The Super Bowl Junk Food Challenge : IN THE KITCHEN : How Not to Throw a Pizza Party

My first thought after helping judge our Super Bowl Junk Food Challenge (Pizza Division) was to make my own pizza for anyone who might fall by the house this weekend.

There is nothing like tasting a half-dozen delivered pizzas to make you appreciate the crisp, yeasty crust and fresh-tasting toppings of even the most basic homemade pizza.

Then I remembered the pizza party I once gave and only barely lived to regret. While pizzas are, in theory, extremely simple to make, the practice is somewhat different.

It’s hard to tell where my trail of mistakes began. Maybe it was inviting so many people, but a dozen or so really didn’t seem like a lot for “just pizza.” Maybe it was deciding to let them all design their own miniature pizzas. Maybe it was not having a giant oven big enough to hold everyone’s pizza at once. Maybe it was not hiring two or three line cooks to help. Maybe it was just getting up that particular morning.

Having gone through periods of real pizza-making fanaticism, I knew what I had to do to get ready. The first step is preparing the oven: Out of the closet came a stack of scorched quarry tile, which I laid on the lowest rack in the oven. Quarry tile--make sure it’s unglazed--has a porous surface that absorbs the moisture in the dough and gives you a perfectly crisp crust. You can also do this with the big pizza stones that you find in housewares departments, but buying a dozen tiles at a hardware store usually is cheaper and gives you more surface area on which to cook.

The next thing is to make the dough. This is best done early in the day so you can get a nice, slow first rise. After punching the dough down, divide it into appropriately sized rounds, place them on a wax paper-lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and stick the dough rounds in the refrigerator until about 45 minutes before baking.

To shape the dough, use a rolling pin. Unless you’ve done it frequently (and have a high ceiling in your kitchen), forget trying to toss the dough in the air. You are not Nicholas Cage in “Moonstruck.” Get over it.

Of course, you can also use packaged pizza crusts. The only ones I’ve had any luck with are the Boboli brand, but to me they have a bit of a sweetish taste that I find a little off-putting. I still use them for weekday dinners every once in a while, but probably they’re not the kinds of things you want to put before guests.

A couple of hours before the party, start preparing the toppings. I went all out: bowls of sliced air-dried Tuscan salami, sliced ripe tomatoes, hand-cubed mozzarella (I think it melts better than shredded), grated Parmesan, fresh goat cheese, gently browned onions and garlic, pitted and chopped oil-cured black olives, thinly sliced fresh prosciutto, mushrooms sauteed in olive oil, pickled artichoke hearts, a spicy tomato sauce and little bowls of slivered basil and fresh oregano leaves. (In addition to these more-or-less standard ingredients, I put out some crumbled blue cheese and coarsely chopped walnuts--it makes a surprisingly delicious pizza.)

All the guests had to do was flatten out a little round, sprinkle some ingredients on top and bring it to the oven for cooking. At least that was the idea. But probably the most important thing I learned is that when you’re cooking pizza for a crowd, people should eat what you decide to cook. Trying to juggle all of those ingredients and--most especially--timing the cooking of a couple dozen different pizzas is a good way to go crazy.

The problem is that, even in the best of circumstances, the normal home oven is only big enough to manage about three pizzas at a time. That means that while three pizzas are cooking, everyone else is waiting. And you’re standing there with a big wooden peel in your hand, looking like a lost Volga boatman while everyone mopes around complaining about being hungry.

What’s more, as fast as pizza is to prepare, it is even faster to disappear. Unless you’ve invited only enough people to share one pizza, you’d better hope your guests are patient: There’ll be at least a 10-minute wait between courses. Since you can serve more people from a 12-inch pizza than three six-inch pizzas, you’re killing two birds with one stone.

The upshot of the whole deal was that after about three hours spent swigging beer and sweating in front of a 500-degree oven, the party finally quieted down. I went out to check on how things were going and found the living room empty but for my wife. “Good pizzas,” she said. “I’ll clean up.”

It wasn’t until the next day that I got up the nerve to ask her who all had been there. Of course, if you’re not a football fan, that might be the approach you prefer.

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If you’ve got your heart set on making something pizza-like for a Super Bowl party, try focaccia. By doing the last rise in the refrigerator, you can prepare it several hours in advance. Just bring it out 45 minutes or so before baking, so the dough comes up to room temperature. This recipe is adapted from the Italian food magazine A Tavola. The neatest thing about it is the technique of salting the onions for an hour before distributing them over the dough. It leaves the onions limp and soft--as if they’d been cooked over very, very low heat for a long time--but at the same time tasting fresh.

ONION FOCACCIA 1 large onion, thinly sliced

Salt

Focaccia Dough

6 sage leaves, torn in pieces

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Put onion slices in colander, salt lightly and toss to coat. Let stand 1 hour.

Spread Bread Dough in well-oiled 10x15-inch jelly roll pan. Spread onion slices over top of Focaccia Dough and distribute sage leaves over top. Drizzle olive oil over all. Let stand 30 minutes.

Bake at 400 degrees until well browned on top, about 30 minutes. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

287 calories; 90 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 35 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 0.25 gram fiber.

Focaccia Dough 2 1/4 cups flour

Dash salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1 package dry yeast, dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water

1/2 to 3/4 cup warm water

In food processor or electric mixer, combine flour and salt. Stir to mix. With machine running, add olive oil, then yeast dissolved in water. Continue adding warm water until dough comes together in ball on top of food processor blade, or comes cleanly away from sides of bowl of electric mixer. Continue mixing until satiny and soft.

Set aside to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours. Punch down and use as desired.

A Tavola can be found at the Rizzoli Bookstores in Costa Mesa, Pasadena and Santa Monica. For subscription information, write: Rizzoli Periodici S.p.A., Via A. Rizzoli, 2, 20132 Milano. It’s a bit expensive compared to American food magazines, but if you read a little Italian it is well worthwhile.