White Clam Pizza

Place flour in large bowl. Stir in salt.

Dissolve yeast into water. Pour into flour and stir with a fork until it comes together. Dough will be sticky.

Drizzle some olive oil over the dough and along the sides of the bowl. I use an oiled bowl scraper to help knead the dough, scraping, pressing and folding the dough for a minute or so.

At this point, lift the dough up with your hands, (you may need a touch more oil on your fingertips to lessen the stickiness) and hold along one edge, letting the rest of the dough hang down and stretch out. Move along the entire edge of the dough, turning it in more or less a circular pattern. Don’t be tempted to add more flour. Total kneading and stretching: maybe 5 minutes.

Gather dough into a ball and place back in the oiled bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, lay a dish towel over it and place in a warm spot. I always stick my bowl of pizza dough in the microwave, a warm and out of the way place. Sometimes, before putting it in, I heat a mug-full of water, to get the microwave nice and warm.

Let rise for 1 hour. Then punch dough down, and let rise for another hour.

Place a pizza stone on bottom-most rack in oven. Preheat oven to 550 degrees F, at least a half hour before you will bake the pizza.

Cut dough from above pizza dough recipe into two equal pieces, about 10 ounces each, weighing it with a kitchen scale if you have one. Place the second piece of dough in a freezer bag and freeze, or make a second pizza of your choosing, e.g. a thin layer of ricotta cheese and shredded mozzarella on top. Yum!

Line an upside-down sheet pan or a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil the parchment paper.

Place dough on parchment, press down and spread the dough evenly in all directions with your oiled fingers until you have a nice thin layer. It might not cover the entire pan; that’s okay. If dough is not cooperating, it helps to let the dough rest for a few minutes.

Scatter the clams over the dough, followed by a drizzle of olive oil, a very generous grating of Pecorino (a good half-cupful, using a microplane grater, if you've got one), the oregano and the garlic. And that's it!

If you've got a pizza peel, slide the parchment and pizza onto the peel. Slide parchment and pizza directly onto pizza stone and bake for 5 minutes, or until crust is nicely browned and crisp, and bottom of pizza has some nicely browned spots as well. Use a long-handled metal spatula, or the pizza peel, to lift up the pizza and take a peek underneath. 5 minutes should be plenty; don't turn your clams into rubber, please. :) The parchment will turn black, but won't catch fire, so don't worry.

Remove from oven using the peel. Pizza peels are awesome! You can use it as a cool cheeseboard when not making pizza. Cut your pizza into pieces with kitchen shears and enjoy!