Pizza - recipes, equipment, tips & techniques

:pinched_fingers:t5: Does this count?

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:pinched_fingers:t4: looks a lot like rude gesture from an Italian person.

I certainly wouldnā€™t want to suggest that @Nemroz do something untoward with such a beautifully leoparded crust. (and yes, Iā€™m saying that ā€˜leopardedā€™ is a perfectly cromulent word.)

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Came close to my platonic ideal for a New York pizza last night. Very thin crust, crisp edges yet foldable center, good ratio of toppings to crust, delicious sauce - the lovely wife, my most formidable critic, said it was my best ever.



I used the California Gold mozzarella @Nemroz mentions above and also picked up some superb pepperoni from Epicurus.

I wish people wouldnā€™t call this stuff ā€œuncuredā€; itā€™s cured with celery juice instead of curing salts. Oh well itā€™s the best pepperoni I have tasted.
Also did a prosciutto/hot honey pizza. Dribbled too much hot honey on it, but the crust was great.

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That looks incredible!

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Celery powder and cherry powder, which contain nitrates. The USDAā€™s pretty detached from reality on this one. Legally it canā€™t be labeled cured.

https://shortcreek.farm/shipping-salami/p/pepperoni-shp-s

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Yumyumum! I think Iā€™m going to start cutting up prosciutto. Gets annoying to pull stringy meat off the slice while biting

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I can almost smell those pies.

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Back to the square today!

8 ss
11.5 w
18.5 f

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A report back for the Bianco Pizza Sauce for @js76wisco

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We tend to make pizzas at home once a month. We donā€™ thave a place in our yard for a Pizza Oven, even an Ooni (our cooking space is taken over by a large Charcoal Grill and a large smart smoker). We use a Pizza steel so we try to be very careful with making pies that are too delicate as it gets ripping hot

What has been another find for us is that Smart and Final has started carrying King Arthur 00 flour! They have a great recipe on the bag that creates the SOFTEST dough. We throw it together the night before and itā€™s ready by the following nightā€™s dinner time with a bit of a rise coming out of the oven.

We tend to make the same pies over and over again. Sausage with Mushroom and Onion. We love Sausage nuggets from the pizzas of our youth, but we make our own nuggets with sausage from Standingsā€¦ The turn into little nuggest so beautifully!

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And they brown up PERFECT. After the nuggies are done, we then dump in some mushrooms and thinly sliced red onion in the pan so they are about half cooked.

Now back to the sauce, when I opened the can, I was VERY happy with how it looked. Super bright, with chunks of tomato. Substantial with an awesome aroma.

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I heated it through and tasted it and OMG. It was so good!! Usually we make our pizza sauce with some Bianco Whole Tomatoes buzzed with fresh garlic and then heated through with plenty of olive oil and sea salt mixed in. This one was a bit more subtle than that, but still had great rounded out flavors. Honestly, it would also make a great pasta sauce, I liked it WAY more than the Bianco Jarred sauces which are so MEH. The ingredients:

Back the piesā€¦ we made two small ones. One with Fresh local Mozz and another with this Toscano cheese I picked up at Trader Joes. I am not a big fan of cheesy pully pizzas. My favorite pies are actually white pies with lots of olive oil, garlic and ricotta (which P. doesnā€™t like). The drier Toscano cheese appealed to me because of that

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Pizza with Toscano Cheeseā€¦

Pizza with Fresh Mozzā€¦

Both were so amazing and we were so hungry I forgot to take a proper slice shot until my last slice. So forgive the slightly wilted half eaten sliceā€¦ but you can see the nice spots we got from the steel and how thin we got the pies!

Right now the only place that I can get this sauce is at Gjusta Grocer, which isnā€™t far from my work, but isnā€™t terribly convenient either. I am going to ask Surfas and Monsieur Marcels about carrying it because I expect the sauce to be a pantry staple for us.

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Looks good @Dommy. Iā€™ll keep my eye out for the sauce out in the OC.

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Bristol tends to be responsive to customer requests! Report back if you are successful! :blush:

Realized I never replied about this but Iā€™ve been using Stanislaus tomatoes when I get up to enough cooking for #10 cans. Theyā€™re fantastic but Iā€™ve noticed that the Smart and Finals we shop at donā€™t seem to be stocking them any more. Maybe it was only a matter of time given that they stocked them with tomato sauce rather than canned tomatoes but it is a bit infuriating that they have #10 cans of other brands (some that I didnā€™t see previously) in the correct shelving location.

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/stanislaus-10-can-7-11-ground-tomatoes-in-heavy-puree/99936324.html

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Kenji posted his linktree with unpaywalled links to his articles and recipes:

Links to the dough, sauce, and other accompanying articles are all there.

tl;dr- Chicago thin crust is VERY thin and crisp. This is accomplished by 1) low hydration. around 50% to start. 2) really long overproofing. He recommends 3 to five DAYS in the fridge for best results. 3) curing the rolled out crusts, overnight in the fridge if you have the room, but a few hours on the counter, uncovered, 'til they dry out 'til theyā€™re like soft leather, or a thicker tortilla. He estimates that after curing, the dough is down to an effective hydration of around 30-35%

Iā€™d already been adding oil to my dough, but I donā€™t think my hydration is quite as low as his. I always proofed for at LEAST 24 hours. Iā€™ll try more. Never thought of curing, but of course it makes sense as I think about it.

Added bonus for curing: the dryer, somewhat stiffer dough makes it really easy to assemble onto peel and slide into the oven. Make sure you use cornmeal or semolina dusting for that authentic crunchy bonus!

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Burned semolina can have a nasty bitterness.

Iā€™ve never found that to be the case when Iā€™ve used it.

But I have cornmeal on hand soā€¦

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From the text it sounds more or less he just replicated was others were already doing, e.g. low hydration, oil addition, curing. So what is ā€œnewā€ beside writing it down ?

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Who said anything about it being new? Itā€™s just a home recipe for a particular style of pizza found in some restaurants in Chicago. Iā€™m not sure anyone has published a recipe with that particular set of techniques focused on replicating what youā€™d get at Vito & Nickā€™s or the like.

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I find the way he present recipes often appear in a way that he implies that he has greatly invented something new and unique when it is often just a summary of what others have done before

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