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The Home Made Pizza Thread

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Is the bottom of your cast iron pan smooth enough to turn it upside down for baking the pizza?

I'm not sure what you mean by turning it upside down. But, no, it's still a young pan with a thin seasoning on it so far. Same pebbly texture as from the store. I have thought about taking to work to see if they can smooth it out.

I used plenty of grease in it for the pizza, though, and it slid right out. Last night I cooked Steak Sandwich stuff right in there. Meat, onion, green peppers, mushrooms. Didn't stick a bit (ok, well the cheese stuck on one spot, but I let it cool before cleaning it.)
 
I'm not sure what you mean by turning it upside down. But, no, it's still a young pan with a thin seasoning on it so far. Same pebbly texture as from the store. I have thought about taking to work to see if they can smooth it out.

I used plenty of grease in it for the pizza, though, and it slid right out. Last night I cooked Steak Sandwich stuff right in there. Meat, onion, green peppers, mushrooms. Didn't stick a bit (ok, well the cheese stuck on one spot, but I let it cool before cleaning it.)

We have a fifteen and a quarter inch cast iron pan that I will turn upside down and use the flat bottom, which is now up, as a steel to bake pizza on. We also use a cast iron camp stove grill/griddle combo to use as a pizza steel. The griddle side has a flat 16" x 7" surface. Both are small compared to pizza steels but a lot cheaper.
 
We have a fifteen and a quarter inch cast iron pan that I will turn upside down and use the flat bottom, which is now up, as a steel to bake pizza on. We also use a cast iron camp stove grill/griddle combo to use as a pizza steel. The griddle side has a flat 16" x 7" surface. Both are small compared to pizza steels but a lot cheaper.

I see. I don't recall ever paying attention to the bottom. I thought you meant the bottom of the inside. The handle sticks straight out so I am pretty sure it would lay flat upside down. I might try this.

After I make a Deep Dish! :rockin:
 
Thursday night is Pizza Night... prosciutto, pepperoni, homemade smoked pepperoni, hot calabrese salami, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, fresh mozz, smoked mozz, parm and a lil of smoked colby....

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Very nice @icebob!

I just degassed some bulk dough and made four 390g dough balls for Saturday pizza fest. Pics to follow.
 
I think I'm pretty set with my pizza crusts. I'm starting to think about selecting a better sauce or even making my own at some point. I've just been using Contadina Pizza Squeeze so far. I want to keep the sauce pretty mild, my wife can't handle spicy food at all and I'm not much better. Any recommendations?
 
I think I'm pretty set with my pizza crusts. I'm starting to think about selecting a better sauce or even making my own at some point. I've just been using Contadina Pizza Squeeze so far. I want to keep the sauce pretty mild, my wife can't handle spicy food at all and I'm not much better. Any recommendations?

I discovered this website over a decade ago (doesn't look like it has changed since then either) that jump started me on homemade pizza: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

I had kind of forgot about it until a couple weeks ago and was re-reading it after 11 years of homemade pizza making to see maybe what i had missed back then.

Long story short, the sauce recipe and process described in section 8 is simple and amazing. I just used simple Hunts whole peeled tomatoes, but fsck this sauce is pure simple goodness. From the link:

Pour the can out into a bowl

Cut the green/yellow stem ends off the tomatoes with your hands or a paring knife, then discard.

Squeeze out the seeds into the puree and then Dip the tomato into the puree. You can even cut the tomato open to get out any remaining seeds, by essentially rinsing them with the puree. This will have all the seeds fall into the puree. <--- this is a really smart step!

Put the flesh back in the can

At the end of this process you have a can of flesh and a bowl of watery puree and seeds. Strain this, pouring the puree back into the can. In the strainer are then 90% of the seeds, all by themselves. Discard the seeds.

Now crush the tomatoes. This is one of those areas where I made a recent change for the better and it's really helped a lot. I used to crush the tomatoes by hand. But it was always a bit chunky. Now I blend them with an immersion mixer ("boat motor"). I cannot tell you exactly why this has made a huge improvement in the TASTE of the tomatoes, but it has. I've done side by side taste tests. The tomatoes should be crushed but not pur ed. Go Easy. I have nothing against using a food processor or mill, but I will say that you should not crush by hand.​

I season simply with salt, garlic powder, onion power and a mix of dried italian herbs. Overall really easy. Takes about 5 minutes and makes enough sauce for a dozen pizzas.
 
Saw icebob cooking and then yeastie jumping in got me thinking pizza. Did a 8hr. Poolish + 8hr rt ferment dough and threw together this Greekish pie, "lamb", kalamata, feta, bell pepper, and eggplant. Definitely not replacing my normal routine but not bad for a 24hr pie..

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I highly recommend missing the mortgage for a month or put the brats in public school to buy some truffle oil. Spendy but so good.

My wife bought me a bottle of truffle oil as part of a bday gift many years ago. We still joke about it all the time.

We tried it on many things trying to like it; but it's so incredibly powerful that a mere drop on a full plate will completely overwhelm it with the aroma of gym feet. The taste is fairly benign but the smell gets stuck in your nose for hours. I've had it on dozen different dishes and could never find one where i thought it made it better.
 
I'm following along on this thread...I scrolled through some of the 100+ pages and it looks like people are referencing the dough more than anything but I didn't find any posts about how to make. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?
We do pizza night on the grill, no grill plate just straight onto the grates. I usually just buy dough from the local grocery that's made daily. But being in FL and having been to Philly and NY....there just is no comparison! I don't even know if we can get good dough down here.
 
I'm following along on this thread...I scrolled through some of the 100+ pages and it looks like people are referencing the dough more than anything but I didn't find any posts about how to make. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?
We do pizza night on the grill, no grill plate just straight onto the grates. I usually just buy dough from the local grocery that's made daily. But being in FL and having been to Philly and NY....there just is no comparison! I don't even know if we can get good dough down here.

Give some of these a shot: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/07/the-pizza-lab-three-doughs-to-know.html

My go to at the moment is the NY style since I don't have the heat to make a proper Neo pizza.

Also Peter Reinhart's recipes (and I recommend any of his books... Crust & Crumb or Bread Baker's Apprentice):
https://www.fornobravo.com/pizzaquest/
 
I'm following along on this thread...I scrolled through some of the 100+ pages and it looks like people are referencing the dough more than anything but I didn't find any posts about how to make. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?
We do pizza night on the grill, no grill plate just straight onto the grates. I usually just buy dough from the local grocery that's made daily. But being in FL and having been to Philly and NY....there just is no comparison! I don't even know if we can get good dough down here.

No knead is nice recipe, I posted it a couple times
 
Didn't make pizza, but bought a "Chicken Dill" pizza from the craft brewery in Cadillac. It's on my list of pizzas to try to make at home.

Basically it's a cream sauce with chicken chunks, dill pickle slices, dillweed, and tomatoes. Probably some seasoning in/on the crust.

Everyone I know who's heard of it thought it sounded terrible, but everyone who's tried it loves it.
 
So I followed the link given to me above and I made the NY style dough..or better yet, attempted to make it. I followed the instructions to the letter and when I pulled the dough out of the food proc. it was a sticky mess. I spent the next 10 min or so adding flour to the table and kneading it as best I could. I don't know if I ever actually would have passed the "window pane" test. I finally just cut it into 3rds and threw it into a gallon ziplock and into the fridge. We shall see how this comes out in a day or so.
 

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