Zardnaar
Legend
Very similar the British version.
Your Pizza Order
Very similar the British version.
Jolly Ruby
Privateer
Ordered an "all'amatriciana" pizza yesterday: tomato sauce, pancetta, red onion, tomato confit, basil and grated grana padano cheese. If it had garlic it would be my new favourite pizza
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
The perfect pizza has little to do with the toppings, and more to do with timing and technique. Here's the culmination of all of my years of experience working in pizzerias:
First, make the sauce. Use the sauce recipe that you think will taste best...there are thousands of recipes available online from all over the world; pick your favorite. The important part is to use fresh herbs if possible. If the recipe calls for wine or cheese, use a wine or cheese that you enjoy by itself. And this is critical: make the sauce the day before because the sauce needs to chill overnight in the fridge to let the flavors blend. Then, when it's time to make the pizza, take it out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature (the same temperature as the dough).
Also the day before, start making the dough. There are thousands of recipes that you can pull from, you should use one that sounds good and uses yeast instead of chemical leavening. It needs to ferment slowly in the fridge overnight to give it a richer taste and better texture. Pizza crusts that use baking soda, baking powder, or other chemical leavening will have a biscuit-like texture and won't fold, cut, or "lift" properly (ever got a slice of pizza that broke or fell apart when you picked it up? That pizza had no "lift.")
When it's time to make your pizza, put a pizza stone on the bottom rack of your oven and then preheat it to 500°F (or as high as it will go). If you don't have a pizza stone, you'll have to use a cookie sheet--put it directly on the floor of your oven if you can, or on the lowest rack of the oven if you can't.
Press the dough into a flat disk about an inch thick, then roll the edge into a lip and then stretch the dough carefully over your knuckles until it's the desired size and thickness. There are a great many YouTube videos out there that show you how to do this. Once the dough has been shaped, lay it onto a pizza peel that has been covered with parchment paper or cornmeal. Then--and this is important!--let the dough rest for 10 minutes before you do anything else to it. The gluten needs time to relax. (If you've ever made a pizza at home and it ended up looking weird and misshapen when it came out of the oven, this could be why.)
After the dough has relaxed, add your room-temperature sauce. The amount of sauce you use is important: too little and it will burn, too much and your pizza will be soggy. But it's hard to give an exact measurement, because sauces all have different amounts of sugar and moisture in them. This is going to come down to trial and error, I'm afraid, but generally: you want enough sauce on the pizza so that the toppings don't roll around when you shake the pizza peel, but not so much that the toppings begin to slide when you tilt the peel.
Remember: you can always heat up the extra sauce and serve it on the side for dipping.
Next, the cheese. Use whatever cheese you like best, I like a blend of mozzarella and Parmesan but that's just one moogle's opinion. Whichever cheese(s) you use, just make sure it's the kind that tastes good enough to eat by itself. The amount of cheese you add is important too. For a lot of people, the cheese is their favorite part--and more cheese equals more better, right? Not really. Cheese is delicious, but it's also cold, and it's an insulator: so if you put too much cheese on your pizza, the bottom of your crust will char itself black before the top can even start cooking. There's not an exact measurement for the cheese either, it will depend on the kind of cheese and how finely-grated it is and how many binders/fillers are in it and the temperature and etc. So I recommend about 2 cups total for an 18" pizza, but that's not a hard rule.
Put half of the cheese on top of the sauce, and set the rest aside for later. You want to enrobe the toppings in the cheese, so think of this as the bottom blanket.
Time for the toppings! As with the cheese, you need to avoid adding too many toppings because they will act as an insulator and they can prevent the pizza from cooking properly. Cheese and all, you want the toppings to be less than a half-inch thick across the pizza--otherwise it'll have a hard time cooking. Use whatever toppings you crave, just make sure that the meats are fully-cooked and all of the ingredients are the ones you enjoy eating on their own. I think that the flavors get muddled if I add too many different toppings, so I usually keep it to 3 or less...but don't mind me.
Once you've got your toppings in place, add the other half of the cheese. Spread everything out evenly, and give the pizza peel a shake to make sure that the whole pizza can slide off of it easily (especially if you're using cornmeal instead of parchment paper). Then in one smooth motion, slide the pizza off of the peel and directly onto the preheated pizza stone. (Or slide it onto the cookie sheet and place it in the oven, if you don't have a stone.)
Close the oven door, and don't open it again until 7 minutes have passed. Then open the oven, pick up the pizza with the peel, and turn it around. Put it back in the oven and let it cook until the edges are blistered and the cheese is lightly browned. Take it out of the oven and let it rest on the peel for 3 or 4 minutes, then slice and serve.
Also the day before, start making the dough. There are thousands of recipes that you can pull from, you should use one that sounds good and uses yeast instead of chemical leavening. It needs to ferment slowly in the fridge overnight to give it a richer taste and better texture. Pizza crusts that use baking soda, baking powder, or other chemical leavening will have a biscuit-like texture and won't fold, cut, or "lift" properly (ever got a slice of pizza that broke or fell apart when you picked it up? That pizza had no "lift.")
When it's time to make your pizza, put a pizza stone on the bottom rack of your oven and then preheat it to 500°F (or as high as it will go). If you don't have a pizza stone, you'll have to use a cookie sheet--put it directly on the floor of your oven if you can, or on the lowest rack of the oven if you can't.
Press the dough into a flat disk about an inch thick, then roll the edge into a lip and then stretch the dough carefully over your knuckles until it's the desired size and thickness. There are a great many YouTube videos out there that show you how to do this. Once the dough has been shaped, lay it onto a pizza peel that has been covered with parchment paper or cornmeal. Then--and this is important!--let the dough rest for 10 minutes before you do anything else to it. The gluten needs time to relax. (If you've ever made a pizza at home and it ended up looking weird and misshapen when it came out of the oven, this could be why.)
After the dough has relaxed, add your room-temperature sauce. The amount of sauce you use is important: too little and it will burn, too much and your pizza will be soggy. But it's hard to give an exact measurement, because sauces all have different amounts of sugar and moisture in them. This is going to come down to trial and error, I'm afraid, but generally: you want enough sauce on the pizza so that the toppings don't roll around when you shake the pizza peel, but not so much that the toppings begin to slide when you tilt the peel.
Remember: you can always heat up the extra sauce and serve it on the side for dipping.
Next, the cheese. Use whatever cheese you like best, I like a blend of mozzarella and Parmesan but that's just one moogle's opinion. Whichever cheese(s) you use, just make sure it's the kind that tastes good enough to eat by itself. The amount of cheese you add is important too. For a lot of people, the cheese is their favorite part--and more cheese equals more better, right? Not really. Cheese is delicious, but it's also cold, and it's an insulator: so if you put too much cheese on your pizza, the bottom of your crust will char itself black before the top can even start cooking. There's not an exact measurement for the cheese either, it will depend on the kind of cheese and how finely-grated it is and how many binders/fillers are in it and the temperature and etc. So I recommend about 2 cups total for an 18" pizza, but that's not a hard rule.
Put half of the cheese on top of the sauce, and set the rest aside for later. You want to enrobe the toppings in the cheese, so think of this as the bottom blanket.
Time for the toppings! As with the cheese, you need to avoid adding too many toppings because they will act as an insulator and they can prevent the pizza from cooking properly. Cheese and all, you want the toppings to be less than a half-inch thick across the pizza--otherwise it'll have a hard time cooking. Use whatever toppings you crave, just make sure that the meats are fully-cooked and all of the ingredients are the ones you enjoy eating on their own. I think that the flavors get muddled if I add too many different toppings, so I usually keep it to 3 or less...but don't mind me.
Once you've got your toppings in place, add the other half of the cheese. Spread everything out evenly, and give the pizza peel a shake to make sure that the whole pizza can slide off of it easily (especially if you're using cornmeal instead of parchment paper). Then in one smooth motion, slide the pizza off of the peel and directly onto the preheated pizza stone. (Or slide it onto the cookie sheet and place it in the oven, if you don't have a stone.)
Close the oven door, and don't open it again until 7 minutes have passed. Then open the oven, pick up the pizza with the peel, and turn it around. Put it back in the oven and let it cook until the edges are blistered and the cheese is lightly browned. Take it out of the oven and let it rest on the peel for 3 or 4 minutes, then slice and serve.
eyeheartawk
#1 Enworld Jerk™
Where's the step where I put a Totino's Party Pizza in the oven?
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
You have an oven?
eyeheartawk
#1 Enworld Jerk™
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Ew.
Nah, if I want a delicious pizza but I don't want to go through the hassle of making one myself (and make no mistake, it's a huge hassle), I just order one up from my favorite pizzeria.
eyeheartawk
#1 Enworld Jerk™
That place looks good. But sometimes I just have a craving for a Saltine with ketchup on it.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
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