Discourse on Pizza

I've been making a lot of pizzas lately.

This recent obsession may be due to the fact that I found a pizza place in East Hollywood that sells its large doughs, uncooked, for only $2.16 -- 13% percent of the cost of the cheapest large pizza (w /tax). (To disclose or not to disclose this mystery store!!! Comment and I'll let you in on my secret :). They also have a few very cute servers with whom to flirt. It also might come from the fact that pizza - the ultimate culinary tabula rasa, save pasta(?) - provides a delicious canvas on which to paint such a wide gamut of healthy vegetables, fresh or canned (which, of course, practically negates that "healthy" part). It's also due in part to the Pampered Chef Pizza Stone that I acquired from my mom about a month ago, and even more so to the procurement of my new favorite kitchen tool - a 10" cast-iron skillet - that I picked up from the Goodwill at Hollywood/Rodney for (a mere) $3.21. Hallelujah Goodwill!

The Base

In much of life, the overall quality of any product - from relationships to skyscrapers and legal arguments - depends on the quality of its foundation. In this case, it's the crust; and in my opinion, nothing is worse than a soggy bottom. Furthermore, the perimeter crust should be crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. To accomplish this feat, in my experience, nothing works better than the cast-iron skillet. Even with cornstarch to prevent sticking on my pizza stone, the pan creates a stiffer (or at least less soggy) crust, and it's the best way to get the perimeter crust golden brown and delicious. Painting the crust with olive oil before helps, but with the pizza stone, the bottom gets all the love (ie, heat), and the sides of the crust are left to rely on solely the oven's heat and the browning power of the OO. And if you're like me, your oven's heat maintenance skills are about as reliable as Myanmar's visa-providing system.

I realize that I might sound a tad hypocritical here - if the base is the most important part, why would I spend two bucks on it instead of making it from scratch, risking elemental integrity and compromising the overall experience? Quite frankly, buying premade dough is simply easier and more foolproof. Worry not about additives, preservatives, and overall funkiness! - I have been assured that this dough is 100% natural. Ingredients: yeast, flour, water, salt, and olive oil. Furthermore, my experiences with yeast have been overwhelmingly negative, and as long as I'm out buying toppings, it is absolutely no crime to drop by the pizza place, support a local business, and improve my chances at scoring some digits.

The Sauce

Being pizza a more or less layered food, logically the sauce should follow. Though I have no qualms selling my soul for the dough, I do have a problem buying premade "pizza sauce". This stems mostly from my concern about what exactly goes into those commercial concoctions. A quick scan of the ingredient list of Ragu Pizza Quick Traditional Snack Sauce reveals all: Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Soybean Oil, Salt, Modified Food Starch, Dried Onions, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Spices, Natural Garlic Flavor (Contains Soy Lecithin). So, a quick analysis:

Tomato Paste	paste? why not actual tomatoes?
Soybean Oil	ok, olive oil would be better, but whatever. fat is fat
Salt	at 380 mg per 63 gram serving (10% Daily Value), waaaay too much. plus, who only uses 1 serving?
Modified Food Starch	ok. whatever.
Dried onions	who doesn't love onions?
High Fructose Corn Syrup	just what we need, more sugar.
"Spices"	thanks for the specifics.
Natural Garlic Flavor	if it's natural, why do we only get the flavor?

I don't think I have to go on. This is just pathetic. Practically plastic. To avoid diabetes and cancer, I opt for the homemade stuff. Now, there are plenty of recipes out there, but in general, they share 6-7 key ingredients. Here's a frequency breakdown by ingredient of the first four recipes that show up when searching "pizza sauce" on FoodTV.com:

Ingredient	Frequency
Tomato, Puree:Whole Peeled	2:2
Olive Oil	4
Garlic	4
Onion (minced)	1
Marjoram, dried	1
Basil, dried:fresh	2:1
Oregano, fresh	2
Rosemary, fresh	1
Sugar	1 (optional)
Water	1
Salt n Peppa	4

Knowing this, even without quantities, it's pretty damn easy to figure out how to make a passable pizza sauce, sans high fructose corn syrup and modified corn starch. My basic strategy is to take a small saucepan and sweat some minced garlic & minced onion in OO (using onion only if I have some leftover in the fridge) (or, to save on overall mincing, shallot = garlic + onion). While they're perspiring, I quarter and squish a few big tomatoes into the saucepan (three usually do the trick), add some herbs (again, fresh if I got 'em, but dried otherwise (note to self: buy marjoram)), and let it all reduce to a sauce-like consistency. The recipe that promotes sugar notes to "add a touch of sugar if desired of if tomatoes are tart". I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Needless to say, trial and error will lead you inevitably to a respectable and personalized sauce.

I also made one pizza with homemade pesto (w/ grilled chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, yum!), which turned out as good as it sounds. Using the pesto was nice because, as it is such a potent sauce, not a ton was necessary. To make: In a food processor, pulse until ground 2 c packed basil + 2 cloves garlic + 1/4 c pine nuts. Slowly, drizzle in exactly 2/3 cup OO and process until smooth. Add S+P, but not too much! Overly salty pesto is vile, vile stuff. Add 1/2 cup grated Parm, Pecorino, or any other hard Italian cheese. Pulse until brilliant.

The Toppings

Of course, having a solid base is important, but the potential brilliance of pizza - and what Mr. Puck saw as early as 1982 when he opened Spago on the Sunset Strip and revolutionized the food - lies in the toppings. (Quite a sentence that was). It's the funnest part and, in my opinion, it's what makes the pizza industry one of the fastest-growing in the country, beating out Asian food, Italian food, and donuts and steak combined!

One of my biggest concerns with toppings when I got on this pizza kick was, to precook or not to precook? With meats, precooking takes the cake: it rids the meat of unwanted grease that can turn your (relatively) healthy pizza into something that belongs in a delivery box. It also allows you to create your own specialty meats, like homemade Italian sausage (see below), as well as use chicken without the risk of cross-contamination. For veggies, the debate is thicker: precooking allows you to infuse flavor (as in onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms) and prevents burning (as in brocollini), but is not always appropriate (ie tomatoes).

Another great debate in pizza-making concerns the cheese and the toppings, or rather, the relationship between the two: over or under? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. The over-under dilemma can be answered only based on knowing what toppings you'll use - here we're concerned both with taste and appearance. In general, I'm a big fan of the 1/2-1/2 method: laying down half your cheese, then the toppings, then the rest of the cheese. This serves to protect the toppings from drying out while still maintaining the aesthetic appeal that the toppings bring to the party (color, texture, etc). What follows is a brief discussion of my precook protocol and the over-under debate, by topping:

Broccoli & Broccolini: Awesome. Remembering that, universally, broccoli is a bigger fan of steaming than roasting (yes, roasted broccoli is great, but how often do you steam vs. roast?), so putting fresh broccoli florets on top of the cheese will do nothing good for the broccoli or the pizza. Steaming or blanching them first is up to you, but either way, broccoli florets go under the cheese, or 1/2-1/2.

Onions/Leeks/Bell Peppers: Taking our hint from the traditional Chicago classic, Italian Sausage and Pepper Deep Dish Pizza, the only way to treat these toppings is to precook. Saute these puppies, cut into strips or diced, in olive oil before placing on top of the cheese or 1/2-1/2.

Tomato slices: Because of the high water content of tomatoes, placing standard sliced tomatoes directly on the crust would result in sogginess - therefore theoretically these deserve the top shelf. But again, the 1/2-1/2 strategy kicks ass. This way, as the cheese melts, the tomatoes become visible and still receive plenty of heat without soggying up the dough.

Mushrooms: When using shrooms, it depends on what kind of mushrooms you're using, and more importantly, how thick your slices are. With thinly-sliced fresh mushrooms, top-placement exposure to high heat will dry them out in a heartbeat, producing mushroom-shaped flavorless pieces of cardboard. Therefore, thinly-sliced mushrooms should be buried under the cheese. Thicker slices, as well as canned mushrooms, will make it through the heat OK most of the time, but one should still be aware of the dangers inherent in this method. For those with an aversion to the rubbery taste of raw mushrooms (like your's truly), nothing makes mushrooms better than a saute in butter. Not only does this make them more resistant to drying out, but they taste infinitely better. **Insert Paula Deen quote**

Spinach: While spinach tastes great on pizza (especially with chicken, pesto, tomatoes, etc.), it is more fragile than my grandpa. Precooking spinach equals wilting it, so I avoid that route. Instead, bury spinach partially under the cheese, or (my preferred method), slice it chiffonade, and combine with shredded cheese.

Italian Sausage: This topping inspired by the classic Chicago deep-dish and my inherent frugality. In a mixing bowl, combine thoroughly: 1 lb ground pork + 1.5 TBSP kosher salt + 1 tsp roasted fennel seeds (for the traditional Italian(-American?) flavor) + 1/4 tsp smoked paprika + 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper + 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes + 1 tsp black pepper + 1 TBSP finely chopped fresh parsley. Cover and let chill in the fridge for an hour or two. Or overnight. Brown in a big ol' skillet, drain the excess fat, and save in an airtight container for up to a week? Probably less. Though people claim that raw meat can go straight on top of the cheese and cook in the oven, I can think of two good reasons not to: less grease and less risk of cross-contamination. True, putting precooked meat back in the hot environment of the oven could dry it out. However, precooking the sausage and placing it under the cheese partially eliminates the risk of dry toppings and potentially saves your stomach. This same process works Mexican chorizo.

Pepperoni, Bacon, Canadian Bacon, Ham, Proscuitto: : To accomplish the same result as above, place your meat slices between two sheets of paper towels and microwave at 10-second intervals until a good amount of the grease is absorbed. Then, prepare as desired.

Chicken: Precook. Duh. To keep your chicken moist, employ the 1/2-1/2 method.

Fresh Herbs: Again, depends. If you're making a simple Pizza Margherita, the basil has no choice but to go on top. However, for a BBQ Chicken Pizza, I like incorporating the cilantro into the shredded cheese, like spinach above.

Jesus it's late. Sleepy time for me.