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While Under An Imaginary Tuscan Sun I took lots of notes regarding the food. Tonight was my first attempt at pizza quattro stagioni and it came out pretty good. A little heavy on the toppings, had to use them all.
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It looks similar to my pizza tour:
German speaking part of Italy: ![]() ![]() The Bismark from Bergamo Italy ![]() You MUST share your recipe! Palooza Italy ![]() |
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Re: NSR: Pizza Quattro Stagioni
oopsclunkthud wrote: While Under An Imaginary Tuscan Sun I took lots of notes regarding the food. Tonight was my first attempt at pizza quattro stagioni and it came out pretty good. A little heavy on the toppings, had to use them all. |
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The crust is the one place I cheat. Our market down the block makes the dough fresh daily so I just pick it up there.
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The Bismark is one of my favorites!! I love the whole runny egg on a pizza thing. Sounds gross but it is NOT. Another one is asparagus with the egg on top - it is really good (had one in Monza)
Making the dough from scratch is great - but I have to admit, if you have a Trader Joe's near you - the dough is pretty good for $.99! They key is a pizza stone in a very very hot oven. Even though the oven is pre-heated the stone my not be hot yet. Another tip: do not use "pizza sauce" or "spaghetti sauce"... get good quality canned tomatoes and simply puree them (I puree them right in the can with my stick blender). Pizza shops in the USA use "sauce" to make pizza, but in my experience pizza joints in Italy simply use pureed tomatoes w/ seasoning. Basta. |
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Baldanzi wrote: Another tip: do not use "pizza sauce" or "spaghetti sauce"... get good quality canned tomatoes and simply puree them (I puree them right in the can with my stick blender). Pizza shops in the USA use "sauce" to make pizza, but in my experience pizza joints in Italy simply use pureed tomatoes w/ seasoning. Basta. |
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My feeble attempts
After being able to watch Patrick make his pizza last night, I've spent the day trying to replicate it myself. Everything turned out really well except the dough, which was still a bit undercooked. Not sure if I need to pre-bake it for longer or just make it thinner. ![]() ![]() |
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oven at 450F
use half as much dough, should be at risk of having holes in it. Alternating between stretching the edges and tossing it seems to work for me. never roll it, knocks all the air out. 5-7min in the oven with only the sauce on it (very thin layer of sauce). Then add the toppings and back into the oven for ~10min more. Give yourself some time to play with the process. I've been making 2 or more pizze per week for about a year and a half now. |
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I only make one kind of Pizza, a Reuben - corned beef, sauerkraut, pineapple and swiss cheese. I use a healthy amount of sweet basil in the sauce along with the usual garlic, fresh ground pepper and sea salt.
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Pizza should not be a two step baking process (except for pizza on the grill where pre-baking is a must)
I think your having issues because you are not using a pizza stone or it was not hot enough. To get that real true thin italian pizza taste you NEED a stone and a very hot oven. The stone cooks the dough from the bottom and the oven heat cooks the toppings from the top all in about 5-6 minutes in a home oven. Wood burning ovens in Italy crank out a pizza in 3-4 minutes at most with no pre-baking of the dough at all (oven temps way over 600 deg F). If you guys really want to get addicted to great bake at home pizza: 1. get a pizza stone, biggest one that will fit in the oven (or build a wood burning pizza oven!) 2. get a pizza peel (to transfer the pizza on and off of the stone) 3. set your oven as high as it will go (mine is 550 deg F) 4. let it go 10-20 minutes AFTER the oven has been pre-heated to get as much heat into the stone as possible 5. Roll out/toss the dough 6. place on floured or corn-mealed peel (allows pizza to slide off into oven) 7. sauce and toppings 8. Open oven and get pizza off peel onto stone (MUCH easier said than done) 9. cook for about 5-6 minutes As I mentioned before I am embarassed to admit that I use the trader joe's pizza dough most of the time (especially on a week night). Divide each dough in 1/2 and make 2 smaller, thinner pizzas. When I use one dough it makes a pizza that is bigger than my peel and almost larger than the pizza stone when I get ti to the right thickeness. Use I guess about a baseball's size of dough and get it thin thin thin. (don't forget the vino or beer) |
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Given that it's sunday and we just must have socca and rosé I started reflecting on the fact that my nonstick skillet is really not the right tool for the job.
Went looking and found this great lodge cast iron pizza pan that looks perfect. http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Logic-Cast-Pizza-Black/dp/B0000E2V3X/ref=pd_sim_k_3 |
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Chetwynder wrote: I only make one kind of Pizza, a Reuben - corned beef, sauerkraut, pineapple and swiss cheese. I use a healthy amount of sweet basil in the sauce along with the usual garlic, fresh ground pepper and sea salt. Dave |
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Whoa, necrothread!
I've been able to improve my pizza attempts significantly by using my 1000-degree Big Green Egg. ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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glasseye wrote: Today seems a little toasty for 1000f eggs..... |
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Re: Sunday Night at the Movies
Knight Train wrote: Pizza and a movie- Also done on the Big Green Egg. |
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Re: Sunday Night at the Movies
jess wrote: Knight Train wrote: Pizza and a movie- Also done on the Big Green Egg. |
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Re: Sunday Night at the Movies
Scutrbrau wrote: Corn meal. And don't leave the dough sitting on the peel for too long. We've found it best to slide the pizza onto the peel only when it's ready to go. Knight Train seems to have it down to a science so I'm sure he's got some tips for us, too. Ultimately, you've got to apply the toppings while the pizza is sitting on something. It is this time period that screws me up. Whatever it is sitting on while I am putting on toppings, it sticks to. Mostly I cope with this by using more flour, but then you end up with too much flour on the bottom, which is arguable worse than the cornmeal. |
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cheap alternative to pizza stone
The trick I learned at a pizza workshop many years ago is to buy eight inch square terracotta tiles and arrange them on your lower oven rack. Most ovens will fit four. A larger oven might fit six. I hand washed and dried them before first use, and occasionally have to scrape or clean them but they get nicely seasoned on their own with use. I also bake bread directly on them, or sometimes in a loaf pan resting on them.
I also have a pizza stone which I was given as a gift. It goes on the top rack and usually just acts as a thermal mass radiating above the pizza or loaf I'm baking. Also I found this guy's site fascinating when I first heard about it a few years back -- defeating the oven's safety mechanism so that he could use the heat of the self-cleaning cycle for baking: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/dining/02pizza.html |
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Re: Sunday Night at the Movies
jess wrote: Scutrbrau wrote: Corn meal. And don't leave the dough sitting on the peel for too long. We've found it best to slide the pizza onto the peel only when it's ready to go. Knight Train seems to have it down to a science so I'm sure he's got some tips for us, too. Ultimately, you've got to apply the toppings while the pizza is sitting on something. It is this time period that screws me up. Whatever it is sitting on while I am putting on toppings, it sticks to. Mostly I cope with this by using more flour, but then you end up with too much flour on the bottom, which is arguable worse than the cornmeal. |
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Re: Sunday Night at the Movies
Scutrbrau wrote: Well, there's always something like this it you want to avoid the corn meal. Our peel has a transfer cloth but it seems more trouble than it's worth. I mean, besides cornmeal. |
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oopsclunkthud wrote: you could try using semolina flour instead of cornmeal. |
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I confess, I confess!! We put a small bit of cornmeal on the peel to assist in sliding the pizza off the Epicurean peel.
And yes, we use that Epicurean peel almost exclusively. We have two wooden peels and two bamboo peels as well, but we find the Epicurean peel to be the easiest to use. |
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Oh.. we also take a nylon spatula and loosen the dough on the peel before sliding it off onto the stone. Also I use a large metal spatula/turner to assist peeling the pizza off the peel.
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Wow great topic and one that I love as much as scooters. For those of you that are over achievers I thought I would share my quest for the perfect pizza. First off I want to say that I am partial to thin crust pizzas. So if you are a deep dish kind a guy or gal you will have to continue your quest for that perfect Chicago style pizza without me. I love them I just don't make them.
Several years ago I was experimenting with a pizza stone in the oven and trader joes dough trying to get that nice thin crisp crust and just not getting what I want. It was good but not what I wanted. I was also not happy with the 10 min per pizza turn around time. That is when I found this web site (http://www.fornobravo.com/pompeii_oven/pompeii_oven.html) where they talked about making your own wood burning pizza. These ovens cook at 800 degrees and will cook a pizza in 90 seconds. Now that is what I was looking for. After lurking on their forum for a few months I joined and found it to be a very informative and friendly group much like the Modern Vespa group. Several months later after growing sick of my constant talk of pizza ovens my Italian father in law told me to just build the damn thing and get on with it. With these words of encouragement and nearly a year of on and off work I constructed an oven of my own and I now bake pizzas several times a month along with bread, roast chickens, pigs and anything else I can think of. As far as pizzas go the high heat makes all the difference in the world and the residual heat and enclosed oven makes the best roast chicken or pig you will ever eat. It's not a scooter but it gets me just as excited. |
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mluttropp wrote: Wow great topic and one that I love as much as scooters. For those of you that are over achievers I thought I would share my quest for the perfect pizza. First off I want to say that I am partial to thin crust pizzas. So if you are a deep dish kind a guy or gal you will have to continue your quest for that perfect Chicago style pizza without me. I love them I just don't make them. Several years ago I was experimenting with a pizza stone in the oven and trader joes dough trying to get that nice thin crisp crust and just not getting what I want. It was good but not what I wanted. I was also not happy with the 10 min per pizza turn around time. That is when I found this web site (http://www.fornobravo.com/pompeii_oven/pompeii_oven.html) where they talked about making your own wood burning pizza. These ovens cook at 800 degrees and will cook a pizza in 90 seconds. Now that is what I was looking for. After lurking on their forum for a few months I joined and found it to be a very informative and friendly group much like the Modern Vespa group. Several months later after growing sick of my constant talk of pizza ovens my Italian father in law told me to just build the damn thing and get on with it. With these words of encouragement and nearly a year of on and off work I constructed an oven of my own and I now bake pizzas several times a month along with bread, roast chickens, pigs and anything else I can think of. As far as pizzas go the high heat makes all the difference in the world and the residual heat and enclosed oven makes the best roast chicken or pig you will ever eat. It's not a scooter but it gets me just as excited. Pictures please. My niece is a Sous Chef at A16 in SF. They have two wood fired ovens that they keep at a 200 degree temperature differential. One is for Pizzas and the other is for everything else. I want one so bad. But really, the BGE can do everything that a wood fired oven can do. Because it is a wood fired oven. Just a top feeder and not side door. |
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You are right the BGE can do most everything just not on the same scale.
This weekend we through a party and made 90 pizzas in 2 hours. We have also roasted whole pigs in the oven. In this instance the size really does matter ![]() |
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