Recipe: Homemade Pizza Sauce, Pizza Dough, and Stromboli

Homemade Pizza Sauce, Pizza Dough, and Stromboli
rec.food.cooking/Mark Thompson/1990

Stromboli as I know it is basically a pizza made to look like French bread with all the toppings on the inside :)

Usually I whip up a batch of pizza sauce and dough and do the following:

It's all pretty easy and everyone who tastes it thinks it is outstanding, even if they haven't heard of stromboli before. One way to make it easier is to use frozen bread dough instead of your own. It is significantly faster and doesn't really affect the taste too much. Below are my pizza sauce and dough recipes.

Pizza Sauce:
2 cans (35 oz each) whole peeled tomatoes (drain off all liquid)
2 cans (8 oz each) tomato paste
1 onion chopped
5 cloves garlic minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2/3 cup red wine
3 to 4 Tbsp. Italian seasoning (I prefer to add basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, etc. separately, but this is a good simple mixture)
2 dried chili peppers crushed
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
salt to taste

Saute onions and garlic in oil over medium heat till onions are transparent.

Add wine and let it reduce a bit. Add everything else and simmer uncovered. Minimum simmering time is 1 hour but I like to let it go for as many as 8.

This should make about 1/2 gallon of sauce, but it will keep for some time (about 2 weeks in the refrigerator or may be frozen - ed.) and gets better and better with age.

Play around with the seasonings, the thing to remember is that a good pizza sauce by itself is quite spicy because it will be subdued by the other ingredients later.

Pizza Dough:
3 to 4 cups flour
1 pkg. rapid rise yeast
1 cup warm water
1to 2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Combine sugar and water in large mixing bowl and float yeast on top. Wait till yeast forms a brown foam on top (about 5 minutes.)

Add remaining ingredients and knead into a ball. Cover with a damp cloth and put in a warm place for about an hour (till double in size).

Beat dough back down to size and repeat rising process (only about 1/2 hour this time).

Roll out dough to your desired shape and thickness. Place on a preheated pizza stone that has been sprinkled with cornmeal (this will aid in moisture absorption keep the cheese and stuff from oozing over. Ideally, you would create the entire pizza before putting it on the hot stone but you need one of those fancy pizza paddles for that.

Stromboli

Roll pizza dough into long rectangle with about 7-inch of width and length of 4-inch longer than your biggest pizza pan/brick (thickness about 1/4-inch). Layer meat down the center of the dough leaving a couple inches on either side. I typically use Genoa, ham, and pepperoni. On top of this put a good layer of cheese (mozzarella and provolone are best). Then top with a thin layer of sauce. Then fold the sides up toward the center and pinch it closed. Rub the top with butter and dust with garlic powder and oregano.

Bake at 450 until lightly golden. Serve with extra sauce for dipping.