pizza!

I've been making pizza but I can't seem to get the tomato part right. What type do you use? I used passata which so far seems to be the best choice. But is it? Please teach me to make DELISH pizzas so I can turn into a fat blubber. :-)

i use tomato purée mixed with a few drops of water and some finely chopped garlic, not sure how authentic this is but it works for me

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/07/tomatoes_3.jpg

I just reqd you actually have to heat up the sauce beforehand? Woops, didn't know that (since it didn't mention this in my recipe book). You basically have to make a *sludge* from the cubed tomato?

If you want to make the sauce from scratch, what you need to do is slowly cook a lot of the water out of your (seasoned) (peeled, seeded, chopped) tomatoes. You can blend it smooth or leave it chunky, but the important part is cooking it down to a proper pizza sauce consistency so it's not so wet/runny.

Tomato paste is (peeled, seeded, chopped) tomatoes slowly cooked to get a lot of the water out. Unless you have some truly outstanding fresh tomatos, there's very little reason to start with whole tomatos except fanaticism.

I'd recommend just thinning tomato paste with enough water to get the consistency right, then adding a goodly amount of minced or mushed garlic and however much basil you think sounds right. Simmer it together for a while so the garlic can suffuse the sauce. Less work that way.

Great, will try that!

ok so i have been making pizza at home lately. for sauce, it's basicly a standard marinara: start with (1 sm or 1/2 lg) diced/chopped onions in olive oil or butter and give 'em a little color or till they turn translucent. then add minced garlic for max 3 minutes, and cool it out with some wine. let that reduce by 1/2 during which you can put some red pepper flake if you like it a little spicy, and herbs such as marjoram, basil, oregano or whatever. then dump in the can of stewed/whole peeled tomatoes and let the watery portion reduce a bit while you prepare your mind, oven and dough for construction. at some point when it looks to be getting thick, blitz it. i like to use the immersion style thingy that i have.

but here's my problem: i can never get the middle quite crisp enough. i think it may be cuz my gurl always put a bit too much sauce. but i was thinking: does anyone bake they crust a bit before topping it? what y'all think?

I make my sauce ahead of time so it has more flavor and I use it sparingly. I also tend to dry the toppings to lessen the likelihood of soggy spots.

how hot is the oven?

oven around 450 or so

Do you use a pizza stone or cast iron pan or put the pizza directly on the rack or put cornmeal down on the pan under the dough? How thick do you tend to make the crust? You might need to do something so the steam can escape from under the crust as it bakes - a pan with a rough surface can make a big difference. I use a cast iron pizza pan that I heat up in the oven, then slide the pizza onto it.

+++++++++++ for pizza stone, there is no way you can even approximate a wood-burn oven pizza on a domestic oven without one. Give it at least 5 minutes to pick up the heat from the oven once it reachest it's highest temperature.

And - should be pretty obvious, but make sure you minimise the time the oven door is open, we're talking 5 seconds absolute maximum.

Pizza stone

…but you're still running about half as hot as a wood fired oven which run at about 400°C (or about 800°F in your currency) so instead of 90 seconds you'll probably need to give a thin pizza 5 minutes cooking time in the oven, plus the minute or so the bottom gets while you are assembling on the stone.

-xpost-

although i have a pizza stone i just leave it in the oven all the time so it's a bit dirty. more than once i have thought about just putting the pizza on there tho. usually i put the cornmeal on the cookie sheet and roll the dough and smoosh it til it's like 1/4 inch or so, except around the edges which are probably more like 1/2 inch. after it looks like it's getting good (maybe 10m) i take it off the cookie sheet and put it straight on the oven rack. then i cook it until the top looks a little golden brown and take it out of the oven and put it back on the cookie sheet for it to cool (maybe 5-10m) then put it on a cutting board to cut it. eh?

after it looks like it's getting good (maybe 10m)*

i mean after it's been in the hot oven for 10 minutes . . .

I assemble on the paddle (over cornmeal) and cook directly on the stone, which occasionally gets washed but mostly just gets the remaining cornmeal swept off.

You're possibly losing the center crispy when it's cooling on the cookie sheet. Have you got a rack you could try cooling it on instead? fwiw, I either assemble on an aluminum pizza platter and drop that on the cast iron (for chewier crust), or assemble on a wooden paddle for baking directly on the hot cast iron (better for thinner crust w/ less toppings, more neopolitan style?).

total disaster the last time i made the pizza (they are coming out crispier . . .) but it stuck to tray i assembled it on even tho i cornmealed the shit out of it. fuckin cornmeal and cheese all over the bottom of the oven creating SMOKE! what an idiot

That's no fun.

I was thinking of this thread yesterday when I baked a loaf of bread directly on the pizza stone - it was so huge and heavy it oozed over all the cornmeal and didn't want to come off the peel. It finally sort of crawled off and then I was worried it was going to grow over the edges of the stone and get burned up on the element, it was so giant and catawampus. But it didn't, just baked in a kind of crooked oblong shape and tasted great.

catawampus! (is a great word)

my son and I make pizza. we've had good luck with mark bittman's basic pizza dough recipe. scatter the fresh mozz, maybe pepperoni. for sauce I make a light marinara (less garlic than ususal) though pizza maven ed levine insists tomato sauce on pizza shouldn't be pre-cooked. not sure I could taste the difference.

Never seen the need to use any cornmeal. Make sure you use 00 (pizza) flour, and put onto a very hot pizza stone. One thing you could try is rolling the dough out on a layer of oil - should stop sticking.

made pizza last night. this time everything was fine; really good even. i think i need a big ass pizza stone cuz the crust i make is almost always too big for the one i have. and for some reason my crust keeps coming out more of a rectangular shape that just happens to fit perfect on my sheet pan. so this time i just left it on there for 12 min (at 450) then put it straight on the grate for like 10 more. also cooled it on a rack (thx jaq)

a'ite dudes lemme blow yr minds:
potato pizza!
no fuckin tomato at all!
no fuckin cheese, yo!
and it's fuckin good, y'all!
i made this tuesday night and was very satisfied. also describes a technique i quite like about putting mad olive oil on yr sheet pan then stretching the dough with yr fingaz out on that. no sticking! and the crust gets kinda like fried to a crisp golden brown. delish!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2799/4245115722_37c37eeb23.jpg

hey anyone know any tricks for making a good pizza without a pizza stone? ours broke this morning and i still have dough, cheese & toppings. will happily use a baking sheet but wondered if there is something else that would work better, e.g. using a cast-iron griddle as a stone substitute or something

Parchment paper directly on the oven rack works out pretty well. Note I have never used a pizza stone at home so I don't know if it's the same, but it's better than a baking sheet.

Cast iron works well as a stone substitute.

Parchment paper directly on the oven rack? A revelation! I've been wanting to do pizza at home lately, but have always been disappointed with the results on a baking sheet.

I owe all thanks to the dearly missed Homemade Pizza Company.

thanks all, will try and report back

parchment on the oven rack is the way to go imo! my pizza stone broke the first time i used it and i still use the peel all the time but just to insert/remove/slice.

get a slab of steel - seriously, it has revolutionised my pizza-making. much better results than a stone, and it won't ever break.

where do i get a slab of steel?!

I'd look for the nearest ornamental metal craftsperson.

I got mine off ebay, no lie, from a company selling building equipment. You could get a pizza steel but they ain't cheap and they don't deliver to the UK, where I live, so a slab of steel does the trick. http://bakingsteel.com/shop/baking-steel/

i cooked these on my slab of steel last night:
http://photos-e.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xap1/10691708_314745618726540_185472852_n.jpg
http://photos-f.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xfp1/10431843_508926332583309_1917400367_n.jpg

looks really really good. wow!

what kind of pizza is that second one

kale, chilli, cheddar and salami - based on a pizza topping in the robertas cookbook

http://www.pizzatoday.com/

Pizza revelation:

Pan pizza in a cast iron pan.

This crust - http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/08/knead-pan-pizza/
and this sauce, more or less - http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza-sauce.html
and this pizza - http://instagram.com/p/wAQ9yKQB6X/

It was really good and I can't wait to make it again.

cool!

btw the parchment paper worked out beautifully for my pizza a few weeks ago

I can't see the pic! And I really want to!!

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7492/15921469911_ca009e0514.jpg

pizza pizza

That's sausage, mushrooms, and onions on there.

marcos, I'm glad the parchment paper worked!

yay!

Random tips for a thin crust Pizza Margherita ~
* Use yeast, salt, sugar, spelt flour & water for the dough. No oil!
* Grease your tray with ghee.
* Do not use sauce, use well-drained diced tomatoes. Mix the tomatoes with salt, grated mozzarella and whole fresh basil leaves.
* If you have a good olive oil, spread it on top of the pizza. If not, don’t; the mozzarella is greasy enough.
* Preheat your oven to >500°F, wait until it’s actually hot, then bake for 12-15 minutes.

Aaaiggh I need a pizza crust recepie!

You need to start it a little ahead of schedule, and scale it down if you don't wanna bake in bulk. But this is great.

https://www.bakingsteel.com/blog/72-hour-pizza-dough

I cant plan that far ahead but I'll try