making pizza from scratch in a proper pizza oven is the best . it’s hard to perfect , but heaps of fun trying. becomes an obsession very quickly
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I mostly agree with your comment, but what’s the definition of a proper pizza oven? Wood fired ovens are different to commercial pizza ovens with their short, high temperature cooking times, and produce completely different pizzas. Everything from the way the dough rises, to how many toppings can be used is different. And do the pizza ovens, like the Ooni’s count as proper? They can be run as genuine wood fired ovens, but they also replicate the result with gas, and make the process easier to set up and clean up.
Anyone who tells other people what they can and can’t have on a pizza is a facist. Go crazy and put whatever you prefer on there.
We have a family pizza night on Fridays every 2 weeks or so. Use the bread-maker for the base the day before or morning of, and then let everyone make their own. The kids invariably go for a style of Hawaiian but add grated carrot and zucchini, the missus puts pesto and asparagus and all sorts of weird ■■■■ on hers. Personally, I like a bit of roast chicken, chorizo, semi-dried tomatoes, mushroom, capsicum, olives (home-grown) and boccini, on a home-made bbq sauce. We’re currently cooking on pizza stones in the oven, but the long-term plan is to build a wood-fire oven near the fire-pit area I’m about to start building in the backyard.
If you don’t like my choices, you can go ■■■■ yourself.
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Username checks out when it comes to pizza bias!
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My extinct pizza shop in Glen Huntly did a Tropical…tomato, cheese, prawns, capsicum, pineapple…and naturally added chilli flakes. Went OK on a gutful of beer.
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I’ve never managed to make a successful pizza. I only have an ordinary oven with a top temp of 250 degrees, and it’s just not hot enough. A friend has a proper pizza oven in his back yard and the difference is like night and day.
Usually I get a capricciosa with anchovies from Vicky’s in East Kew, but that’s really a hangover from the days when the kids were young and we used to go there every Friday night because they’re just standard pizzas cooked in one of those conveyor belt ovens. For taste alone the minimalist version cooked in a proper oven wins hands down: tomato base, some chunks of mozzarella, a few slices of hot sopressa and a few black olives – yum!
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Oh, I almost forgot - chuck a couple of fresh basil leaves on as well.
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I think ooni or gozney probably count as proper , by proper I mean able to get hot enough to cook authentic pizza style. and toppings? less is more , usually 3 no more than 4 otherwise they are harder to cook
Ended up buying the Ooni Koda 16 - gas only.
Have ordered some Caputo yeast from Gourmet Planet -
And 15kg of Caputo flour - thanks @Esteban.
Also bought a turning peel -
And went with these canned tomatoes
Now to see how many pizza I destroy before I get the hang of it!
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Better have a look at this, first.
Useful vid on making pizza dough.
Johnny Di Francesco.
my first pizza was an accidental calzone. You’ll have failures, but you’ll be a master in no time!
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I’m a bit worried as we have a Ring Smoke Detector in the kitchen and it sends out notifications to our phones when it goes off.
My wife works late some nights, so it’s me in the kitchen.
One night she calls me to ask why I hadn’t started getting dinner ready yet.
How do you know I haven’t started cooking yet? I asked her.
Well the ring notification to advise me there’s smoke in the kitchen hasn’t gone off yet - she said.
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B**ch! Or long experience?
Even when making a salad.
With that quantity of flour, you can afford to make a LOT of pizza. Re the yeast, once you’ve opened it, make sure you seal it properly after you open it and keep it in the freezer. Even with that, it will go off after a while. I’ve switched to buying Tandaco yeast from the supermarket because it comes in a box of 12 sachets of 7g (= 2 teaspoons) each, which is what you need in most recipes. That doesn’t need to be kept in the freezer or fridge and lasts more or less indefinitely in the sachets.
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There used to be a pizza place inside of milleara mall of all places that did absolutely great pizzas. Based were great and the ingredients always super fresh. Really enjoyed them.
A good pizza stone, well heated before placing the pizza on will help enormously.
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I had a mate who after a belly full of beer would order a double pineapple, triple anchovy pizza just so no one would bludge a slice off him
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Clever bloke. Every bastard used to pinch slices from the pizza I ordered. Despite saying that would be no good and ordering their own sub-optimal choices.
We used to go for pizza after playing cricket…usually about 11.30…more often not, with a gutful of beer under the belt.
The skinny guy would order a family size…just to feed his family of tapeworms, we reckoned.
I’d order my pizza with lots of chili
Another guy would order his marinara.
One guy would order a small.
And the other guy…no, I’m not hungry.
Mine had too much chili for anyone else unless they wanted their bum to look like the Japanese flag.
But the guy with the marinara, usually medium to large, ate slowly so the guy who had consumed his small and the guy who wasn’t hungry, would cast their eyes over the remaining pizzas.
And that would hurt. Both of them would go home with multiple fork marks on the backs of their hands.