Table Of ContentPassionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade
Pizza
eBook by Curtis Ide
I dedicate this book to my wife and my mother. These two women have
been central to my life, my health, and the way I see the world.
Copyright 2003, 2008, 2009 by Curtis Evan Ide, all rights reserved, including the
right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any form.
Photographs Copyright 2008 by Curtis Evan Ide and Charles Henry (Nick) Ide,
all rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any
form.
ISBN 978-0-615-25860-7
Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade
Pizza
eBook by Curtis Ide
I dedicate this book to my wife and my mother. These two women have
been central to my life, my health, and the way I see the world.
Copyright 2003, 2008, 2009 by Curtis Evan Ide, all rights reserved, including the
right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any form.
Photographs Copyright 2008 by Curtis Evan Ide and Charles Henry (Nick) Ide,
all rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any
form.
ISBN 978-0-615-25860-7
Table of Contents
Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza
Pizza-making Quick Start
Introduction
Part One: Foundation
Pizza-making Equipment
Pizza Ingredients
Preparation Techniques
Part Two: Recipes
Dough Recipes
Sauce Recipes
Thin-Style Pizza Recipes
Thick-Style Pizza Recipes
Pizza’s Close Relatives
Pizza Recipe Compendium
Part Three: Beyond the Basics
Troubleshooting Guide
Rear Jacket
Pizza-making Quick Start
Getting Started
You are about to make pizza. This section is intended to quickly get you started
and bring some early success. If you are making your first pizza, you can expect
to be a little uncomfortable with the process. You may be working with yeast for
the first time. It may be some time since you worked with (or played with)
dough, if ever. If you have read through the rest of the book you might even be
thinking "Oh my, this is more complicated than I thought!". Do not be deterred!
We can get through our first few pizzas together then you will be on your way to
making great homemade pizza.
Systematic Pizza Making
Pizzerias use the same ingredients, preparation, and baking time for every pizza
they make to ensure that all pizzas come out alike. This system brings
consistency, uniformity, and repeatability. A very good system will help make
very good pizza.
A system is more than just a recipe; it is a complete plan for how to make a pizza
from scratch. The Passionate About Pizza System introduced later in the book
will help you make each pizza better than your last. You will be able to create a
mouth-watering taste sensation with every pizza you make. The full Passionate
About Pizza System is fully explained later but you will be introduced to some of
the concepts in this quick start guide. Eventually, you will create your own
system for making pizza the way you want it. For now, let's get started and we
will come back to this topic later.
Passion for Pizza
Put your passion into your pizza! The fact that you are reading this book means
that you are willing to put effort into making a pizza rather than ordering one
from a pizzeria or buying a frozen one from the grocery store. Go one-step
further and put your passion into your pizza! Your pizza and all the things you
do to turn it from raw ingredients into a finished pie are an expression of you.
Your friends, your family, and you yourself will be able to tell when you make
food with passion, so express yourself with gusto!
Why Use A System?
Why should you want to use a system? Is the system going to constrain you?
Can't you just wing it when making pizza? These are good questions and you
need to be comfortable with the answers. What I call the Passionate About Pizza
System is really just the habits that I now have for making pizza. In addition, it
helps make you aware of what you are doing (or need to be doing) when making
pizza so that you can change some part of your actions or habits when you need
to in order to make better pizza. As you become more comfortable making pizza
and develop your own habits you will be developing your own system.
Finding The Time To Make Pizza?
So just how long is this pizza going to take you to make? The entire process
should take you two to three (2-3) hours. The dough should take you about
fifteen to twenty minutes to mix and knead. The dough will rise for about sixty
minutes. Basic pizza sauce should come together in less than five minutes and
cooks for about thirty so it can be finished entirely during the time the dough is
rising. Toppings can be prepared while the sauce is cooking and the dough is
rising. Shaping the dough and assembling the pizza will take five to twenty
minutes, depending on the complexity of the pizza. The pizza will bake for
fifteen to forty minutes depending on the style. The key is to do it all in the right
order!
With a little advance planning, you can turn time into your friend as you make a
pizza. The individual steps involved in pizza making as described in this quick
start guide and in the book are laid out in the order that makes it easiest to create
a pizza from start to finish.
Equipment
Pizza Pans
I suggest that you use the ones that you have or the ones that you can easily
obtain. It does not even have to be a pan specifically designed to make pizza. My
pizza pans are just basic pans purchased from various kitchen stores or received
as gifts. I followed the instructions to season them with oil and they have worked
wonderfully.
Pizza Peel
A peel is a wide, flat wooden board with a long handle. Professional bakers use a
peel to slide pizzas, breads, etc. directly onto the floor of a commercial oven.
Professional peels are available in a variety of paddle sizes, paddle materials
(most are wood, but some have metal paddles), and handle lengths. You can
generally find a home-sized peel that has an approximately 14" square paddle
with a six inch handle; these work very well.
It helps if your peel is exactly the same size as your pizza stone. This way, when
you are shaping and assembling your pizza, you will be able to easily create the
largest pizza your stone can handle. If your peel is larger than your stone,
consider marking your peel to show the size of your stone so you can accomplish
the same thing. If your peel is smaller than your stone, you will just be limited
by the size of your peel, not your stone.
Ingredients
Cheese
You can use almost any cheese on your pizza, so go ahead and express your
freedom of choice. I do, however, want to point out one thing. I have found that
if you purchase cheese that has been shredded or grated before you buy it, it has
less moisture in it. This fact can be used to your advantage. When baking a pizza
with a lot of moisture in it (such as one with diced, fresh tomatoes), use pre-
shredded cheese. When making a pizza with little moisture, you may want to
grate the cheese yourself.
Flour
You might think that flour is just flour; however, not all flours are created equal.
You can use almost any type of flour to make a pizza, but the type of flour you
use does make a difference. Different flours have different amounts of gluten;
this is the protein in wheat that helps hold in the bubbles of gas produced by the
yeast. These different flours will behave differently; you can see and feel the
Description:Have you tried making pizza before, but were unsatisfied with the outcome? Do you have trouble achieving that wonderful, chewy-crunchy crust that you get at a pizzeria? Have you made good pizza, but find that you are unable to do it consistently? Have you looked at pizza cookbooks and baking stones
