The Lemon Fool

I have a no-knead pizza dough coming along since last night and I just prepared a jar of garlic-infused olive oil. Chopped garlic heated in olive oil in order to give it a head start, then a few chili flakes. Drizzle on top.

My all-time favourite toppings: ham, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, blue cheese, a few capers - together with tomato sauce and grated cheese. No pineapple, no fresh basil leaves, no rocket(the horror, the horror ) .

You are talking one of my favourite foods. I love pizza! It has to be on a very thin and crispy base, preferably wood fired and a straight forward Margherita hits the spot for me, possibly with some chilli oil or chilli flakes.

I've tried baking them at home but it just is not the same, I even bought a very expensive pizza oven but it still isn't right.

John

redsturgeon wrote:...

I've tried baking them at home but it just is not the same, I even bought a very expensive pizza oven but it still isn't right.

John

But I bet it's pretty darn close, isn't it?

Thin base for me too. Withought any gadgetry, a good trick is to keep the pizza on its oven tray on the oven bottom for a few first minutes before moving it up onto a rack. I also like the doughs which rest a day or two in the fridge.

redsturgeon wrote:I've tried baking them at home but it just is not the same, I even bought a very expensive pizza oven but it still isn't right.

I've tried baking pizza in a fan assisted electric oven, on a pre-heated bread stone, but it just doesn't cut the mustard vs a wood-fired one.
To solve this problem, we're in the middle of constructing a cobb oven next to the patio.

JMN2 wrote:I also like the doughs which rest a day or two in the fridge.

I'd be interested to see what recipe you use for thin crust, as I don't like the "bread" bases of a dough that rises too much!

vrdiver wrote:...

JMN2 wrote:I also like the doughs which rest a day or two in the fridge.

I'd be interested to see what recipe you use for thin crust, as I don't like the "bread" bases of a dough that rises too much!

My dough recipies vary but this one I used yesterday and have done it a few times and it's quite good.
https://youtu.be/MjuiazBz5Eo

Probably my expectations are lower but I'm fairly happy with home-oven home-made pizzas.

Few years ago there was The New York Times dough recipe kicking about which was very good.

This one is my favourite though:
https://youtu.be/UUVF3amJhDE

Divided the dough in three parts, one left for today. I used "fresh" tomatoes from a tin, no pre-made sauce, and forgot to add salt and the blue cheese did not quite balance that omission, which I'll rectify today.

Please don't start the ' what is an authentic pizza' argument - it 's as bad as 'what's a real IPA' - currently running on another thread

AleisterCrowley wrote:Please don't start the ' what is an authentic pizza' argument - it 's as bad as 'what's a real IPA' - currently running on another thread

No, I wouldn't dream of it, besides, I hardly do authentic pizzas as I most often use ready made pasta sauces like Dolmio etc.

I don't really care what is or is not an authentic pizza, I just know that I like one with a thin crust fired in a very hot oven and featuring very few ingredients...and certainly no pineapple.

John

JMN2 wrote:

AleisterCrowley wrote:Please don't start the ' what is an authentic pizza' argument - it 's as bad as 'what's a real IPA' - currently running on another thread

No, I wouldn't dream of it, besides, I hardly do authentic pizzas as I most often use ready made pasta sauces like Dolmio etc.

As do most pizza take-aways; they use pre-made sauces rather than building them up from scratch. I'm all for 'cheats', as Delia refers to them, if the end result is good and they save a material amount of time/effort (and perhaps additionally expense).
Same way I tend to use a base 'pasta' sauce for pasta sauces, and usually build upon it. In general terms for sauces/pasta for everyday use, or sauces for 'building upon' in this way I choose Barilla. If I want 'to be fancy', want something lighter and have time, AND fresh good tomatoes are on hand I'll still add a good dose of tomato passata as a base to build upon.

There was a loooooong thread on TMF (I think) re pizza authenticity
'Sadly' now vanished into thin air heh heh

"it must be made with San Marzano tomatoes, which grow on the volcanic plains to the south of Mount Vesuvius, blah blah blah buffalo mozzarella cheese, 'Mozzarella di Bufala Campana', made with the milk from water buffalo raised in the marshlands of Campania and Lazio blah blah
(Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza)

AleisterCrowley wrote:There was a loooooong thread on TMF (I think) re pizza authenticity
'Sadly' now vanished into thin air heh heh

"it must be made with San Marzano tomatoes, which grow on the volcanic plains to the south of Mount Vesuvius, blah blah blah buffalo mozzarella cheese, 'Mozzarella di Bufala Campana', made with the milk from water buffalo raised in the marshlands of Campania and Lazio blah blah
(Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza)

yeah, yeah, all well and fine, but where should the pineapple come from?

AleisterCrowley wrote:There was a loooooong thread on TMF (I think) re pizza authenticity
'Sadly' now vanished into thin air heh heh

"it must be made with San Marzano tomatoes, which grow on the volcanic plains to the south of Mount Vesuvius, blah blah blah buffalo mozzarella cheese, 'Mozzarella di Bufala Campana', made with the milk from water buffalo raised in the marshlands of Campania and Lazio blah blah
(Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza)

yeah, yeah, all well and fine, but where should the pineapple come from?

I quite like making Calzone (Italian pasties?). More or less the same ingredients as pizzas but more succulent because the topping is enclosed. And then theres Cornish Pasties....yum!

A good calzone is a thing of joy for me, super-juicy and succulent. I first encountered them as a student at uni, where there was a pizza place that did them staggering distance en-route home between the campus bar and where I lived. That was 30+ years ago now, and I've rarely seen them on the menu in other pizza places (UK and abroad). How common/popular are they in the UK these days, I don't get to visit too often? I'd enjoy reliving that unique divine sloppy calzone moment

- home-made Cornish pasties = +1 from me.
And if you've mastered those then an international interpretation you might also enjoy trying is the Malay curry-puff. That is as common a street food there as sausage stands are in Berlin. The Malay version quite likely derives from the British/Cornish version during the height of the Empire, adapted to local tastes. (I've also enjoyed empanadas in central South America which are very similar to Cornish pasties. Apparently empanadas were born out of historic Cornish interests in Bolivian tin-mines).

With the Malay ones, every household is likely to have their own family recipe, there is pretty wide latitude to interpret it to suit. But moderately curried chicken and potato 'stew' is perhaps the most common. Veggie are common too, then beef, and then 'seafood' ones which they make with canned pilchards!? That's the only variant I don't enjoy.

- Tip: Shop-bought ones are often in short-crust pastry, perhaps so they're more robust during delivery from the factory. For home-made I'd strongly recommend using puff pastry. A good broad source of Malay recipes online is: http://rasamalaysia.com/recipe-curry-puff/ And that's their one for curry-puffs. I don't use nearly as much pastry as they show, I roll the pastry thinly and seal them by simply pressing the join with the tines of a fork, rather than their folded 'rope-like' closure. Oh and I bake rather than even think of deep-frying them.

Here is a Youtube vid of a recipe and prep. using beef.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeo4xC6Hqj8 'Shiokman Beef Pasty (Baked Pastry Puff)' [6m30s but if using shop-bought pastry you can skip right to 3m10s, and then hop forward in steps as it's all a typically leeeeisurely Malay pace - hehe]
[FWIW 'Shiokman' derives from the common Malay exclamation = '(It's) tasty man!'. And ironically the Malay cook is making the unspiced Cornish version, which IDR every seeing out in Asia ]

You can eat out on Calzones in some of the many Italian casual dining chains in the UK. The last one I had was at Strada and it was quite good. I think Prezzo also do them.

The key to getting a perfectly baked Pizza in a fan oven is the slip in directly onto the wire shelf in a preheated oven. I have a pizza stone but it doesnt seem to allow the evaporation of moisture from the dough and you often end up with the dreaded soggy bottom. Another essential is to keep the sauce fairly dry too for the same reason.

We just had a home made job for lunch and I tried the ham, mushroom, artichoke hearts, capers, blue cheese combo recommended above. I did add a few slithers of sweated onion and drizzled the pizza before cooking with Belazu's excellent Chile infused oil. The base of the pizza was baked golden brown just like the edges. Very tasty!

To slide the uncooked pizza onto the oven shelf we have a german gadget which is basically a sheet of shiny aluminium. It needs to be dusted with flour so the thin dough can slide easily. The cooked pizza is also retrieved with it. A smaller version of those things with a long handle.

If you have the time you will never bother with shop bought stuff again. Practice makes perfect

I have a pizza stone but it doesnt seem to allow the evaporation of moisture from the dough

We used to keep a granite chopping block in the main oven for pizza purposes, an idea that came from the Radio 4 show 'Kitchen Cabinet' which is currently running a new series and a programme I highly recommend.

At a guess, our lab weighed about five kilos and after installing it, I never used the oven at less than maximum temperature when pizza was on the menu - It took a while to warm up but it did a great job and the smooth surface of the slab never glued a pizza to itself.

For anyone interested in this idea, you need to purchase a granite chopping board (I got mine from Sainsbury) and then pop it into the oven at about 120º for a few hours to drive the moisture out - If you simply put it in and use the oven a maximum there is a danger it will crack.

Jeff Potter wrote a book called 'Cooking for Geeks' which details how to overclock an oven by disabling the secondary thermostat in order to get it to proper pizza temperature. I have not tried this and I'm not likely to. I seem to recall on the old Fool board some individuals had home made tandoors in their gardens so I know there are a few who like to play with fire.

B.

I recall Heston B trying something using his oven on self-clean (?) maximum overdrive setting.
I'd be slightly concerned about disabling thermal cutouts/secondary thermostats....

I dont think you have to cook at any more than 200 centigrade in a preheated fan oven, thats what I did this morning and after 20 minutes it was cooked perfectly.
Have been thinking about my very thin pizza and the slight difficulty in putting it on the hot wire oven shelf whilst the shelf is in the oven. The obvious answer is to take the shelf out of the oven, switch the oven on and whilst it is heating up slip the pizza base onto the shelf and then put the sauce and ingredients on. Much easier than sliding a floppy fully loaded pizza base onto the shelf when its hot and in the oven.

I have a round pizza oven tray that has holes in it...

On Sunday I'll use Gianni's fast 2-phase proofing method for the dough and topping will be tuna, anchovies and olives. Tomatoes, cheese, onion, capers.

And then I'm done until late December when I'll be fed up with roasted potatoes, peas, ham and pate.