Tag: tomatoes

Home-Style Pizza

Unless you have a brick oven in your backyard, you can’t quite make pizzeria-style pizza at home; the regular kitchen oven simply can’t reach high enough temperatures. It is, however, possible to approximate the flavors of a pizzeria-style pizza by using a few expedients.

There is more than one way to make home-style pizza. A pizza stone, for instance, can work really well but it requires time and practice.  The method that I am about to describe makes use of a perforated pizza tray. I find it easier and quicker and the results, in my opinion, are comparable.

As usual with Italian cuisine, quality and simplicity of the ingredients are essential. Pre-made bread shells, pizza sauce, and pizza mozzarella must be avoided! Here is what you need:

Home-Style Pizza

Yield: 2 servings

Total Time: 30 minutes

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Home-Style Pizza

Ingredients

  • 1 perforated pizza pan
  • 450 g bread dough (from a bakery or bought frozen)
  • ¾ cup uncooked strained tomatoes (fresh or from a quality brand, e.g: Mutti, Pomì, Molisana)
  • 300 g fresh bocconcini mozzarella
  • some extra-virgin olive oil
  • one pinch of salt
  • one pinch of dried oregano (optional)
  • some fresh basil leaves (optional)
  • moderate amounts of your favorite toppings (I used capers and onions)

Preparation

  1. First, warm up the oven to 450 °F (240 °C). Allow 15 minutes for the oven to fully reach its temperature.
  2. Flatten the bread dough into a disc that fits the pan. The dough should feel fluffy and slightly elastic. If it's too elastic, give it some time to relax its gluten strands.
  3. Unless you are using a non-stick pan, coat the pan very lightly with some olive oil, then transfer the dough onto it (1).
  4. Add the strained tomatoes, a pinch of salt, the oregano and any toppings that need to be fully cooked, e.g.: onions, fresh mushrooms, peppers (2).
  5. Half-bake the pizza base for 7 minutes. This allows the dough to cook through, without the weight and moisture of the cheese.
  6. While the base cooks, chop the mozzarella in small bites and prepare any additional toppings that don't need to be fully cooked, e.g.: capers, olives, ham.
  7. Remove the pan from the oven (3) and quickly add the cheese and the remaining toppings. Put the pan back in the oven.
  8. When the cheese is completely bubbly and starting to brown in some spots (after about 7-8 minutes), the pizza is ready (4).
  9. Add a drizzle of olive oil or of chili oil (if desired) and the basil leaves, serve immediately.

Notes

The perforated pizza pan is essential to allow the dough to cook evenly without becoming crunchy. Its holes allow excess moisture and the CO2 produced by the leavening process to escape so that the dough can cook rapidly without forming bubbles. The thin aluminum allows the pan to match the temperature of the dough that lays on it, preventing any hardening.

https://www.disgracesonthemenu.com/2011/07/home-style-pizza.html

Basic Tomato Sauce

Even though tomatoes made their appearance in Europe in the 1700s, it took until the beginning of the 1900 for them to reach today’s popularity and central role in Italian cuisine.

This recipe describes one of the most basic pasta sauces: the tomato sauce. The tomatoes, delicately flavored with salt, a hint of onion*, and (optionally) a leaf of basil, are simmered until they reduce their acidity. Smooth and velvety, this sauce is great on its own (like in ‘pasta al pomodoro’), or as a base for many tomato-based pasta sauces and dips (such as the one with bell peppers). These sauces are generally served with plenty of grated Parmigiano cheese.

Other tomato sauces, instead, are only lightly cooked to preserve the fresh flavor of the tomatoes, and are often flavored with garlic and sometimes chili pepper. Examples are arrabbiata, marinara, with clams or mussels. These sauces are served without cheese.

*Shallot, garlic, or a combination of onion and garlic can be used as well.

Basic Tomato Sauce

Yield: 6 servings (as pasta sauce)

Total Time: 45 minutes

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Basic Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds fresh or 1 ½ pounds of canned strained tomatoes (uncooked tomatoes, salt)
  • 1 onion wedge, finely sliced
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2-3 leaves fresh basil
  • salt

Preparation

  1. Sauté the onion wedge in the olive oil at medium-high heat until translucent.
  2. Add the strained tomatoes.
  3. Stir until the tomatoes start to boil, then turn down to low.
  4. Simmer for 40 minutes with lid on, stirring every 10 minutes and making sure the boil is always gentle.
  5. Adjust the salt to taste and optionally add a leaf or two of fresh basil.
https://www.disgracesonthemenu.com/2010/11/basic-tomato-sauce.html

Pizza

Everybody knows pizza, in a form or another, and so does for sure every Italian.

In Italy, a ‘pizzeria’ (a restaurant specialized in serving pizzas) is the default for low-commitment dining, a place for every time Italians don’t feel like cooking (especially -for some reason- on Sunday nights). A traditional pizza is an affordable and reliable delicacy, and it’s something that can’t easily be made at home.

Most people when going out for pizza, just get one pizza (usually with a beer or a coke) and they’re done. There could be appetizers, especially if the wait is going to be long, and desserts at the end. Typical pizzeria appetizers are: bruschetta , grilled scamorza, calamari fritti (deep-fried squid). Typical desserts are: profiterol, tiramisù , millefoglie . Espresso coffee is almost a must when ending the meal, often accompanied by a liquor, such as limoncello , grappa , amaro.

Delivery service exists, especially in the big cities, whereas in small towns pick-up is probably more frequent. Regardless, pick-up and delivery only represent a small percentage of the Italian pizza business (pizza degrades quickly when not eaten right away, especially in the cardboard box – when it comes to pizza most Italians prefer to eat out).

There is, however, one type of pizza that Italians may take home and reheat, or get to go and eat right away as street food: it’s Pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice). This type of pizza (“bakery-style”, thicker, cooked in rectangular trays and sold in squares) can be a real treat but doesn’t compare with traditional pizzeria pizza.

So, let’s talk some more about traditional pizza. Other than being thin crust, traditional pizza has to be cooked very quickly (in about 90 seconds), traditionally on the stone of a wood-fired brick oven (at 485 °C or 900 °F), and has to be made with high quality toppings such as fresh strained tomatoes and fresh mozzarella (also known as bocconcini) – the base of 95% of Italian pizzas. The other toppings depend on the style, and every pizzeria chooses what to put on the menu – some pizzerias may have more than a hundred types of pizza. Pretty much every pizzeria, however, also serves a number of traditional pizzas, which are always a big hit. The most important are:

  • Marinara (Sailor’s): tomato, garlic, oregano, oil.
  • Margherita (Margaret, named after Margherita of Savoy): tomato, mozzarella, basil, oil.
  • Capricciosa (Capricious): tomato, mozzarella, grated Parmigiano, basil, mushrooms, pickled artichokes, prosciutto cotto (not proscuitto! – Italian ham), olives, oil.
  • Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons): normally the same ingredients of ‘Capricciosa’, placed each one in one of the four quadrants.
  • Quattro Formaggi (not Quatro Fromaggio! – Four Cheeses): tomato (optional), mozzarella, other cheeses (such as gorgonzola , ricotta, fontina), basil.
  • Napoletana (Neapolitan): tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, oregano, capers (optional), oil.
  • Regina (Queen): tomato, mozzarella, prosciutto cotto, mushrooms.
  • Vegetariana (Vegetarian): tomato, mozzarella, grilled vegetables, oil.
  • Calzone : usually a Margherita, Regina or Capricciosa pizza folded in half, sealed and baked more slowly than a regular pizza.

Most Italians simply pick one of the many pizzas on the menu, or just make slight variations (e.g. double mozzarella, added fresh tomato slices, or added oregano). Some order a Margherita with an added topping or two, effectively making their own. This, however, is not very popular because Italians are very careful in combining ingredients – if two or three toppings go well together, chances are that their combination has a name and is already on the menu.

In any case, the number of toppings should always be moderate. Italians don’t feel cheated if the toppings layer isn’t much thicker than the crust itself – the crust is not a tray that has to be filled up as much as it can hold! And if there’s meat, it should never be more than one kind (there is no meat lovers pizza in Italy).

One last important thing to consider with toppings like cold cuts (e.g. prosciutto crudo), or greens (e.g. basil o arugula), is that they have to be added at the end as they shouldn’t be cooked.

Which leads to a Top Five list of the most common mistakes made in North America when imitating traditional-style pizza:

  • #5: Using too many toppings or too much of each.
  • #4: Having an oily crust – the crust should be dry, either fluffy or crunchy depending on the style.
  • #3: Using rich tomato sauces instead of simple uncooked strained tomatoes.
  • #2: Using some processed cheese other than mozzarella.
  • #1: Using non-traditional toppings, such as chicken, ground beef, or -worse- exotic preparations (e.g. curry, teriyaki, Thai).