Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza (48 page)

Topping
– Slice the tomato thinly. Cook the Italian sausage, then drain to remove the excess grease. Break the sausage into small pieces as it cooks.
Shaping
– Prepare Basic Pizza Dough as directed. Stretch the dough into a circle and place it on a prepared pizza peel.

Assembly
– Brush the dough with olive oil. Spread the pizza sauce evenly over the surface of the dough, leaving a half-inch border. Using a teaspoon and your fingers, drop small dollops of ricotta cheese evenly across the sauce. Spread the sausage evenly over the ricotta and sauce. Sprinkle the Mozzarella cheese over the pizza then place a few slices of fresh tomato in a large circle. Season to taste with Romano cheese, salt, pepper, and basil.

Baking
– Slide the pizza onto a preheated baking stone and bake at 500˚ for ten to twelve minutes. Toppings should be boiling over the entire surface. The crust should be crunchy-chewy and very lightly browned.

Vegetarian Lasagna Pizza

Makes one fourteen inch pizza.

2 cups Eggplant Sauce (see recipe
page 119
)
1 recipe Sicilian-style Dough (see recipe
page 95
)
olive oil
12 ounces fresh Mozzarella cheese, sliced thin
parmesan cheese
unbleached all-purpose flour (for kneading and shaping)

Topping
– Prepare the Vegetarian Eggplant Sauce as directed.

Shaping
– Prepare Sicilian-style Pizza Dough as directed. Press the dough into an oiled, deep-dish pizza pan and cover lightly with a towel. Let the dough rise in the pan for up to twenty minutes.

Assembly
– Brush the dough with olive oil. Spread the sliced cheese over the dough up to half an inch from the edge. Spoon the eggplant sauce over the entire pizza. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the sauce.

Baking
– Place the pizza pan into the oven on the lowest rack. Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Move the pizza pan to the middle rack and lower the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for an additional fifteen to twenty-five minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the crust browns lightly. The instructions list a range of time because the temperature of different ovens can vary. Just keep an eye on the sauce and the edges of the pizza.

White Pizza with Chile Peppers

You can add any of your favorite toppings to this pizza. However, if you add any tomato sauce, then it will no longer be a white pizza! Nevertheless, it will taste great so do what pleases you.

This pizza has a large amount of cheese and is made with an egg; this makes it puff up a like a quiche. You can reduce the cheese and leave out the egg if you want the pizza to cook up like a regular pizza. I suggest you try this recipe as written to see how nice it is. Makes one fourteen to sixteen inch pizza.

8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
8 ounces Mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
1 egg
1 Tablespoon milk
1 recipe Basic Pizza Dough (see recipe
page 92
)
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 – 2 4-ounce cans diced green chili peppers or diced jalapeno peppers
1/2 cup chipotle salsa, optional
salt and pepper
unbleached all-purpose flour (for kneading and shaping)

Topping
– Combine the cheeses in a bowl and mix well. Beat the egg and milk together. Melt the butter.
Shaping
– Prepare Basic Pizza Dough as directed. Stretch the dough into a circle and place it on a prepared pizza peel.

Assembly
– Brush the dough with the melted butter up to 1 inch from the edge. Distribute the diced chili peppers over the melted butter and spread them evenly with your fingertips. If you are using the chipotle salsa, drop small spoonfuls onto the pizza in a reasonable pattern. Evenly spread the cheese mixture on the pizza. Sprinkle the beaten egg mixture evenly over the cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Baking
– Slide the pizza onto a preheated baking stone and bake at 500˚ for eight to twelve minutes. The cheese will puff up and will begin to brown. The toppings will bubble and boil at the edge of the cheese near the crust. The crust should be crunchy-chewy and very lightly browned. Because this pizza does not have any sauce, it will likely cook more quickly. You should stay near the oven and check the pizza frequently as it cooks.

Variations
– If you want the pizza to be less like a quiche, you can use half the cheese and leave off the egg mixture.
If you prefer a very spicy pizza use Jalapeno peppers. If you prefer less spice, use diced green chili peppers. You can also vary the spiciness by using more or less peppers.

Feel free to substitute minced garlic, minced onions, minced green peppers, diced artichoke hearts, or other flavorful condiments for the chili peppers. You can add any other type of salsa or chutney to the pizza in addition to chili peppers before adding the cheese.

Part Three: Beyond the Basics

Part three of Passionate About Pizza:
Making Great Homemade Pizza
expands on the fundamentals of the
Passionate About Pizza System
. Now that you have a solid foundation of pizza skills and pizza recipes, you are ready to expand into having pizza parties, countering the problems that may occur, and exploring advanced or professional pizza-making topics.

Having a Pizza Party

The
Passionate About Pizza System

You will make great homemade pizza every time you try if you ignite your passion and follow a systematic approach to making pizza. PLAN your pizza-making activities, use the same equipment and high quality ingredients each time, use proven PREPARATION techniques, rely on your recipes, and work to make CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS.

Pizza is a great party food. It is so popular that almost everyone likes it. It would be hard to cook enough pizza to serve 100 (or even forty) people without using a large, commercial pizza oven. However, with a little foresight and planning, you can have a pizza party that is enjoyable for you as well as an opportunity to show off your pizza-making skills. First, harness your passion and be confident that your efforts will have excellent results!

The
Passionate About Pizza System
in Action

Having a pizza party can be great fun – for you and your guests. On the other hand, pizza parties can be challenging for a pizza chef, especially if you are early in your journey into making pizza. Your key weapon in meeting this challenge is the
Passionate About Pizza System
! Here is how you do it.

Planning a Pizza Party

Time Management

Planning all the activities required for the pizza party will pay off. You will find that making toppings and sauce for more than a few pizzas can take several hours. It can take an hour or more to make several batches of dough. Finally, assembling and baking a bunch of pizzas can take another hour or more. Now might be a good time to reread the chapter on “Planning Your Pizza” starting on
page 17.
You may want to read it for the first time, if you have not yet done so. That section covers most of the time management issues you will run into.

How Much Pizza Should You Make?

It is my experience that it takes about one pizza for every four adults at a pizza party. Therefore, you can divide the number of guests by four to get the number of pizzas you should make. Do not forget to include yourself and your family in the count. Children may eat a little less pizza and teenage eaters will almost certainly eat more pizza, so adjust the number accordingly. If you plan to serve appetizers or salad with the pizzas, you can reduce the number of pizzas needed. If you want to ensure that you have leftovers, you can increase the number of pizzas by one or two. Overall, this rule of “one 14 – 16 inch pizza serves four guests” has stood up for many years of having pizza parties. I usually have a small amount of leftover pizza, just the way I like it! Remember, I am only giving advice and guidance. It is your party; you can and should make as much or as little pizza as you want to!

Choosing Recipes

To increase your chances of success and reduce the risk of unforeseen problems you should use recipes that have turned out successful results for you in the past. It is okay to experiment; however, I suggest that you limit the uncertainties to a level that you are certain to manage. I have broken this rule myself and I came through but it was a little stressful.

I generally make thin-style pizza at my pizza parties because it cooks in about a third of the time that thick-style pizza requires. Since each thin-style pizza bakes in about twelve to fifteen minutes, you can turn out approximately four pizzas in an hour; this feeds about sixteen people an hour.

Ordering the Pizzas

I do not mean calling in an order for pizzas. Rather, I mean, “in what order do you want to serve the pizzas?” You might serve the first pizzas as appetizers and the later pizzas as the main course. If you have not finalized your recipes, setting the order might help you decide which recipes to choose.

Preparing for the Pizza Party

Preparing Toppings

Gather all the ingredients well in advance so that you do not need to run to the store at the last minute. Once you start making pizzas, you will assemble and bake them in rapid-fire. Therefore, you cannot afford to work on toppings while making pizzas. So, prepare all the toppings, sauces, and cheeses in advance and place them in convenient containers. Please remember to follow the safe food storage rules listed in the section entitled “Preparing Toppings” on
page 50.