Basic Tomato Sauce Reipe

We have a minimalist approach to sauce. Tomatoes and oregano. That's it. We tried several different sauce recipes, but found that less was more. If you like your sauce more like a chain pizzeria, look elsewhere. But if you're after an authentic napolitano sauce, you're in the right spot.

Ingredients:
14 oz can of San Marzano Tomatoes (Whole Peeled Plum Tomatoes are cheaper and easier to find and will work ok)
A few pinches of Oregano

De-seed and cut the tips off ot the tomatoes. Put the de-seeded tomatoes, maybe 2/3 of the liquid & the oregano (if using dried, crush them with mortar & pestle to bring out the flavor) into a food prosessor and lightly blend.

Spread sauce on the dough right before you put the toppings on right before you put it in the oven. If it sits on the dough too long, it will saturate it and your pizza won't come out well. The idea of less is more also applies to the amount of sauce to put on the pizza. Don't skimp, but try not to over do it either.

Pizza Paraphernalia

You can probably make a decent pie with stuff you already have, but to make a killer pizza, we've found the following tools to be indispensable:

1. Scale That Measures in Grams. Pizza dough is all about hydration. One cup of bread flour will be lighter than 1 cup of 00 becaucse the 00 is finer and therefore more dense. So by weight our ingredients we are standardizing our hydration, so that a 65% hydrated dough (100 parts flour, 65 parts watter) will be 65% no matter how dense your flour. We use a cheap scale from Target that works great.
2. Pizza Proofing Pans w/ Lids. Probably the least essential item on the list. These are where you put your dough to rise. We have three and when ever we make more than three dough balls, we use plastic food storage containers for the rest and I don't think anyone could tell which came from which container. The advantage of the proofing pans is the size. They are perfectly suited for a dough ball weighing up to 300g. When you're ready to pull the dough, it will be large and round so you don't have to handle the dough as much to get it ready for toppings (handling the dough releases the gasses produced during the rise that give your crust flavor and puffiness).
   
3. Pizza Peel. Go to your local restaurant supply and buy one today. You prepare your pizza on the peel and then use it to transfer it to your oven/grill. We have a small-medium sized short handle one that is perfect for the size pie we make.
4. Baking Stone. Another must have. This will get you as close to pizza baked in a brick oven as your going to get without the brick oven. We wouldn't think of making a pizza without one, and you shouldn't either.
   
5. Gas Grill. Most oven's only get up to about 500 degrees. And that's just not hot enough to cook the perfect pizza. You need heat, and lots of it. Our gas grill's temperature gauge goes up to 650, and needle goes off the chart when we have it on high. The hotter the better. We put our baking stone on top of an upside down 9" round baking pan, and then fire up the grill. We keep the burners in the middle at about 3/4 of the way up to prevent the bottom of the pizza from cooking faster than the top. We let our grill heat up for at least 45 minutes. This gets the grill super hot and allows the stone to soak up the heat.
   
6. Pizza Pan. Used for slicing and serving. We have a big one and it is too big. Don't get a pan larger than you're stone.
7. Quality Pizza Slicer. It seems like there are as many cheap slicers as there are bad recipes. Get a good one that will last. If you're serious about pizza, you'll be using this quite a bit.
   
8. Wine Decanter. Ok, this is not specifically related to pizza, but we rarely have pizza without wine. If you drink red wine with your pizza (or otherwise), and you're not decanting it, you're missing out. The longer the decant the better, shoot for 1-4 hours.

You'll might notice that I didn't mention a rolling pin. You really should only use a rolling pin if you prefer crispy thin crust pizza. Other than that, pull and toss by hand.

I also didn't mention a mixer. When we started making pizza, we used a KitchenAid stand mixer. It was great. Then we got a Magic Mill, even better. Then we made the biggest upgrade possible - kneading by hand. There is just no substitute for kneading your own dough.

Same Day Dough Recipe

OK. So, a previous post mentioned how many pizza dough recipes we had tried before finding Jeff's oh so informative site. Once that gem was discovered, we had pizza 3 or 4 times a week until we figured our own basic dough recipe. That being said, our recipe is never "really" the same. I enjoy mixing flours and sometimes I prefer a very wet dough and other days not. But, YOU CAN have amazing pizza in one day. Here's how.

You really only need 8 hours to have an incredible pizza. The longer the rise or the age of the starter play a huge role in the flavor of the crust but with just a few basic ingredients and a few minutes in the morning, you've got pizza for dinner!

Ingredients:
620g Flour
370g Water
5g Active Dry Yeast
14g Salt

Start at some time in the morning and measure out your flour. Separate in to two bowls: 3/4 into one, 1/4 into the other. Add the dry yeast and salt to the larger flour bowl and mix. Then add your water. It is important to use quality water so try to use a bottled spring water or something similar if you can. Mix this by hand for about 5 minutes. It's very sticky. Cover and let it rest for 20 minutes. Transfer the dough ball to a bread board or pastry mat and knead for about 15 minutes until you incorporate all, or most, of the second measuring of flour. Cover again for 20 minutes. At this time, you'll want to divide the dough. A scale is great here because you can get your dough balls to about the same size. You want each ball to weigh at least 235g but preferably between 270 and 300g. Lightly oil your proofing pans or any covered storage container that will allow for a bit of a rise and divide amongst your containers. Place these in the fridge for 4 or 5 hours. Remove from the fridge and let them warm rise for about 1 to 2 hours and you are ready to go.

If it sounds difficult, trust me it only sounds that way. Give it a try and you'll be as surprised as we were!

Beer and Vegan Pizza

I'm pretty easy going when it comes to pairing pizza and beer. I like it all. But my absolute favorite beer to have while enjoying homemade pizza is a brown ale. With your average pizza, a lighter beer, like a pilsener, is a good match because of the cheese, but our vegan pizzas are earthier and are better match with a little heavier beer. I like brown ales because the nuttiness of the beer enhances the flavors of the nuts in our pesto and the creaminess of the tofu ricotta.

One of my favorite brown ales is the Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar. It's pretty over the top in terms of flavor, but all the sweetness and nuttiness really make it a natural pizza beer. I first had this beer at a local restaurant on tap...it was fantastic. The next time I went to the restaurant, eagerly anticipating a tall glass of the delicious brew, they had stopped carrying it due to problems with their distributor. Bummer. At the time, I couldn't find it anywhere locally and was forced to order it. Now it is fairly widely available. It's worth hunting down if you have to.

Another beer that I really enjoy with pizza is Cosendonk's Brown Abbey Ale. Not as sweet or as nutty as the Rogue; much more refined and reserved. Best served in a tulip glass.

Classic Vegan Pizza

We made some pizza last night that had done a cold rise in the fridge the night before. We topped it with a sauce similar (maybe identical?) to Jeff's, some tofu ricotta and pesto (both adapted from recipes out of Vegan With A Vengence), caramelized onions, sauteed white mushrooms, and sliced black olives. We've been doing this topping combination for a while now...we keep talking about changing things up, but it is just so darn tasty. We cooked the pizza on a stone in our gas grill for about six minutes. Some of the best pizza we've made yet! We paired it with a 2005 Marques de Casa Concha Merlot. This wine has lots of plumb and cherries, but the finish really reminds us of blue cheese. Overall, a very nice pairing.

Are there any good pizza recipes?

Some time ago, we became obsessed with trying to make good pizza at home.

We tried a gabizillion recipes...some from tried and true cookbooks, some from the internet promising to be "the best pizza"...but no matter where the recipe came from, it never tasted good! Why are there so many bad recipes out there? Who knows. But fortunately, we kept looking and came across this terrific site by Jeff Varazano. It's lengthy, but oh so informative. Definitely recommended reading for anyone interested in making quality pizza at home.

We won't attempt to recreate the resource Jeff has created, but we hope to add to this and other resources as we share some of the things we have learned along the way, and the results of some of our continuing experimentation.