Reply to Pizza lovers thread (now with pic)

Edit: step #1 Place pineapple firmly into compost bin

Ok so some people displayed some interest in making their own pizza in this thread here http://www.djranking s.com/community /showthread.php?t=13306 - so in true DJTT fashion here is a tutorial of how i personally make my pizza !

I am sure pizza is the staple food of many a DJ here so i hope you all find this thread useful in saving yourself some money while at the same time getting a much better feed at the end of it all.

Stuff you need that you might not already have:

Pizza paddle \ peel x2

Pizza stone x2

Breadmaker with a pizza base setting

All these are optional but i highly recommend the pizza paddles and the pizza stones.

Pizza cutter

Pizza sauce:
- 875g of canned whole tomatoes

- 2 fresh basil leaves - you can use a teaspoon of dried basil in its place if you dont have the preferred fresh basil leaves.

- 1 clove of crushed garlic

- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste

- 100ml of red wine (optional)

Put all of this into a saucepan on a high temp and bring to boil, when boiling reduce the temp to a simmer and leave for 15 min to an hour, i personally leave it for about 45 min but it will depend on how much liquid your can of tomatoes had in it.


Dough Ingrediants:
- 4 cups o unbleached white flour - you could use ordinary flour but unbleached white flour is preffered.

- 1 teaspoon of salt

- 1/4 cup of olive oil

- 2 packs of dry yeast - or 3 teaspoons

- 1 1/2 cups of luke warm water (body temperature)

- 2 teaspoons of brown sugar

- 1/4 cup of extra flour for dusting.

- 3 tablespoons of semolina (optional). This is for getting some extra crispness to your pizza as explained in the second video below.

- A table spoon of polenta flour , i use the course kind, not sure how well the fine variety works as i have not tried it yet.

Put the yeast and sugar into a empty cup and add a small amount of the warm water and mix. After the yeast is mixed into the water add the rest of the water. What you are doing here is activating the yeast which produces CO2 which will aerate your dough. Set this aside for 5 min to activate. When the yeast mix has had time to rest for 5 min and theres a thin visible layer of froth on the top showing that the yeast has activated (if theres no froth on top theres a chance your yeast had died because the water was too hot, or it died in storage; perhaps being stored for too long).

While the yeast is activating and you have a bread maker add the oil, 4 1/2 cups of flour and salt into your bread maker and put it on the pizza dough kneed setting - so easy.

If your kneading by hand then put 4 cups of flour and salt into a bowl and make depression in the middle (so it looks like a volcano), pour in the olive oil and the yeast sugar water mix into the middle and mix together. Take the mix out of the bowl and put onto a surface you have dusted with part of the dusting flour. Start kneeding the mixture and keep redusting your suface with aditional flour to keep it from sticking to the surface your kneeding. The amount of flour you use will vary on where you live, in humid places you will need more flour and in hotter dryer places you will need less - the dough should be elastic. To learn to kneed watch this video because i cant be assed explaining it in text

Just watch the first part about kneading in this episode, theres a better video lower that shows how to push out the base alot better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yycs2-vq9I8

Once you have kneaded for 10 -> 15 min leave the dough in a bowl with a thin layer of oil rubbed on the inside surface to rise until it has atleast doubled in size - the rising time will be different depending on the ambient temperature, its best to place it in a warm (but not hot!) place for the fastest rising, it will take 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Sometimes ill stick it into the very mildly warm oven to speed this process up, about the temperature of a hot Australia day (40 degrees Celsius).

Once the dough has raised now you can divide it up the dough up - this recipe makes about 3 thick pan pizzas or up to 8 thin pan ones. Now its time to push out the dough, again i am gonna handball this one off because this guy does a better job than i can and shows multiple methods, i use the rolling pin approach to make thin pans because it makes is so easy and super thin. He also shows how you should use the semolina which i listed earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjYqw1CLZsA

This is where the polenta flour comes in, ill dust my peel flour and then put a pinch of polenta over the top to help it not to stick. The blowing under the dough method explained in the video is worth its weight in gold if your base sticks to the peel. Also i found that if you get a wooden peel the rough unvarnished variety is better than the varnished variety, i bought 2 varnished varieties and ended up sanding them back to bare wood. The wood grains hold the flour better which in turns helps your base not to stick to the peel a hell of a lot.

You should have your oven preheated to 230 degrees Celsius for at least 15min (this makes sure the pizza stones that you put in are up to heat up). Once you are ready to put the pizzas in drop the temp to 200 degrees Celsius otherwise you will burn your topping - the point your doing this is to get your stones really hot to cook that base quickly.

The idea of the pizza stone is that it helps cook the base which lets the base cook before your toppings burn - i really cant recommend getting yourself a couple pizza stones and at least a single pizza peels enough. Personally have a peel for every stone i have, so i got 3 peels and 3 stones which makes making multiple pizzas a hell of a lot easier because you put the toppings while the base on the peel, then you can fill the oven all at once without having to keep on reopening the door and losing precious oven heat.

Bake your pizza for 20 to 30 min depending on the thickness of your pizza - as you make more pizzas you will get a better and better feel for how long the pizza needs to be in the oven for.

Toppings:

You can put whatever the hell you want on the pizza and i urge everyone to share your favorite toppings. Ill share a couple of mine

I have been using a mix of half mozarella, half semi matured cheddar and more recently few pinches of parmesan cheese. I personally believe parmesan really helps adds a nice taste to the cheese.

1) Put on the pizza sauce, then the cheese mix, then thinly sliced pepperoni (in that order) - i find simple is best, do not pile on the toppings and ruin a perfectly good pizza, this is another thing i cant stress enough ! Putting the pepperoni over the top of the cheese lets the pepperoni cook nicely.

2) Thinly slice 2 potatoes and mix in a teaspoon of crushed garlic, a teaspoon of fresh chopped rosemary and a good sized pinch of salt. Leave the potatoes for about 15 min to suck up the flavors (they soak them up pretty quick), now lay the potatoes out in a fry pan with some extra virgin olive oil in it and cook the potatoes until the edges start to get a little bit crispy.

Put the pizza sauce on the pizza, then the cheese, then the potatoes (again in that order) and put in the oven - some very tasty rosemary potato pizza, my older brother looooves this recipe.

Share your pics of your pizzas, your pizza stories, your fav toppings, pizza making tips, where to buy awesome pizza and anything else related to pizza in this thread !