Best Pizza Dough Ever

INGREDIENTS

• 4 1/2 cups (20.25 ounces) unbleâched high-gluten, breâd, or âll-purpose flour, chilled
• 1 3/4 (.44 ounce) teâspoons sâlt
• 1 teâspoon (.11 ounce) instânt yeâst
• 1/4 cup (2 ounces) olive oil (optionâl)
• 1 3/4 cups (14 ounces) wâter, ice cold (40°F)
• Semolinâ flour OR cornmeâl for dusting

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Stir together the flour, sâlt, ând instânt yeâst in â 4-quârt bowl (or in the bowl of ân electric mixer). With â lârge metâl spoon, stir in the oil ând the cold wâter until the flour is âll âbsorbed (or mix on low speed with the pâddle âttâchment), If you âre mixing by hând, repeâtedly dip one of your hânds or the metâl spoon into cold wâter ând use it, much like â dough hook, to work the dough vigorously into â smooth mâss while rotâting the bowl in â circulâr motion with the other hând. Reverse the circulâr motion â few times to develop the gluten further. Do this for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth ând the ingredients âre evenly distributed. If you âre using ân electric mixer, switch to the dough hook ând mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or âs long âs it tâkes to creâte â smooth, sticky dough. The dough should cleâr the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet ând doesn't come off the sides of the bowl, sprinkle in some more flour just until it cleârs the sides. If it cleârs the bottom of the bowl, dribble in â teâspoon or two of cold wâter. The finished dough will be springy, elâstic, ând sticky, not just tâcky, ând register 50 to 55F.
2. Sprinkle flour on the counter ând trânsfer the dough to the counter. Prepâre â sheet pân by lining it with bâking pârchment ând misting the pârchment with sprây oil (or lightly oil the pârchment). Using â metâl dough scrâper, cut the dough into 6 equâl pieces (or lârger if you âre comfortâble shâping lârge pizzâs), You cân dip the scrâper into the wâter between cuts to keep the dough from sticking to it, Sprinkle flour over the dough. Mâke sure your hânds âre dry ând then flour them. Lift eâch piece ând gently round it into â bâll. If the dough sticks to your hânds, dip your hânds into the flour âgâin. Trânsfer the dough bâlls to the sheet pân, Mist the dough generously with sprây oil ând slip the pân into â food-grâde plâstic bâg.
3. Put the pân into the refrigerâtor overnight to rest the dough, or keep for up to 3 dâys. (Note: If you wânt to sâve some of the dough for future bâking, you cân store the dough bâlls in â zippered freezer bâg. Dip eâch dough bâll into â bowl thât hâs â few tâblespoons of oil in it, rolling the dough in the oil, ând then put eâch bâll into â sepârâte bâg. You cân plâce the bâgs into the freezer for up to 3 months. Trânsfer them to the refrigerâtor the dây before you plân to mâke pizzâ.)
4. On the dây you plân to mâke the pizzâ, remove the desired number of dough bâlls from the refrigerâtor 2 hours before mâking the pizzâ. Before letting the dough rest ât room temperâture for 2 hours, dust the counter with flour, ând then mist the counter with sprây oil. Plâce the dough bâlls on top of the floured counter ând sprinkle them with flour; dust your hânds with flour. Gently press the dough into flât disks âbout 1/2 inch thick ând 5 inches in diâmeter. Sprinkle the dough with flour, mist it âgâin with sprây oil, ând cover the dough loosely with plâstic wrâp or â food-grâde plâstic bâg. Now let rest for 2 hours.
5. ât leâst 45 minutes before mâking the pizzâ, plâce â bâking stone either on the floor of the oven (for gâs ovens), or on â râck in the lower third of the oven. Heât the oven âs hot âs possible, up to 800F (most home ovens will go only to 500 to 550F, but some will go higher). If you do not hâve â bâking stone, you cân use the bâck of â sheet pân, but do not preheât the pân.
6. Generously dust â peel or the bâck of â sheet pân with semolinâ flour or cornmeâl. Mâke the pizzâs one ât â time. Dip your hânds, including the bâcks of your hânds ând knuckles, in flour ând lift I piece of dough by getting under it with â pâstry scrâper. Very gently lây the dough âcross your fists ând cârefully stretch it by bouncing the dough in â circulâr motion on your hânds, cârefully giving it â little stretch with eâch bounce. If it begins to stick to your hânds, lây it down on the floured counter ând reflour your hânds, then continue shâping it. If you hâve trouble tossing the dough, or if the dough keeps springing bâck, let it rest for 5 to 20 minutes so the gluten cân relâx, ând try âgâin. You cân âlso resort to using â rolling pin, though this isn't âs effective.
7. When the dough is stretched out to your sâtisfâction (âbout 9 to 12 inches in diâmeter for â 6-ounce piece of dough), lây it on the peel or pân, mâking sure there is enough semolinâ flour or cornmeâl to âllow it to slide. Lightly top it with sâuce ând then with your other toppings, remembering thât the best pizzâs âre topped with â less-is-more philosophy. The âmericân "kitchen sink" âpproâch is counterproductive, âs it mâkes the crust more difficult to bâke. â few, usuâlly no more thân 3 or 4 toppings, including sâuce ând cheese is sufficient.
8. Slide the topped pizzâ onto the stone (or bâke directly on the sheet pân) ând close the door. Wâit 2 minutes, then tâke â peek. If it needs to be rotâted 180 degrees for even bâking, do so. The pizzâ should tâke âbout 5 to 8 minutes to bâke. If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the..................................................
9. ........................................

     FULL RECIPES : https://www.101cookbooks.com/

How To Select or Choose The BEST health insurance Plan

For any person with money on their hands, splurging on food or travel is undoubtedly the most enticing thing to do, isn’t it? While spending is our forte, the thought of securing one’s future always tends to beat the back of our mind. Having gone through my share of I-need-to-save-money moments, I’ve indulged in some not-so-fun-filled research. This lengthy answer is an outpour of all the information stacked in my brain.

Let’s begin with what health insurance is, or for that matter, what Insurance essentially is. Quoting someone I’d call financially smart, “Insurance is a game of shifting risks, wherein you shift risks from your life onto insurance companies, who guarantee you coverage for these risks in exchange for a premium that you pay monthly. The premium is a fee paid by you and it varies according to the number of risks you insure.”

On that note, let’s get to the most basic things to keep in mind when purchasing health insurance:

1) Number of people to be insured: 

If you’re single, with no family to take care of, an individual health insurance policy would work just fine for you. However, if you’re a family man, a Family Floater Insurance policy should be your go-to. In simple words, in an individual insurance, you get the full benefit of the total sum insured, while in a floater, your family collectively benefits from a single sum insured.

2) Riders:

health insurances in most situations cover only a certain amount of healthcare risks. For example, OPD charges or maternity expenses are generally not covered under your regular health insurance policy. In these situations, it is best to add riders, that is, extra coverage for an added charge. However, to avoid stocking up on too many riders, look for policies that cover the most number of risks that you wish to insure yourself with.

3) Co-Payment: 

Some health insurance products have a co-payment clause, especially senior citizens’ health insurance plans. This means that, out of the total amount of your claim, some percentage of the payment would have to be borne by you. The percentage can range from anywhere between 10% and 20% of the total claim amount. To avoid a situation where you have to pay beyond your capacity at an older age, look for policies with lower rates of co-payment even if it calls for paying a slightly higher premium.

4) Research: 

Finding the perfect policy can either be an offline task or an online task. Many companies, such as OneInsure, offer free financial advice to people looking for insurance policies. I personally have had a positive firsthand experience with them, in spite of not being their customer. You can always reach out to them to clear all your doubts and get your queries answered. In a more traditional approach, you can visit offices of insurance companies like Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) or Religare health insurance to get more details.

I am one to believe in getting things done from the comfort of my own bed. I’m sure you would agree!

How To Select or Choose The BEST health insurance Plan

How to Select or Choose the BEST health insurance Plan? is one of the most common queries posted by the readers of this blog. I highlighted the importance of health insurance plan in my post, Why do we need health insurance? Let me admit that to select a health insurance Plan is difficult or complex compared to any other insurance policy. The reason being, a large number of deciding factors in health insurance Plan.

The plans like life insurance or critical illness plan are event specific.  On the other hand, there are a lot of ifs and buts in health insurance plan. To share an example, there is NO concurrence  or agreement among various health insurance rating agencies. One of the health insurance plan rated BEST by one of the rating agency is rated below average by another agency. Though each of them has their own ranking methodology and ranking can be manipulated. It leaves the potential customer high and dry.

health insurance Plan – Fix your requirement First

To simplify this entire process to select the best health insurance Plan, it is important to fix your requirement first. Here by requirement, i mean following factors to be decided first.

(a) No of members to be insured: 

Normally, the potential policyholders are confused whether to avail individual or family floater plan. In another scenario, some would like to include their elderly parents in family floater plan. Please remember that premium of the health insurance plan is decided by the age of the eldest member under family floater plan. The health insurance provider will be more than happy to include elder members as it will increase the overall premium. The best solution is to avail a separate health insurance Plan for elderly parents depending on their requirement.

Lastly, Family floater plan is more economical compared to the individual plan/s.

(b) Coverage Amount: 

It is always good to have maximum coverage but remember that premium increases with the coverage amount. Recently, one of the readers of my blog Priyanka asked me the ideal coverage amount. She is 26 years and was married recently. Now for a young couple, it does not make sense to avail a coverage of higher amount of 9L.

Therefore, in my opinion, the young couples can start with lower coverage amount say 2L and may avail top up policy in future to increase the coverage. The probability of hospitalization is low at a young age. Moreover, a premium of health insurance plan is not locked thus monetary benefit to avail higher coverage at a young age is missing. I will discuss it in detail later in the post.

The coverage amount should be low for the salaried class as they are already covered by their employer. As financial planners always suggest opting for “personal” health insurance Plan even if you are covered by your employer. Therefore, if you are salaried then you should opt for lower coverage initially and may increase the same through a top up policy every 10 years to hedge the risk.

Lastly, you should opt for higher coverage at a young age if there is a medical history of the family in terms of genetic diseases/ailment. Though in medical terms, the genetic disease is more serious term i.e. caused by an abnormality in DNA but i am using it literally. For example, Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, Skin Diseases etc are also genetic in family depending on family history. One of my distant cousins has all the diseases/ailments of her mother i.e. High BP and Migraine. Therefore, in such cases, it is advisable to opt for higher coverage at a young age.

(c) International Cover: 

Some people are globetrotter either professionally or by personal choice. If you are in IT field then there is a high probability of offsite posting abroad. Similarly, one of my uber-rich friends undertakes one foreign trip every quarter. Therefore for such people, it is important that health insurance Plan provides international cover. Please remember that not all the health insurance Plan provide international cover. Therefore, depending on your requirement you may include an international cover.

(d) Maternity Cover:

Personally, i suggest not to include maternity cover in your requirement list. Still, some of the young couples prefer maternity cover because of the high perceived maternity cost. You can do a simple maths to decide whether to include a maternity cover or not. Check the premium of health insurance Plan with and without maternity cover. In some policies, it is an inbuilt feature but still you can find out the premium difference by comparing similar policies.

Assuming the premium difference is Rs 6000 p.a. You are expected to spend between Rs 50k to Rs 75k towards the maternity expenses. From a financial perspective, it is too costly in a long run. Moreover, there is a waiting period of 3-4 years to avail maternity benefit.

(e) Add-on features: 

In order to make health insurance Plan more marketable and attractive some of the health insurance providers include add-on features like health checkup, alternative treatment, OPD, e-opinion, second opinion etc. Always remember that such add-on features add to the cost of the policy. Personally, i don’t foresee any value in these add-on features. I am not acting judgmental but you may include these features depending on your requirement. You may consider alternative treatment and health checkup provided premium is not increasing drastically. I strongly suggest against OPD as there are a lot of ifs and buts that i can write a separate post on the same.

Now you are ready with your exact requirement and let’s move to next section.

How To Select or Choose The BEST health insurance Plan?

As a first you step, from laundry list, you can shortlist the health insurance plan that fulfills and meet your requirement. For example, in my case, i was looking for a health insurance plan with a coverage of 9L. Therefore, almost all the plans of public sector health insurance providers were dropped during initial screening. Secondly, public sector health insurance providers are not so strong in cashless tie-ups that we will discuss later in the post. Now i was left with health insurance plans of private insurer fulfilling my requirement. I evaluated these plans on following parameters in same order

1. Premium of the Policy:

One of the most imp point about the premium of health insurance plan is that it is not fixed i.e. it is dynamic. Unlike term insurance policy, wherein the premium is fixed for the policy tenure, the premium of health insurance may keep changing (read: increasing). In layman terms, unfortunately, there is NO INCENTIVE to BUY health insurance Plan at an early age to LOCK the premium. Sometimes premium is low because of co-pay clause (Please check the point no 4).

In my screening activity, i dropped plans with the comparatively high premium amount.

In this post, i covered some of the important factors to be considered while selecting or choosing health insurance plan. I have a lot more to share. In one of the future posts, i will share how you can save on health insurance premium and medical expenses by selecting right health insurance plan/features.

As health insurance plan is a non-standard financial product. Therefore, you cannot select health insurance plan only based on the premium. Thanks to IRDA, if you are not happy with the existing health insurance provider you can opt for portability of health insurance.

Last but not the least, the medical history of the family can play important role in the selection of the right health insurance plan. The reason being, the probability of diseases/ailments based on family history is HIGH. Trust me it is true. In the case of my friend’s family, the entire family tree suffered from heart disease at some point or another.  Therefore, i suggested him to opt for health insurance plan designed for heart diseases/cardiac care. Alternatively, there should not too many strings attached to heart disease in health insurance plan.

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