil or you’ll kill the lil’ guys. You'll know it's working because you'll see the yeast burst like fireworks. (Pro tip: develop a personal temperature measurement system based on how long your finger can tolerate a dip into liquid heat. You’ll narrow in on precise fingerometer readings for specific purposes: yeast activation, tea water, hot cocoa, etc.)
- Add flour to hot yeast water to make a pouliche, the baker’s primordial ooze. This will pre-ferment your pie-to-be with the localest of cultures, which will opportunistically jump from the air into your sugary mud-thick goop.
- Leave pouliche somewhere sunny to rise and ferment, safely secured from marmots and any other cute rodents.
- Go have fun for a few hours.
- Come back, add flour and knead to form dough ball. Today's messiah, it will rise again.
- Have more fun while your dough ball starts to rise.
- Make your sauce and/or toppings, and set aside.
- Back again, flour the dough ball once more if necessary. Roll out your pie crust thin as you can, twisting the edge over itself to make a crust.
- Top and bake, using a bigger pot on top of your cook dish to create a sealed oven as best you can.
I built a small fire on top of my "oven" to add heat from above. It's unclear to me how effective this really is, but it sure was fun.
Like steemit, pizza is just a platform. You can do anything with it. Top with a traditional tomato sauce, BBQ, pesto pizza. Do herby crust, garlicky crust, crust with cheese inside... have fun with it. It's your pizza-- you decide!
Here are some sweet dessert pizzas we made.
If you liked this piece of writing (get it? hehehe) check out my blog for more Backcountry Gourmet, or my most recent story, about the unlikely way I learned to Celebrate Mistakes on a kayaking expedition in the Patagonian wilds.
~jared