Where to begin. Pizza has ruled my life. Not really.
I grew up with good pizza. I recall my favorite pizza when I was younger than 10, a place in Union City NJ called Continental on Bergen Line Avenue.
Later in life, high school, college, there was Vincent’s – Cliffside Park, Donna’s and John’s Palisades Park, Benny Tudino’s, Hoboken, just to name a few local joints. Always loved Famous Rays in NYC, though good luck finding the real original. Love Joes 7 Carmine Street in the Village. Too many to name them all.
I do like John’s Pizza – Bleeker Street, but it is not a, “by the slice place”. I have not been to all the great pizza places in NYC, but will chip away at the list.
Did enjoy Sallies and Pepe’s in New Haven CT.
Still, one of my current favorites for the past 20 years is the Berkshire Café in Torrington CT. http://www.theberkshirecafe.com/
Enough about all that. This is probably the best I’ve ever made, and I think it ranks with the best I’ve ever had.
Breaking it down to the three components, the sauce, the bread, and the cheese, my new quest is to find the perfect cheese. I believe I’ve got an awesome dough, sauce, and finally technique.
Equipment:
Pizza Stone
Parchment paper
13 inch Pizza Pan
The Sauce:
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 - 4 cloves of crushed minced garlic
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon dried parsley
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 – 2 tablesppons olive oil
Sauté the garlic in the olive oil for just a few minutes, don’t let it get too much color or burn
Add the spices, stir it then add the tomatoes and stir again.
Simmer covered for about an hour, let it cool.
The Dough:
For one pizza, use ¼ of the Focaccia dough.
Obviously, you will be making 4 pizzas, or 2 pizzas and two focaccias, or 3 pizzas and one focaccia, or.....
The Cheese:
Here is where I need improvement. I used regular supermarket mozzarella. I’ve used the store brand, Pollyo, Sargento, Tillamook, and honestly don’t have a favorite, but I suspect the good pizzerias have a supplier, (a guy).
Technique:
Position the pizza stone in the center rack.
Since I don’t have a commercial pizza oven and I’m looking for a chewy and crispy crust, I embarked on this by the way I make focaccia.
Follow the focaccia recipe up to the part where we put it in the pan.
For the pizza, roll out a pie the size of the pizza pan. The 13” pan is perfect. If you use a larger pan, you may need to use more than 15 – 16 oz of dough for a pie.
Place a piece of parchment paper on the pan, oil it lightly and position the dough onto the paper. Cover it with a clean dish towel.
Allow the dough to rise for 1 ½ - 2 hours.
45 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 500 ° F.
Sauce the dough to your liking. You see in the video, I was pretty generous. This seems to be ok in this video, but generally less sauce is better.
Bake it for 8 minutes.
When your timer goes off, remove the pizza from the oven and place it on a floured pizza peel. You can use coarse semolina on the peel. This yields a good result in sliding the pizza back into the oven.
Now cheese you pizza and add toppings if desired. Again, I used plenty of cheese.
Pop it back into the oven, but this time the pizza will be directly on the stone. Bake it for an additional 8 minutes.
After 8 minutes, you can take it out, or keep a close eye as to not let it burn but give it a few more minutes.
Remove it from the oven and let it rest for 5 – 10 minutes before cutting.
Here are some other videos of my pizza as my pizza skill evolves
In the video below, I'm using Vito Iacopelli's dough recipe and some new techniques that I picked up.
Kiss yourself for making deliciousness
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