[Nudge]

I always use flat Lebanese bread as a base as it goes really well and is quick and easy. My favourite was cooking up some chicken breast then adding tomato paste and some herbs to the base. Then the chicken, onions, mozzarrella and bocconcini and cook for around 10/15 mins. Top with fresh baby spinach leaves and drizzle with chilli olive oil. Its not going to give you real Napiloten gourmet pizza (maybe you cant even call this pizza?) but if your just looking for something better than the ready made supermarket ones give it a try.

[cardguy]

I am still working my way through a bunch of different ideas. I will report back on this thread when I have found a combination I am happy with.

But - a quick question.

Is it crucial that you wash the plummed tomatoes from the tin can before crusihing them with a blender. Or is it is worth just emptying the contents of the can (including the extra sauce) and using that?

Just wondering what people's thoughts were on this were? Is the flavour worse when you use everything in the can since you will be getting all the acids and preservatives in your sauce as well? Or does it not really matter? Or maybe the sauce is better since it has a stronger tomato flavour?

I am a total beginner with cooking. So just wanted to see if there were any strong opinions on this?

[samsamsam]

I have used lavash bread and for a little extra kick toss some wasabi powder into the pizza sauce.

[Giovonny]

I love to eat pizza while at the same time watching cooking shows about pizza..

I like this guy. (I only watched the first 30 seconds)

This is my favorite thread on the forum!

I'm trying to make a healthy pizza with a almond meal/corn meal crust and almond cheese. I like garlic, mushroom, little bit of olives, and a little bit of pepperoni.

[cardguy]

Also - I am thinking of using tinned crused tomatoes - instead of blending some plummed tomatoes for my pizza sauce.

I hope this isn't a dumb idea.

[liberman]

I work part time in a gourmet pizza restaurant making the pizza dough, food prep and the pizzas themselves.
Our recipe for the pizza dough is flour, salt, water (43 degrees Celsius), dry instant active yeast and oil strained through sun dried tomatoes. I don’t know the exact amounts since we make our dough in large batches and our measuring techniques are not done by scale or weight (we use level marks on containers) experimentation through trial will get a good result. knead dough thoroughly (we use kneading machine) mold dough into ball shapes approximately 600 grams then cover the pizza dough and pace in fridge overnight.
The pizza sauce is just crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, origano, basil and a little sugar, 3:1 ratio for crushed tomatoes and tomato paste respectively. put all ingredients in a large pot and bring to slow boil then remove from heat and place in fridge.
Roll out the pizza dough balls from the fridge and cut into circles if not using immediately then cover with glad wrap and put back in fridge.
remember to dock the underside of the pizza before applying the toppings this will stop the pizza from rising too much once it is in the oven. If you have stone bases use them for cooking as this will ensure a even temperature across the pizza also if you can make the oven apply downward heat instead of bottom heat will insure a better result. Obviously a real pizza oven will work better than a standard oven but it is not essential.
Before applying the toppings get your pizza base and make an edge around the outside to make it look pretty then put a little of your pizza sauce on the base and spread it around one or two tablespoons no more.
For the toppings generally speaking less is more. Use mozzarella cheese over the pizza sauce then put the toppings on don’t overdo it. Cooking time should be between 8-15 minutes.

   
Our popular mexican pizza
Bolognese mince (made separately)
capsicums
chili beans
tomatoes
jalapenos
served in sour cream and corn chips

Our greek pizza is also popular
spinach
tomato
red onion
garlic
olives
feta cheese pieces placed over top

[cardguy]

This is an ingenious hack to try and cook a pizza for those who can't get temperatures as high as those found in a pizza oven.

I am going to give it a go one day...

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/20...-home.html

[RASER]

(05-02-2013 07:40 PM)BadWolf Wrote:  

Best Pizza in Guangzhou

Pizza 2 Pizza

Nothing else like it in the entire world.

Was just over at the Canton Fair, heading back, where is it located?

One can only have so much pork/noodles/rice/fish/dumplings etc

"Lifes about, shooting your load"

[cardguy]

Just totally burned the fuck out of a pizza sauce I was preparing. I left it to simmer for too long.

Anyone got any good tips on not letting something simmer too long? And is regular stirring important?

Sorry for the beginner questions!

[cardguy]

I have being defeated. I am going to call it quits for a bit. I have tried about 5 different approaches in total and they either tasted awful - or just pretty bad.

I haven't come close to getting the sort of tomato sauce I enjoy in my local pizza restaurants. It seems to be difficult to make a tomato sauce taste of fresh tomatoes. Since I find as soon as I add spices - it starts to overpower the tomato flavour (which was strong to begin with).

I am going to take a break and have a rethink. Maybe I should try making sauce from fresh tomatoes - and not from tinned ones?

I am also tempted to ask my local pizza restaurant for their recipe. The one I really like is amde by a chain called Zizzi's. But I doubt they would tell me.

Also - I wonder if I should use tomato puree to help boost the tomato flavours?

Another thing. I haven't had a chance to use San Marzano tinned tomatoes (but I know a place that sells them)> Again - I wonder if that would make a big difference?

Would be interested to here other people's general opinions. I am not looking for more recipes just yet. Just some discussion about the subject in general (as per the questions above).

God - I knew this would end in failure. I just knew it...

Cardguy

PS I like the sauce they use at Pizza Express as well (here in the UK). Again - it is weird. The home pizzas they sell are awful. And the passata they sell in tin cans (which I also see apparently being used in restaurants) taste really bad when I use them. Still - I will probably have another crack at them. Instead of applying it straight to a base - I may simmer it with an onion for a hour or so. Would be interesting to see how that turns out.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

I usually buy a supermarket pizza margarita (so they don't stick various bullshit on it other than the needed essentials), then add my own ham and olives. It turns out great every time and is both cheaper, faster and tastier than if I made my own from scratch.

[cardguy]

I started this thread by asking for ingenious tips for making pizzas taste better. Without requiring too much effort.

Well I have a couple more...

Firstly - JimNortonFan PM'ed me to recommend using naan bread instead of a pizza base for making a pizza (as an easy alternative to making homemade dough). This is a lovely idea since I am not happy with the pizza bases I have bought from supermarkets. I still haven't had a chance to test this idea - but I can't wait to give it a go.

Secondly - How to make a great pizza without access to a fancy pizza oven? This is difficult since home cookers tend to be 2-3 times too cool for preparing pizzas the way they do in restaurants. Well - here is an idea I had - and then found that others had already had the same idea!

Can't wait to give this a go as well! This is one of the best ideas I have ever had.

[Architekt]

My parents have a wood fire pizza oven that my dad built. Home made pizzas here are always awesome

[Aliblahba]

We forget the important role pizza plays in our lives. This commercial is a good reminder. I think we can all relate.

[samsamsam]

I have not had this yet, but since I have been trying to watch my carbs. But people are swearing by cauliflower crust pizza. I am a pizza whore, so this gives me hope. See below.

This cauliflower crust pizza is so good it’s hard to believe it is gluten and grain-free! You can even pick it up like a regular slice of pizza.

Preparation Instructions
Place a pizza stone in the oven, or baking sheet if you don’t have a pizza stone. Preheat oven to 450ºF. On a cutting board, place a large piece of parchment paper and spray it with nonstick cooking oil.

Wash and throughly dry a small head of cauliflower. Don’t get one the size of your head unless you are planning on making 2 pizzas. Cut off the florets—you don’t need much stem, just stick with the florets. Pulse in your food processor for about 30 seconds, until you get powdery snow like cauliflower. You should end up with 2 to 3 cups cauliflower “snow”. Place the cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl and cover. Cook for 4 minutes.

Dump cooked cauliflower onto a clean tea towel and allow to cool for a bit before attempting the next step.

Once cauliflower is cool enough to handle, wrap it up in the dish towel and wring the heck out of it. You want to squeeze out as much water as possible. This will ensure you get a chewy pizza like crust instead of a crumbly mess.

Dumped squeezed cauliflower into a bowl. Now add Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, kosher salt, dried basil (crush up the leaves even more between your fingers before adding), dried oregano (crush up the leaves even more between your fingers before adding), garlic powder (not garlic salt), and a dash of red pepper if you want. I also added 1 tablespoon almond meal because my cauliflower yielded closer to 2 cups of cauli snow; this is optional and I would not add the almond meal if you have closer to 3 cups of cauli snow. Now add the egg and mix away. Hands tend to work best.

Once mixed together, use your hands to form the dough into a crust on your oiled parchment paper. Pat it down throughly, you want it nice and tightly formed together. Don’t make it too thick or thin either.

Using a cutting board, slide the parchment paper onto your hot pizza stone or baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 8-11 minutes, until it starts to turn golden brown. Remove from oven.

Add however much sauce, cheese, and toppings you want. I’m not gonna give you measurements for this. You know how you like your pizza—so go for it! Slide parchment with topped pizza back in the hot oven and cook for another 5 to 7 minutes until the cheese is melted, bubbly, and slightly golden.

Test your patience and allow it to cool for a minute or two. Probably closer to two. Then using a pizza cutter and a spatula, serve up your delicious grain-free cauliflower crust pizza!

Ingredients
1 head (Small Head) Cauliflower
¼ cups Parmesan Cheese
¼ cups Mozzarella Cheese
¼ teaspoons Kosher Salt
½ teaspoons Dried Basil
½ teaspoons Dried Oregano
½ teaspoons Garlic Powder
Red Pepper Flakes (optional)
1 Tablespoon Almond Meal (optional)
1 whole Egg

[kerouac]

(05-24-2013 04:40 PM)cardguy Wrote:  

I haven't come close to getting the sort of tomato sauce I enjoy in my local pizza restaurants. It seems to be difficult to make a tomato sauce taste of fresh tomatoes. Since I find as soon as I add spices - it starts to overpower the tomato flavour (which was strong to begin with).

Have you tried this recipe? http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/...sauce.html

or this one?
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/...lahey.html

Sauce can be tough, but I find that the simpler, the better. One recipe I saw somewhere was just a lot of butter, tomatoes, and salt. I tried that one and it was good.

[cardguy]

I am in between house moves for a few months - so haven't had a chance to do any pizza attempts recently. But I will come back here when I have done.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[cardguy]

(10-02-2013 01:26 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

We forget the important role pizza plays in our lives. This commercial is a good reminder. I think we can all relate.

I can't take that advert seriously. Domino's is the worse pizza in the world. At least here in the UK. They are so bad that one of their recent advertisments was a giant mea culpa...

This advert is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. How can Domino's pretend they didn't realise how bad their pizza was???

[cardguy]

Just found this. Really exciting.

It is a small and relatively cheap pizza oven that you can have in your kitchen.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ferrari-G10006-D...ords=pizza

Has very good reviews as well.

[RexImperator]

I'm actually pretty good at making pizza after years of practice. I have a few different recipes I turn to for sauce. Here's a method that is pretty easy, and retains the fresh tomato flavor:

You need a can of San Marzano DOP plum tomatoes from Italy. They taste better. Some say it's the volcanic soil but I don't know why. My second choice would Muir Glen whole tomatoes with basil.

Next you'll need a colander or strainer over a bowl. You'll empty the can through this, keeping the tomatoes in the can. Once the liquid is out, stick your hand in the can and start crushing the tomatoes carefully. If you squeeze too hard liquid will shoot out and make a mess. That's the reason for doing it in the can. Dump the hand-crushed tomatoes and the liquid they released into the strainer and let them drain into the bowl.

At this point, you could just use those drained tomatoes alone on the pizza. The reason for removing the liquid is that home ovens don't get hot enough compared to real pizza ovens to handle all that water. However, you can kick it up a notch (and be less wasteful) if you take that tomato liquid and cook it down on the stovetop. Add some pepper, salt, and oregano. Don't overdo them. Optional: some garlic and onion pulverized in a food processor or grated very finely by hand. (There should already be basil in there from the can of tomatoes, but you can add a little more.) Reduce it by at least half or more until it's somewhat thick. You can then use it as a base layer of sauce and the put the uncooked drained tomatoes on top of it.

The key thing with pizza sauce is to use less than you think you need. Keep the sauce coating on the crust very thin. Otherwise, you'll impede the cooking of the crust. (This recipe should be about right for one 16" pizza or two 12" pizzas.)

[presidentcarter]

(05-05-2013 01:23 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

Now, to make pizza like this takes years, and it would take pages upon pages to detail the process. There's a guy that has gotten this shit down as good as anyone could from home so I'll just link his website. If you want to learn to make the best pizza, take some time and check it out: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

I haven't tasted his pizza, but after watching his methods and knowing how my friend makes pizza I can say that he's much closer than even some of the best pizzerias in NY.

In his blog you'll see he recommends taking off the oven lock and running his cleaning cycle which gets the oven hot enough. This isn't necessary IMO. A good alternative is buying a solid baking stone or even terra cotta tile will work, setting it about 18 inches away from the broiler on your oven, and run your broiler for 20 minutes to get it piping fucking hot. Turn the broiler off but keep the oven on full blast and slip your pizza in and this is the best way to emulate a wood burning oven.

Any other questions hit me up.

I ate at Varasano's numerous times when I lived in ATL. I can vouch that it is GREAT stuff.

Side note...on that webpage...this cracked me up:

One of the 'Elite 8' Pizzerias in the US by Every Day with Rachael Ray
Voted Best Pizza in Atlanta for 2012 by Jezebel Magazine

[samsamsam]

Rachael Fucking Ray


Hate her.

Really samsamsam tells us how you feel about her - Hate her.

[JohnQPublic]

I have a couple of homemade pizza recipes that pretty much everybody approves of. I started out using those frozen pizza dough rounds that you can find sometimes, came up with a good sauce then found a low carb pizza recipe with mozarella cheese pizza 'dough'

I used to have a roommate who was a gourmet chef and he taught me how to make tomato based sauces for pasta. I used some of those ideas to come up with decent pizza sauce. For pasta you sautee some onions and then add a chopped up clove of garlic then use a can of tomato sauce. Add a pinch of sugar 'to reduce the acidity'. Then you can add basil or mixed herbs. When you experiment with different spices (just a little at a time) after 4 or 5 times you'll know what to do to get different tastes. Knowing how to make pasta sauce you will know how to get the taste you want from pizza sauce too.

I started out with a can of 'pizza sauce' - horrible. Next to that in a supermarket i found Hellmans spicy BBQ sauce. The list of ingredients looked like it would give me the taste i wanted so i decided to try. Spread a thin layer across the frozen crust, added some sliced onions (thin circular strips), one minced clove of garlic, some strips of green bell peppers and topped it off with pepperoni. Spread these evenly across the pizza. The result is great. You'd think that bbq sauce would suck, but this one brand is great. Maybe the mix of peppers and onions helped. Remember that in cooking the size of the chopped up ingredients matters. Big or small will change the taste.

When they stopped selling that sauce, i had to try a bunch of others to find one that worked. I just had to stick my finger in and taste it to know if it would work ( not in the store).

I've tried some of those pizza dough mixes you can buy, but found it too bready. But i like the no-carb mozarella pizza dough recipes you can find online. These are really good if you want to eat as much pizza as you want and not get fat. This is made of shredded mozarella and cheddar cheese mixed with eggs to make the dough. Instead of the whole eggs, I usually use just egg whites for that, then it doesn't taste eggy.

[MidWest]

As a native of Chicago, I had to throw this out there.

Chicago Style Pizza. There's nothing like it. Here's the recipe:

http://carnaldish.com/recipes/pizza/home...qtHdvRDuuA

[BadWolf]

I'll tell you the secret to making really good pizzas and doing it fast.

Get a job in the industry. I did this in my 20's before I left for Mexico. I found a pizza place where I really liked the pizza and they taught me to make the stuff, I noted all the ingredients used and just worked there for a couple of weeks. By that time, I could make a pizza in my sleep and when I got home, I'd be able to throw a great tasting pizza in the oven after about 2 or 3 minutes. It's just a matter of getting some hands on experience. If I were you guys, I would take a second 'weekend' job at a local mom and pop joint for a month or two. Also, don't bother making your own dough, that's a huge pain in the ass and unless you have the proper equipment, it's not going to turn out right. Just goto a grocery/bakery and buy the dough, might cost you $1 to make enough pizza for your entire family, twice. The true cost of a pizza is somewhere around $1.50 to $2.00 with ALL the toppings and cheese (if you buy in bulk and freeze it).