Post your favorite pizza recipe here

[Robert Musa]

saturday was pizza day. damn we're getting good at this. my son nick can now consistently toss a THIN pizza. we tried some new combos.

1. assorted sausage, onion, tomato, tomato sauce, jalapeno and mozz
2. coppa, whole garlic, basil leaves and parm
3. bbq chicken (an old favorite)
4. chicken with basil cream sauce, whole garlic cloves, fresh basil leaves, mozz (this was the best - we're going to try the cream sauce next time with a seafood instead of chicken).

i precooked (fried) the garlic. the more pizza we make, the clearer it is that often the less (volume) you dump on the pizza, the better the pizza tastes. (its just so hard not to load it up though).

edited to add: the first picture shows chicken frying in the oven. using the oven to fry works great. thanks james ...

[Bob C]

RM,

pizzas look great and I bet taste even greater!

Two of our favorites:

1. chicken in buffalo wing sauce...I use a local favorite...Archie Moore's...the kids and the wife love it.

2. San Marzano plums just picked from the vine with fresh basil...also just picked, "EVOO" , garlic and fresh mozz.

Yummmmmmmmm!

Bob C

[Jerald P]

Mexican Pizza

I marinate sliced jalapenos in EVOO and minced garlic the day before. On pizza day I drizel EVOO on the dough, add some celantro and oregeno, shreded pork, some mexican ricotta cheese, and a generous ammount of maranated jalepenos. I go easy on the topings ( other than the peppers )

[aikitarik]

Favorite!?

How can there be only one?

Here are 3 that we had a week or so ago...

I started by mixing crushed garlic and chopped rosemary with olive oil and allowing it to steep while the pizza dough was rising.

I also made a pizza sauce by whizzing up a large can of San Marzano's (fresh season is over here) with my stick blender and then simmering them for 15 minutes with herbs and spices.

Then...

From left to right...

1. The rosemary-garlic EVO, ricotta cheese, spinach. Think there was another similar to it that had goat cheese instead of ricotta

2. The pizza sauce, some bufala mozzerella (yes, we can get it locally), yellow bell pepper.

3. My personal favorite of this batch... the rosemary-garlic EVO, paper thin slices of lemon, crunchy sea salt, and more of the rosemary-garlic EVO on top. We did 2 of these.

We also did a margherta with the pizza sauce, bufala mozzerella and basil, but it didn't last long enough to take a pic of.

MMMmmm

The pizza's in this pic were actually done in a cooling oven because we were actually done eating and wanted to simply use up the ingredients and dough. They made great breakfasts and lunches later.

I also learned how to screw up flipping pizzas and turned someones pepperoni pizza into a calzone (still tasted good). I think we made 12 pizzas that weekend for family only. Yummy!

[sssmasi]

i think you can't beat the margherita, or my favorite, the margherita pura. the best sauce comes from black tomatoes, straight from the garden (the spiciest tomato strain i've ever tried), just crushed and salted. add sliced or pressed garlic, plenty (not a drizzle) of olive oil, and fresh basil at the last minute. maybe it's boring, but i think it's classic and unbeatable.

I couldnt agree more. The simple pizzas may seem boring but i believe they are the most difficult to make. Lots of toppings can mask some undesireable flavours that you may have somehow created in your production process. I can't wait to go back to Sicily to order a pizza margherita from a small family owned pizzeria on the hilltops of Cefalu. That was the pizza that inspired me to start making my own.

[Robert Musa]

basil, motz, pasta sauce, and coppa.

i find with thin fatty meats like coppa and prosciotto, it's best to put the meat on when the pizza is half way thru cooking. also, as a general rule, (imho) it seems that leafy stuff like basil and spinach should always be placed in the bottom layer.

[fisherman99]

As a pizza connoisseur, I have a few faves. My latest experimenting (although I make it a general rule never to write down ingredients unless it is absolutely required at a later dining) has been to put thinly sliced shreds of onion and garlic under the pizza (I don't have a brick oven yet, but I bet it'll be more delish then), and then sprinkle some on the crust of the pizza so that it caramelizes, and I like to add Oregano to the pizza dough, along with some Parmesean cheese. It adds an extra kick of flavor, and takes the thin crust pizza beyond the notch of just a "thin" pizza.

Haven't tried using chicken, but I did use pre-cooked shrimp once and I do agree that they're awesome with the tomato sauce.

[james]

I've started throwing fresh arugola on a margherita pizza right after it comes out of the oven. More EVO on that, and you eat the pizza with a fork.

I'm not sure I like cooked greens on my pizza.
James

[Ryan]

Favorite Pizza

I have 2 favorites. My wife does not like whole tomatoes so I always make her a pesto pizza. I take garlic and pine nuts that have been toasted first. Then I put in the blender with fresh basil and olive oil and salt. Use the pesto as a base on the dough. Then sprinkle assorted cheeses. After about 4 minutes smear on some ricotta.

I also make a white pizza. I put minced garlic, fresh chopped basil, salt, fresh roma tomatoes (diced) and olive oil. Put this in a container and let marinate for at least 1-2 hours. Then I put the cheese on the dough first. Then I put the mixture on top. It is so good! Sometimes I add oregano depending on the mood.

Thanks,

Ryan

[james]

Portabello mushroom and gorgonzola

White pizza with slices of the big portabello mushrooms, blue cheese and a good dose of EVO. Either gorgonzola or roquefort. Tangy and the hot oven just cooks the mushrooms through.
James

[james]

Grilled onions, raisins and EVOO

This came from the 10 Speed party. The gal who made it said that her husband's family was from Sicily, and this was a traditional dish. It was good.
James

[maver]

It's hard to be selective when it's all good

Pizza eaten tonight:
3 Margherita (tomato, mozz, basil, parm regg, garlic, EVOO) pizzas with fresh mozz and a simple tomato sauce (garlic lightly sauteed in olive oil, red pepper flakes, tomatoes and basil)
1 eggplant (precooked chopped eggplant per the August '06 Bruschetta recipes from Sunset) with a small amount of fresh mozz
1 sausage (mild italian crumbled sausage precooked) with fresh mozz and tomato sauce, some thin sliced onion
1 roasted pepper (fresh peppers from our local farmer's market) on tomato sauce, mozz, some thin sliced onion
and from the "Honey, do you think we could make pizza out of this?" department at the farmer's market - 1 chinese brocolli (this was just the greens) sauteed in olive oil with garlic, a tiny amount of fresh mozz and some fresh gratings of parm reggiano - the answer was yes. I was overly full when this came out of the oven but still managed to eat two slices.

[maver]

Potato

I can't believe I haven't posted this in the past, but this is just about always everybody's favorite pizza when we have company

Stretch your crust and layer on top in this order-
very thin sliced potato (such as a mandolin), russet works great
Mozz, ideally fresh
garlic, salt (go a bit heavy here, remember the potato absorbs this), pepper
fresh thyme or rosemary
fresh grated romano or parmesan
green onions or thin sliced red or yellow onion
drizzle EVOO.

I've been playing with dough recipes and am really buying in to the merits of autolyse, doing most of the kneeding with a wet dough and adding flour to finish the dough at the end after the gluten is developed, forming the dough balls and using a cool ferment over 1-2 nights with little yeast. I've had success with both unbleached bread flour/cake flour in a 75/25 proportion and a generic unbleached all purpose flour. I placed my first Caputo order with fornobravo today and look forward to learning the difference with this.

I made a huge fire to warm the oven over an hour tonight and had a hearth temp in the high 800's per my IR thermometer when I made my pizza tonight. I think the thermometer could be wrong. I think I got away with the higher hearth temp because I did wait a while for the oven to cool a little. Pizza was under 2", probably about 1 1/2". Only problem with the high hearth temp is it's taking a long time for the temp to drop to bread levels even with coals out of the oven. I'm 1 1/2 hours since we finished pizza and it's still in the mid 600s. My bread will have huge eyes.

Here's some pics from tonight's pizza. First shows the charring on the underside as well as the ability of the crust to fold rather than crack - like Naan with a bit more crisp. Number two shows the thinness of one piece (out of focus) with the last piece of the second potato pizza in the background. The third are my second Margerhita.

Well, I'll go see if the oven is cool enough for bread now

[billrd]

Re: Post your favorite pizza recipe here

Haven't done a huge number of pizzas since I've had my oven (5 months) but the one that's drawn the most favourable comments is this:
Asian sweet chilli sauce
Sliced banana
Chopped bacon
Shredded Tasty Cheese
Brown Sugar
Cream Cheese
Some chilli flakes if you like it hotter

My son got the idea from a nearby wood fired pizza joint and initially I thought the ingredients wouldn't work together. However it is really good and a family favourite.
It also makes a good stromboli sliced as a starter.

Bill

[Pizza Man]

Re: Post your favorite pizza recipe here

I usually make a lot of different pizzas when we have a pizza party, but most of the time I start off with a smoked salmon and creme fraiche.

cook the dough until it's cooked competely. Take it out and let it cool a little. spread the creme fraiche on the dough and top with the smoked salmon. sprinkle some chopped chives on top and serve.