Home made pizza

[TheTecknician]

This is something I'll be resurrecting soon after about a year's absence. I'm planning on sticking to my tried and trusted BBC Good Food recipe for the dough, only using pasta flour in place of strong white flour. I've found it gives a better result. For tomato sauce, I'm aiming for a fresher, fruitier taste than the slow-cooked rich slop I've used before. I think slightly reduced chopped tomatoes with a little salt and pepper and nothing else should do. Cheese-wise, I note the current trend for random blobs of mascarpone and mozzarella but that's never worked for me. Mixed grated mozzarella, cheddar, monterrey jack and so on has always been my go to. Plus it can be frozen.

Happy to read your own pizza ideas.

Canned San Marzano tomatoes! Bit of seasoning but no cooking - the absolute pinnacle and I'll die on that hill!!

If I’m feeling lazy I use red pesto for the sauce. It’s lovely.

i buy good quality but basic margherita bases and add choritzo prawns and grated mozzerella cheese topping yum

I don't bother cooking tomato sauce anymore. Use passata or polpa. My favourite is Aldi's garlic passata. I love olives on a pizza, so buy kalamata ones and stone them, game changer.

For sauce I use tinned chopped tomatoes and season with a stock cube and basil.

I use a seasoned mixture of passata and tomato puree (not cooked) for the sauce and blobs of mozzarella, sometimes with a bit of extra cheddar/parmesan grated on top. I make the dough in the breadmaker.

For a base, I use garlic flatbreads (Levantine Table from Waitrose) topped prior to cooking with brussel sprouts sauteed in olive oil and a tablespoon of red currant jelly. Sounds gross but is delicious.

I sprinkle grated cheese (plant based Cathedral City) on top prior to cooking

Natural yogurt blended with normal plain flour and a sprinkle of baking powder.
Make it into a non sticky dough and let it rise for a small amount of time.

Dh did me a bianca with purple sprouting broccoli mushrooms and blue cheese last time he made them, was lush.

You can buy pitted Kalamata olives, Asda sell them.

Some curious ideas. I would never have placed 'brussels sprouts' in the same sentence as 'pizza'.

I use a mix of plain and strong wholemeal flour. Gives a crunch. Passata with paste, parsley, basil and oregano. Bit of garlic paste. Then red onion, black olives, peppers, cherry tomatoes, pineapple, basil leaves, chilli. Then chedder!

I'm usually quite conservative when it comes to pizza toppings. Decent quality pepperoni is difficult to find these days - makes me wonder where Italian restaurants get theirs from. Salami and garlic sausage is easy enough. I think my most adventurous topping was black olives and pastrami! I find that vegetables such as onion, mushroom and pepper are better slightly pre-fried as they then cook more thoroughly.

Red wine to drink is a must unless the pizza topping is stuff like prawns, tuna, seafood etc then a white is better.

My family roll their eyes when something kitcheny is delivered, but even they agree that my pizza steel has been a game changer. More expensive that a stone, but a year in, I expect someone would have upset a stone and broken it by now, where the steel will last longer than me.

I make tomato sauce in a big batch and freeze in the yellow Ikea freezer bags - enough for four pizzas.

Totally agree about not cooking the tomato sauce and using a good passata.

I sometimes blob dollops of fresh pesto if there's some lurking in the fridge.

...and always make garlic and oregano mayo for the crusts.

Mine were a bit soggy. I sorted by sprinkling polenta on baking tray, blind baking for a bit before adding sauce and toppings, using less of anything wet, pre-cooking veg like peppers to reduce moisture coming out, and preheating baking tray. Also check for moisture and tip or spoon out if necessary.

I'm lazy and use the little bags of pizza flour mix from sainsburys.
Once risen I cook the base alone for 4 mins. Then top with a mix of fresh blended tomatoes & tomato puree and small torn pieces of mozzarella & grated cheddar. Then cook for another 6 mins.
It's not even my pizza, it's the only home cooked semi healthy food that DD will eat. I should do my own gluten free version really.

Interesting thread! I do sourdough base, wholemeal starter, white bread flour and oregano in the dough. Cooked tomato sauce (batch cook and freeze in portions) and different toppings every week. Usually olives and sun dried tomatoes - sometimes smoked tofu!

Made a batch of dough the other day. The flour was at least a year old, the yeast probably older but I got an adequate result. I'd forgotten how much easier it is to work a dough made with pasta flour. I used ordinary olive oil rather than extra virgin and that helped too. A nice smooth and soft dough with no yellow olive oil blobs. I shall definitely use newer yeast next time.

Tomato sauce made with two tins of Mutti chopped tomatoes, reduced for about forty minutes in a saucepan, salt and pepper seasoning then blitzed smooth with a stick blender. Nothing else added.