Scrolling is largely a mindless activity. Our thumb moves images along, lighting up the silent judge-o-meter center of our brains and attaching little red hearts to the posts that don’t make us cringe. We leave each session with less time to do what matters most and a renewed sense of inadequacy. Social media is generally bad for our mental well-being and level of accomplishment - that’s universally agreed upon. But we can’t help ourselves, can we? Scrolling fills our seemingly empty minutes and cleverly diverts our attention from mundane tasks we don’t want to perform - like work. Before you know it, you’ve racked up hours of scrolling time in a day if you aren’t careful. It’s a genuine waste that, for the most part, nets us no advancement…
- except when it does
I have a growing file of saved ideas I come across while scrolling Instagram - an inspiration file. This is why I also post on Instagram - the off chance I might inspire someone to crack a few eggs and dirty a few pans to cook something for themselves or their family. I really want to show people that cooking is fun and entice more people to do it.
As you might imagine, my file mostly contains kitchen hacks and recipe inspiration. Posts that solve cooking dilemmas, reduce food waste, or turn healthy foods into meals my family will want to eat. There are quite a few - ‘got to try that’ ideas and some things I’ve saved because the photo is just so perfect I want to look at it again. Then there are the ‘awesome ideas’ like The Ultimate Hangover Sando from the The Pizza Pilot.
The minute I watched the folded pizza dough emerge from the oven and open like a bubbly crispy pocket begging to be filled with cheese and sauce, bacon and egg - I was hooked and down a rabbit hole. How many ideas could I come up with for sandwiches made with this clever folded pizza dough technique? I filled three pages in my idea book.
Inspired, I set to work
I made the dough on Friday morning and popped it into the garage (my winter walk-in) to rest for the day. After work, I portioned the dough and set it up in gadget-man’s dough box to rest back in the garage overnight. Fermenting the dough this way develops flavour in a crust you don’t get with quick knead-and-bake pizza crust styles. The post suggested high-hydration dough for tender bread. 70% hydration is tricky to work with because it is so sticky, but it is worth the aggravation if you have the patience.
*If you want to avoid the aggravation or do not like making your own pizza dough, you could easily use some premade dough from your grocery store. It won’t be that same texture, but it will technically bake up into a folded pocket the same way.
Sending Mike outside in a snowstorm to cook in the pizza oven didn’t seem kind. Our sandos would be missing the blackened bubbles of crust, but we’ll get them next time. Instead, I placed a pizza steel into the oven at 500F to preheat.
After stretching and shaping the dough, I brushed each round with Garlic Parmesan Oil (get the recipe at the end of this post) before folding the dough in half over itself. I expected that the thin layer of oil would boost flavour and ensure my crust would split open for filling.
The dough cooked for 7 minutes at 500F degrees, and when it emerged from the oven, it was light and pillowy, and steam was rushing from inside the fold.
I did a giddy little dance of delight. The dog looked at me with worry, and Mike laughed.
Immediately, I opened the pocket of bread and layered in some burrata. The residual heat melted the fresh cheese like butter. Next, I layered in a mixture of Italian meats - Prosciutto Cotto, spicy mortadella, Calabrese and Proscutto. Artichokes, fresh basil, and some arugula topped it off. Dinner was delicious!
But there was leftover dough.
Take two
I warmed up the oven and the pizza steel again in the morning. Mike usually makes breakfast on the weekends, but today, I thought we should use up the leftover pizza dough and make a hangover sandwich more reminiscent of the Instagram post.
I repeated the process of baking the pockets of folded dough, complete with the brushed layer of Garlic Parmesan Oil. We filled each sandwich with a thin smattering of sundried tomato tapenade, then burrata again. Fresh Burrata only lasts a day or two after opening, and it’s expensive, so there is no wasting allowed - we’ll eat Burrata on everything until it’s used up entirely.
Next, we layered in arugula and prosciutto and topped the whole thing with a sunny-side-up egg.
Breakfast was delicious! And had either of us actually had a hangover, I’m sure this would have been a cure.
What Instagram post inspired you lately?
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