Of course. Cherry tomatoes have a more intense flavour (although nowadays not quite as much). They taste like ordinary tomatoes used to taste. Tinned tomatoes are a reasonable short-cut. Scold some olive oil before adding the tomatoes with some cloves of garlic. You can add sage or basil. Simmer the **** out of it (as my wife says) until it is quite reduced to a thick sauce --it should not bubble as much as 'crater'. This may easily take several hours. Blend to a purée and simmer some more.
Heresy. Buy a Pizza Stone and you will never look back. That's pretty much what I do. I also tend to add some Worcestershire sauce to mine, a little bit of chili to give a slight hint of heat. If have a red pepper(s) I will chop into pieces, fry at a high temperature until tinged golden then lower the heat and sweat with the lid on for about 15 minutes then do the steps Nexxo posted above. For tomatoes sauces a tablespoon of whole fat milk seems to elevate the flavor, I think it's something to do with the dairy fat. It was a tip from an Italian when cooking bolognese to prevent the mince having a grainy texture but it seems to help tomato sauces as well. If you want your tomato sauce to really zing than add a table spoon of gastrique made with red wine vinegar to it. To the OP. Your pizza's look great but personally I think you have far too much topping. For me less is more, go for quality ingredients, not quntity. I have less cheese on my pizza's than most pizza's have on a single slice, add some torn prosciutto once it's out the oven, a handful of rocket, drizzle with olive oil and a grating of Parmesan. Perfect.
I always make my own pizza's nowdays and think I have just about perfected the bases and sauce Base 8oz bread flour 2 tsps dry yeast 1 tsp sugar 90ml of milk 80ml of boiling water 1 tbsp olive oil Put the flour, yeast and sugar in a bowl. Mix the water, milk and oil and add to the mix. Stir with a spoon until it all comes together. Nead for 5 minutes then put in an lightly oiled bowl in a warm place for 1 hour. Roll out and place on tray/stone ( I use Tesco pizza trays (the round ones with holes in). Put on the sauce (below) and bake in oven preheated to its hotest temperature until the cheese has gone brown (usually about 20 minutes). Slice and scoff! Sauce One tin/jar/box of passata Huge generous squeeze of tomato puree Worcestershire sauce to taste Herbs (not "special" 'erbs) Grated parmesan (quite a bit you should see little white lumps thoughout the sauce) No need to cook it just spread it thinnish on the base Guaranteed every time (well when I make them)
Wow! Never expected so many replies. Nice to see so many pizza lovers out there I did wonder how to make the base a little more favoursome - milk certainly would be an enrichening flavour. As for the tomato base, I took a tin of chopped toms, blended them, then put them into a pan and let them reduce for 30 mins while the dough proved. While it was bubbling away, I added some Italian mixed herbs, garlic, black pepper and some Franks pepper sauce. It had a real bite to it, but when it had been buried under all the toppings, it was nice as opposed to hot.
Or at least heat the baking tray up in the oven and slide the pizza onto a hot baking tray. If you like pan pizza buy a propper pizza pan and season it properly. then butter it and dust with cornmeal before use makes a brilliant deep dish pizza.
I did food tech at school, we cooked every week and I learnt a lot about the manufacturing process behind "food". Spent a lot of time doing CAD work on packaging and point of sale stuff. Some of it I still use in my job today, just it's games and not food.
really ! , what i have growing in my greenhouse and last year outside must have been watermelons ! , dude you can get a 10 quid plastic greenhouse and grow outside . i do agree about tomatoes tasting watery , hence why i grow my own
A mate of mine has "Pizza nights" quite regularly at his parents' place, and the missus and myself are invited quite regularly. Wood-fired pizza oven? Check! Italian dad? Check. Mom that adores Italian food (and men, clearly) and imports her tomato sauces and a few other bottled ingredients from some small boutique in Rome whenever they go there? Check! Good wine (can you even have pizza without wine?)? CHECK! one of those coming up in the next week or so, actually...
Man, you guys have made me hungry for pizza. On top of this, you've also made me need to try this "make it yourself" approach. You crafty devils. As an aside, and I know you're all going to laugh, the lady and I currently partake in Dominos when we do eat pizza (Weep for us - It's the best we have locally), and we both love the little mini garlic pizza stuff they do. I'm assuming that this can be replicated with some crafty recipe resizing, but would adding garlic cloves (Love us some garlic), crushed of course, to the dough make a fat lot of difference to the dough itself? I'm assuming no, but my culinary skills are primarily focused on Indian/Asian cuisine beyond the obligatory pasta based stuff.
That sounds sooo gooooood..... We usually buy the pre-made bases as it is a lot faster, but we once made our own and it was way better. Have to try there bases and sauces out!!
Off topic: Got forced to eat a pizza hut yesterday. Thought I'd do myself a favour and get the thin and crispy Italian. But still, it was horribly doughy and the whole POS was dripping with oil!
Give it a go and see? If your first timing it Jamie Olivers pizza dough, tomato base and topping recipes in his Jamie at Home book is a great place to start. A Pizza stone is about £15 and makes a huge difference to your Pizzas.
I had never even heard of one of those. To the kitchen shop! also, yeah, that's the plan, hopefully this Sunday actually.
I ate pizze once when I was a kid, maybe 12 or 13 and I thought it was rank. But then when I was 23 I lived opposite a really good pizza place in Leeds, and as Leeds is king of cheap fast food pizza's were a fiver, and that changed my opinion of pizza. I now like pizza, but only good pizza. thin, crispy, with nice toppings. rarely have I found a store bought that meets those criteria, but I like eating pizza out.
