Pizza: Cook-Off 8

[ChryZ]

Absolutely drool worthy thread! I got to read up on the subject and try it myself.

[Patrick S]

I wanted to try some of Reinhart's recipes, so I made pizza again this weekend. Nothing fancy, just cheese, and one with prosciutto. I used Reinhart's pizza sauce from American Pie, which has more garlic than the one I normally use, and is also different by containing some red wine vinegar. I deviated somewhat by adding half a finely-diced medium onion cooked in olive oil. I used Muir Glen (spelling?) fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. I liked the sauce quite a bit. My daughter and mother-in-law liked it better than the one I've used in the past, so this will be my default sauce from now on.

On saturday, I used Reinhart's sauce on the Cook's Illustrated dough that I normally use. I let the dough rise in the fridge overnight. I pushed my oven as far as it would go, preheating at 550F for about an hour.

On sunday, I used Reinhart's Napoletana dough recipe from American Pie. I definitely agree with ellencho that it is very easy to shape, compared to the higher protein, bread-flour dough I've gotten used to working with.

[ghost]

I'll throw my hat into the ring for this one....

Edited May 16, 2005 by ghost (log)

[ohmyganache]

I made a sour pizza dough over the last few days, and we finally baked 'em off today... yum!

Tomato sauce, mozzarella, olive oil, red pepper flakes, pepperoncinis.

Same as above...

Olive oil, sliced garlic, dry jack, oregano from the garden, red pepper flakes, black pepper.

Onion confit (thanks to the onion confit thread), cave aged grueyere, zucchini, sliced garlic

Me sliding the pizza off the back of a sheet pan onto our little stone in our little oven!

Edited May 16, 2005 by ohmyganache (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Deep breath, folks:

Cook-Off IX: Mole Poblano.

[Jason Perlow]

Ulp!

[tupac17616]

Finally had the chance to post some pictures of the awesome meal my family and I had a few days ago. It was the first time I'd ever made pizza at home. I used Reinhart's Napoletana recipe from American Pie for the dough. It was so easy to work with, and I thought it yielded great results. Crisp, yet chewy. Nice and thin. Lovely flavor and texture. Our pizza stone broke right down the middle before we put the first pie on, but no big deal, still works just fine. Anyway, onto the pictures...

Personally, I prefer an uncooked sauce, with simply crushed tomatoes, and maybe a little salt and extra virgin olive oil. Some of my family members, however, prefer "marinara sauce" as they refer to it, meaning they wanted a cooked sauce. Thus, a compromise. I bought a couple of cans of San Marzano tomatoes, strained, seeded, and crushed the whole tomatoes, and set those aside. Then I reduced the juices to create their cooked sauce. The best of both worlds.

Clearly, I was very interested in the sauce on the stove

And occasionally, I even stirred the sauce a little. Remarkable...

Anyway, enough of this saucy talk. On to the pizza!

The first --- Margherita. The standard by which all pizza should be judged. Buffalo mozzarella, crushed tomatoes, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt. Delicious.

The second --- Tomato sauce, Mozzarella, Microgreens, Carmelized Onion, Prosciutto (and one-fourth Magherita for my little brother). I loved the combination of the onions, greens, and prosciutto. Quite tasty.

The third --- Tomato, Mozzarella, Sopressata, and Pepperoni. Tasted way better than it looks

The fourth --- Half margherita, half mozzarella, fresh ricotta, precorino romano, and parmiggiano-reggiano. Another winner.

The fifth --- Dessert Pizza. Clockwise from top left: Nutella with pine nuts and banana, cherry preserves with almonds, dried figs and blue cheese, mascarpone and dates. I divided the sections with chocolate chips. Then drizzled it all with a bit of honey before hitting the oven. Here's the before and after (including the beautiful dough bubble on the after shot ):

The day after --- Calzone time. Stuffed with pepperoni, mozzarella, ricotta, basil, and tomatoes, brushed with some olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt once it was out of the oven. Mmmmm. Sorry no picture after I cut it open. We ate it too fast for me to get a shot

The day after --- dessert pizza again. I made this one especially for my mom with the last bit of dough I had left. Cherry preserves with almonds. This time, a la mode, with vanilla ice cream

This was an absolute blast. One of the most enjoyable cooking experiences we've had as a family. I'm always in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. But ths time everybody was in the kitchen, shaping their own dough, adding their own toppings, laughing, and eating. It was a great time. Can't wait to do this again soon.

[Pan]

I love the dessert pizza ideas.

[Eden]

Sunday I finally had time to make pizza. We went for a simple pepperoni & mozzarella pie. The results were tasty, but still not what I'm trying for.

I really want to make a good Neapolitan style pizza, and what I got was very nice home-made pizza...

There were several issues:

STRETCHING THE CRUST: I can get the center thin enough for neapolitan style now, but it thickens up far more than I want it too at the outer edge, and I just feel awkward & klutzy through the whole stretching process, like I don't know what to do with my hands... I was just about ready to use a rolling pin! Is this just a matter of practice, or is there a trick I'm missing? If it's just a repetition thing I'll go ahead and blow a bunch of yeast & flour, and make 10 of them in a row next time till I get the feel for it.

BAKING THE PIES:

I baked my pies at 550f (in theory at least, we need a new oven thermometer so I couldn't verify) for about 8 minutes. My crust had decent crispy chewy texture, but no real browning! I had to stop at 8 minutes because otherwise the toppings would have been overcooked. In fact on one I deliberately went longer, and the mozzarella got a nasty grainy texture I really didn't like, but even then no significant browning on the bottom of the crust. Is this that my stone is a thin pottery toy instead of real stone?

CRUST FLAVOR: The crust came out bland. I used the following recipe, and let it rise for about 3 hours before shaping & baking.

2 cups AP flour

1 cup cake flour

2.5 tsp yeast

1 cup water

2 tsp kosher salt

I'm thinking of letting it rise overnight in the fridge next time to see if more flavor develops, but it would be nice to be able to get good flavor on a same day crust...

PARCHMENT ROCKS!

I tried the parchment paper under the pizza for the first 2-3 minutes trick, and it worked like a charm. No more cornmeal or pizza sticking to the peel for me! And for those of you who are wondering as my husband did last night "umm, what about Fahrenheit 451?" you really do pull it out before it bursts into flames. Here's the proof:

PS: here's my "high tech proofing oven" a soft sided cooler, with a heating pad and a couple of tiles:

[snowangel]

Eden, I can relate to the crust not browning before the cheese turns to something really black. I'm pizza'ing tonight, and am going to try putting the cheese on later in the process.

I am using the Neopolitan recipe from Reinhart's American Pie (check it out from the library) and it is fairly easy to work with. His recipe calls for more salt, perhaps upping the amount would make your dough tastier? I also think that the overnight in the fridge does make a big difference. Remember you can always make the dough when you have time and stick balls in the freezer after that overnight fridge thing and just thaw them in the fridge for a day.

[redglass]

BAKING THE PIES:

I baked my pies at 550f (in theory at least, we need a new oven thermometer so I couldn't verify) for about 8 minutes. My crust had decent crispy chewy texture, but no real browning! I had to stop at 8 minutes because otherwise the toppings would have been overcooked. In fact on one I deliberately went longer, and the mozzarella got a nasty grainy texture I really didn't like, but even then no significant browning on the bottom of the crust. Is this that my stone is a thin pottery toy instead of real stone?

Hi folks, coming into this one a bit late, but as I just made a homemade margerhita pizza myself last night...

I've been on a personal pizza challenge for a while now. I don't own a pizza stone, a great oven or a kitchen aid with a dough hook and space/budget concerns will keep it that way for a while. But it hasn't stopped me on my quest!

Anyway, as for the underdone crust/overdone toppings:

I cook the crust by itself for a few minutes (with my 1970's oven, about 5 minutes at 475), or until the crust is firm enough to take out by itself without being floppy. I take it out remove it from the pizza pan, add the toppings and pop it back in (without the pan) directly on the oven rack and cook it until the cheese is nicely melted. For me this has yielded a crispy/chewy browned crust without burned toppings.

I used deborah madison's pizza dough recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone- I found it to be easy to work with with a great taste and it baked to a wonderful golden color. I liked the results so much that I thought, "damn, too bad I don't have my camera with me. I could post this on egullet."

[rooftop1000]

Pizza Pizza Pizza ...more pizza sicilian crust

Asparagus and ricotta 1/3 ...plain cheese 1/3...pepperoni 1/3

hey its red white and green must be traditional

T

[Grub]

The pictures in this thread are just too damn inspiring... So, in spite of my screwups trying to do pizzas on a grill, I figured I'd give it another go -- in a stove.

But I still burned the damn things... =( Augh.

They really were quite tasty, but not to my liking, though.

I failed on the first pie, by not letting the pizza stone heat up enough -- while rolling the pie way too thin. This made the pie not cook evenly from the bottom (in spite of being thin), and even if this got a lot more cooking time than pie #2, it still stuck to the plate, and was uncooked in the middle).

The second pie would have been great, except hey -- we wuz eatin' the first pie, and I just left it on too long =(

[misstenacity]

Last night, made 2 pies with my thinnest crusts EVER (mostly by necessity as the number of diners went from 2 to 4 - more toppings can be put on larger crust acreage ), so technically they were crackers rather than pies.

The dough was previously made and frozen, using only whole wheat flour and some gluten (and yeast, of course). It was seasoned with salt, pepper, and Penzeys "shallot pepper" blend which I use quite a bit of in my cooking.

I divided the dough into one big and one tiny ball so that I could give the normal people in the house a pepperoni specimen, and myself something weirder. Both doughs are always spritzed down with olive oil immediately prior to putting on toppings to protect against sogginess.

Pepperoni has on it: quick cooked marinara from canned tomatoes, oregano, olive oil, preserved basil; the pepperoni; mozz cheese; cracked pepper.

Here's the pepperoni before going in (that's mozz made that morning by a local cheese shop):

....and then after being flash-carbonized (6 minutes flat) in the oven (preheated at 500 for 40 minutes with 3 sq ft of 1/2" thick tile lining the oven plus a pizza stone):

....and the obligatory "under the hood" shot:

....and finally, my weirdo pizza. Topped with sauteed and chopped beet greens, yellow wax hot peppers, a bit of pistou, goat cheese, and an egg:

Second view of same pizza....

Overall both turned out well, as I had finally remembered to knead some salt & flavors into the dough to give it more flavor than just "healthy brown cracker stuff". I do not yet know if it is possible to produce a really outstanding pizza crust made from all whole grain, but I can certainly make one that is edible.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[kellytree]

Edited May 24, 2005 by kellytree (log)

[kellytree]

[Chris Amirault]

Kellytree, you MUST tell us about this oven!! Amazing snaps!

[BettyK]

STRETCHING THE CRUST:  I can get the center thin enough for neapolitan style now, but it thickens up far more than I want it too at the outer edge, and I just feel awkward & klutzy through the whole stretching process, like I don't know what to do with my hands...  I was just about ready to use a rolling pin!  Is this just a matter of practice, or is there a trick I'm missing?  If it's just a repetition thing I'll go ahead and blow a bunch of yeast & flour, and make 10 of them in a row next time till I get the feel for it.

Hope this video can help. Scroll half-way down.

[percyn]

Baked

Jason,

Look at the baked Genoa salami pizza. There's a "cow's head" almost dead center in the picture!! Very artistic indeed! See his dark eyes, floppy ears, long snout??

:)

doc

←

Cow head??!!??

doc, the samples are meant for the patients

Here is a black truffle pizza w/mushroom cream sauce I made last week, though since it was not as part of this cookoff, I only have the 1 pic. The crust is store bought.

[tupac17616]

July 4th...time for fireworks, but more importantly, pizza night! This was my second time making pizza at home. This time I used Peter Reinhart's Neo-Neapolitan pizza crust recipe from American Pie after I'd used the Neapolitan crust the first time I made the pizza. They both produced such nice results IMO that it will be hard to choose between them next time. The dough this time was much wetter, but in the book it says wetter dough yields a better cornicione in the end, which in this case turned out to be true. Anyway, on to the grub...

Margherita --- To me, good pizza is almost all about the crust. And the crust on this one turned out great. It's a little hard to tell from the angle of the pictures, but the corcione puffed up beautifully, crust had evident oven spring throughout, nice pockets of air in all the right places, bottom charred nicely. Texture crisp on the outside, yet wondefully chewy inside. Ah, this is what it's all about. (Oh yeah, the toppings tasted pretty good, too). Beautiful way to start the night...

Before

After

Sopressata & Pepperoni --- This one turned out pretty well. The crust didn't puff up as much this time, but was still nice and crisp on the outside yet chewy throughout. The soppressata had a nice spicyness to it that I liked. The pre-sliced pepperoni were bland and unmemorable, but the few thick slices of Boar's Head brand pepperoni we threw on there had a nice flavor to them, and I'll definitely be using those again next time. Didn't get a before pic, but here's the end result...

Zucchini, Fava Beans, Ricotta & Pecorino --- This flavor combo was my idea, and I was glad I made it, because it ended up being my favorite of the four we had tonight. The zucchini was fresh from our garden, so I sauteed it along with the favas in some extra virgin olive oil. Used fresh ricotta cheese from a local farm. Threw a little bit of roasted garlic on for good measure. Sprinkled on some pecorino romano right before tossing it in the oven. The flavors on this one just seemed to blend really well, and the crust turned out nicely as well. Here 'tis...

Before:

After:

Garden Tomatoes & Roasted Garlic --- So we had some roasted garlic left over from making a tomato tart yesterday, and some tomatoes fresh from our garden sitting up on the window sill just begging to be used. So for this last pizza, we kept it simple. A little San Marzano tomato sauce, then some fresh mozzarella, fresh tomato slices, and some dollops of roasted garlic in between the tomato slices. A nice way to end the meal (well, before the non-dessert part of the meal, at least ). Here's the last couple of pics...

Before:

After:

A good night with good people and good food. It doesn't get much better than that...

[snowangel]

OK, so this doesn't really qualify for homemade pizza. But...

We get absolutely fabulous pita bread from Holy Land Bakery and Deli. The kids love to use it for pizza, and it's something they can do themselves. Tomato sauce, grated mozz, and pepperoni (I usually opt for anchovies or olives). Pop into the toaster oven. Using a long spatula to get it out and on a plate, Peter (age 9) can make this one all on his own!

Pretty good, if I do say so. The crust gets somewhat cripsy, and there's some good chew. One of the keys to to take a knife and make a shallow "X" in the center, going through only the top layer of the pita, otherwise it puffs up and stuff slides off.

[schneich]

sweet peach and abricot pizza with creme pat lining

on a "poor mans brioche" crust (the one from breadbakers apprentice)

and a little cinnamon dusting

bon appetit

t.

Edited July 15, 2005 by schneich (log)

[lexy]

sweet peach and abricot pizza with creme pat lining

on a "poor mans brioche" crust (the one from breadbakers apprentice)

and a little cinnamon dusting

bon appetit

t.

←

wow that looks good I may just have to try my hand at one myself …

[snowangel]

Been noticing a lot of pizza appearing over on that Dinner, what did we cook topic that should really be expanded here! Dough, topping preps, baking, etc.

Details, please!

[AmyKay]

Okay, so now I have to get a pizza stone. That much is decided. I am going to dream of pizza tonight.

I am really intrigued by the use of anchovies that I have read in thread. I have never had anchovies on a pizza. As a kid, that was our idea of the ultimate pizza-disaster.

Fortunately, my tastes have matured and I have recently started cooking with anchovies in other capacities (primarily dissolving them into cooked sauces), but I really was not at all impressed when I nibbled a raw anchovy bit.

So, what does the anchovy "do" to the pizza? Does it dissolve, or are you aware of eating a little fish? Does it impart a fish flavor, or is it just salty? I am really curious, but a little timid to try it.

Also, how long does frozen dough keep in the freezer??? Thanks!