Pizza!!

Who doesn’t love pizza? Whether it’s nice crispy thin crust, a big floppy NY style, or a Chicago deep dish you can’t go wrong. I decided this weekend was a great time to try to make my own!  I’ve tried store bought crust in the past and I have not been pleased with the results. I’m not sure if I did something wrong or if the dough was just no good. So after a little research I picked a recipe for the dough (see here) and decided I could go it alone on the sauce.

The results were not too bad! The crust didn’t brown like I expected but it tasted good so that’s all I can ask for really. The sauce was the real winner here. I started with 1 can of tomato paste and 1 ½ cups of water.

1 C tomato paste

1 ½ C water

Salt

Pepper

Oregano

Parsley

Basil

Onion powder

Garlic powder

Cumin

Heat tomato paste and water over medium heat and mix to combine. Add oregano (I started with just a little and added more as I thought necessary), parsley, basil, onion powder, and garlic powder. Add salt and pepper to taste.  The cumin is an interesting thing, I decided that my tomato sauce was too sweet and was missing some depth of flavor. I added just a little bit of cumin (probably ¼ to ½ teaspoon). It was just enough to bring the sauce back down to earth without adding another bold flavor.

The final part of every pizza is the cheese. This is where the major issue turned up. I decided to try a 6 cheese blend. It looked good on the pizza. It smelled good. It didn’t taste great. Next time I’m going to try just mozzarella. There was just too much going on and it overpowered everything else instead of blending nicely with the tomato and the crust.

Some of my other questions were: How do I stretch the dough? How hot to cook the whole pizza? What kind of pan/stone is best? Will it re-heat well? 

1. I learned a major lesson here; I’m not really good at this yet. I know it takes time to learn but for some reason I was expecting to get this right the first or second time. After talking to some other cooks in my office I realized my mistake. I tried to go from a ball of dough to picking it up and stretching it. You really need to roll it out with a rolling pin first to give it some shape, then pick it up and stretch it the rest of the way. Now I know for next time
2. First I tried 400 degrees. My oven isn’t the greatest on keeping temperatures so I figured 400 should keep it above 350 and everything will be good. It was ok, but the second one was better. I made a second pizza at 450. The crust cooked up better and the cheese was properly browned without burning.
3. We actually spent about 30 minutes in Bed Bath and Beyond on Saturday debating the merits of a pizza stone vs. a crisper pan vs. a solid bottomed pan. In the end we decided on the crisper pan. I keep a pizza stone in my oven to help regulate the temperature. I have no complaints here. It worked great. 
4. Reheating: I think I tried to heat the pizza too quickly. I pulled it from the freezer last night and threw it right in the oven at 350. The crust became hard and difficult to chew. I think if I lower the temp and allow it to defrost first I’ll probably be able to heat it up without it becoming a rock. Alternately I suppose I could throw it in the microwave. It may also have something to do with the fact that I don’t use lard in my pizza dough like the big pizza places do. I know that keeps the crust softer but I’m just not willing to go down that road.

All in all not a bad first attempt. And I will be making pizza again. Once I learn how to stretch the dough properly maybe I’ll work on tossing it like the guys in the pizza shops!