Pizza - getting the right flavour?

[MINESAPINT]

I regularly make pizza and although they are acceptable I feel I am stuck in a rut, using more or less the same recipe each time.

I make dough using bread flour at ratio 3:1 with water + yeast. The tomato topping is usually a tin of tomatoes, a tube of tomato paste, fresh garlic & a selection of dried italian herbs and some fresh origano from the garden. I then top it with mushrooms, spinach, asparagus etc (whatever available) and mozzerella & olives. All a bit predictable.

My dough is OK but I welcome your suggestions.

I have never captured the authentic Italian flavour in my tomato sauce - I am sure someone can help with this.

I look forward to your replies.

Thanks

[Mainer in Exile]

I've always heard that the oregano has a better flavour dried. The basil should be fresh.

[contadina]

I've just pasted some pizza instructions I sent a friend recently. Ideally you'll need a wood fired oven to get an authentic flavour and texture but failing that use a pizza stone or cookie tray which you should heat up first, to enable the top and base to cook simultaneously.

This is how I-a-maka-de-pizza

Pizza (for 8)
1 kilo strong bread flour
1 ounce (30 grams) sugar (I make it without now, but both ways taste good and this is the recipe I sent out last time)
1 tbs salt
1 ounce dried yeast or 25g of fresh
1 pint tepid water
2 tablespoons olive oil

Put yeast in jug with half the water and sugar if using. Put the flour and salt onto a work surface or use a bowl, if you are short of space. Using your fingers, make a big well in the middle of the flour. Add the yeasty water and olive oil. Using your fingers start mixing from the centre using circular movements moving outwards, slowly bringing in more of the flour, add the rest of the water slowly until all its mixed. This should be starting to look like dough now so you can start to work and knead it until it is smooth and elastic.

If you can plan far enough ahead you should put the dough in the fridge overnight or for several hours as pizza dough works better when it's had a slow rise. Take it out of the fridge about an hour before you're going to cook pizza. Roll out to a sausage shape and divide into 8 or 10 balls, depending on how large you want the pizzas to be. Leave at room temperature for around an hour.

Flour the surface and either do the stretchy thing with your hands or roll each pizza out to about the thickness of 3 beer coasters (1/3 of an inch). Stretching the dough is better than rolling but do whatever works for you. They don't have to be perfectly round, they should look home-made. Place each pizza on a lightly oiled tray (if you can preheat a cookie tray all the better as it should help the top and bottom to cook at the same time. Lightly top with your chosen topping (the simpler the better) and bake directly on the oven bars for 10 minutes at your oven's highest temperature. I usually season and put a little olive oil on top before it goes in the oven and sprinkle a little parmesan and fresh basil when it comes out.

For a really simple sauce - empty a big can of peeled toms in a saucepan with some dried chilli, salt and oregano and leave to simmer for about an hour. Stir gently as its best not break up the toms whilst they are cooking. After and hour take off heat and stir in a generous dollop of olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Season and break up toms. Alternatively, use passata or chopped fresh tomatoes. My fave topping is tomato, onion, mozzarella, capers, oregano and basil.

[Annpan]

I use plain flour (not bread flour) It is so much cheaper and I don't think you need the strength of the bread flour to hold the shape of the bread.
I also use a lot more that 2 tbsp of olive oil and I only use about 300g of flour. I make enough for a large pizza for 2 of us, we have a metal pizza pan 15" (with holes in the bottom) That does 2 of us, or 4 if we are having a side dish (chunky chips are my fave companion)

I am afraid that I never use a recipe, I make the focaccia dough (which is what I use for pizza) at least once a week, but often 2 or 3 times.

For the topping I used to use a tin of tomatoes, but I save the liquid for another meal - just use the tomatoes themselves, squeezed in my hands. However the one great thing I have just found out is that a medium courgette whizzed (with a hand blender) into a tin of tomatoes makes for a much thicker, fuller paste.

Salt is essential - it seems to be one of the few dishes that cutting back on salt doesn't work so well - I use very little salt in the rest of my cooking.

I find a 50/50 mix of mozzarella and cheddar better than just mozzarella, though we rarely even have mozzarella, often just chedder.

[lsm1066]

I have never captured the authentic Italian flavour in my tomato sauce - I am sure someone can help with this.

Don't worry. Pizza's not Italian but American. But I digress.

Sounds fine to me. If you're not vegan though, how about a Fiorentina (spinach on the top with an egg broken into the middle of it. When the egg's cooked right through, the pizza's done.

As for the tomato, I put a tin of tomatoes, a couple of cloves of garlic and a handful of oregano and basil in a liquidiser and blitz it up. No need for tomato puree as this works a treat, although if you want a thicker sauce you can put a spoonful of tomato paste in their too.

Or how about a Calzone? Make your pizza with whatever topping you fancy but fold it in half!

But I agree, you do need a bit of salt to bring out the flavours because it can be bland otherwise. And as for oregano, if it has a stronger flavour dried then I'd better never dry mine. It blows your head off as it is!

Lynne

[ina]

I wouldn't get too hung up about "the authentic Italian flavour" either. I'm sure if you ask three Italians, you'd get three different opinions on that!

They do eat pizza in Italy - I remember one shop somewhere in Italy where they sold cold pizza - only Italians seemed to buy there (it was probably 35 years ago, though). One of the worst pizzas I ever had was in Italy (tourist place); one of the best in France, made with walnuts and Roquefort. Definitely not authentic - so what?

[contadina]

America may have invented the deep-pan pizza but the proper stuff originated in Naples. Flatbreads have been a staple of the Mediterranean since Etruscan times and there's no getting away from the fact Italian's make damn good pizza - so long as you avoid tourist hotspots (if the menus translated or they're serving it before 7 in the evening walk away).

[eccentric_emma]

sometimes I use pesto as a base sauce instead of tomato sauce. Really interesting and delicious.

[ina]

America may have invented the deep-pan pizza

Yuk!

[Thomzo]

When I was a teenager I worked in an American themed restaurant but we made everything by hand and the pizzas were to die for.

For the sauce, we used tomato puree, thinned very slightly with water so that you could spread it with the back of a spoon. Add dried basil Don't overdo the number of different herbs or the flavours will fight.

For toppings try:

onion and salami
ham and pineapple (my favourite) but use good quality ham and fresh pineapple. Tastes totally different to the shop bought ones.

try a mixture of different cheeses, mozarella, cheddar, red leicester etc

chicken pieces, basil leaves and mushrooms (sorry I can't remember are you vegetarian?)

prawns and some firm white fish pieces

chopped spinach with any of the above.

Fresh peas and sweetcorn work well on pizza

Zoe

[ina]

I just don't like the deep pan, over filled, soggy pizzas! For me, it has to be thin and crusty... OK, personal preference.

I used to work for a bistro where guests could choose amongst about 30 (or more? - can't remember) different toppings... As many as they liked, all the same price. I.e., if you chose all of them, you got about 1 sweetcorn kernel and one slice of mushroom etc. . We always advised not to choose too many different things.

There was also the choice of a cheese sauce instead of tomato as base - for those allergic to tomato; or, of course, dairy free pizzas. And everything was made from scratch, of course. Although I say it myself - those pizzas were seriously good!

[MINESAPINT]

Grazie,

I am guilty of using far too many herbs in my tomato sauce and no salt at all. I will try different versions of bases as suggested. What I have noticed is there is a definite lack of garlic in most of the suggestions, I have previously considered garlic to be an essential ingredient and have used up to 30 cloves or so in one recipe. I am vegetatian but I feel the topping is of secondary importance. Getting the base and flavour of the tomato sauce right is most important. I try to use what I am harvesting for a topping which at the moment is tomatoes, courgette & spinach.

Will fire up the stove over the weekend and report back.

[SarahJane]

The best pizza I have ever tasted was in Germany at an italian restaurant.....

The topping was 3 diff cheeses, (pamasan, mozarella, not sure about the last one) and the only other things on it were very finely shaved strips of courgette, aubergine and artichoke. It was divine!

When at home my veggie pizzas tend to be a bit too full of stuff, I use onions, mushrooms, sweetcorn, pineapple, peppers, mozzarella, parmasan, cheddar, and any other odd bits lying about that needs using up! I always use dried oregano in the tomato base and ripped basil on top.

[Rod in Japan]

You may find these pages worth a look;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/pizza-history.asp

From the latter one;
"Neapolitan style pizza had now spread throughout Italy and each region started designing their own versions based on the Italian culinary rule of fresh, local ingredients."

I think the last part is crucial, and probably lots of herbs means dried, and so not fresh. Also tinned tomatoes and paste breaks the rule too. The best pizzas I've ever had have always had fresh ingredients, and usually not many piled on either.

If you have a good stove, you already have a tremendous advantage. Please paste a slice of your next pizza into the thread using the [pizza=] [/pizza] tags.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Add some sugar to the tomato sauce. That gives the "authentic" flavour.

Even before the Italians (or Etruscans) were making pizzas, the ancients of the Tigres & Euphrates were putting curd cheese on flat and calling it "pidé", which does sound quite a lot like "pizza" to my mind. Fascinating where these names come from.

I reckon the best pizza these days is made in western France, in particular in a restaurant in La Rochelle.

But I would say that.