Pizza-Making ?

[Mike Nolan]

Although I don't hunt myself (I get too impatient and have trouble standing still that long), I know a lot of people who do (my wife works at the Ag college), and I know that rite of passage quite well, as I grew up in deer country in NW Illinois. We would get a lot of hunters coming out from Chicago, many of them clueless. I wondered if some of them knew which end of a rifle the bullets came out of.

There's an old story about a farmer who was tired of having his cattle shot during deer season, so he painted COW on the side of them with whitewash. Didn't help.

And there's an even more extreme rite of passage among bow hunters when they get their first deer.

Tell your granddaughter congratulations!

Too many people just turn venison into sausage or burger meat. A venison roast is delicious, though it is so lean you often have to coat it with fat (like bacon strips) or bard it.

[Italiancook]

I made my second pizza today. First time, I used a sauce recipe from a cooking site and didn't like it. Today, I used my homemade tomato sauce, made just a tad bit thicker than I'd normally make it. The problem with both pizzas is that the sauce was too runny for the pizza. Next time, I'm going to do what BakerAunt does and smear tomato paste on it. The crust today seemed a little wet, which I assume was from the green peppers, onions and mushrooms. Next time, I'll slice the mushrooms thinner.

The crust I used was KAF "The Easiest Pizza Crust You'll Ever Make." I made it without the optional Pizza Dough Flavor. I think that was a mistake.

The crust was not crisp enough to suit us, but I don't have or want a pizza stone. Recipe instructions say to cook it on the pan if you don't have a stone. Both times, I've used parchment in the pan for easy cleanup. Next time, I'm putting the pizza directly on the pan to see what will happen. I'm going to try one more pizza with this recipe (I have 2 rounds of dough in the freezer). Then I'm going to try the crust BakerAunt uses, unless it has ingredients I shouldn't eat.

Bottom Line: I do not yet feel like a good pizza-maker, and if I don't come up with a better pizza after 4 tries, I'm giving up on them.

[BakerAunt]

Don't give up, Italian Cook! Only a couple of years ago did I find the pizza crust that I like. Only when I was trying to get around my husband's dislike for tomato sauce did I hit upon the idea of using tomato paste. Pizza is an evolving journey.

You might still put your pizza crust on parchment, but after 5 minutes, slide it off the parchment onto the baking sheet.

[chocomouse]

Italiancook, I should think you could make a whole wheat crust, maybe use a little semolina if you can eat that? I always add herbs and spices, like garlic and onion powder, Italian seasoning, oregano, basil, etc or a prepared pizza seasoning. We like the dough to be as tasty as the ingredients in the topping. Do you have a cast iron skillet? That would make a crispy crust. I'm not an expert, but I think tomato paste is a bit thicker than a prepared pizza sauce; if you can get your tomato sauce to the consistency of the paste, it might be what you're looking for. I'm not sure why your toppings of onions, peppers, mushrooms made your crust too wet; I use those ingredients and my crust is never wet. My problem is finding the right temperature and time -- the temp has to be high enough to make a crispy crust, but not so high that the center of the dough doesn't cook through. I usually bake it at 400 for about 25 minutes, but always check the underside before saying it is ready.

[Mike Nolan]

When I make pizza I get the oven as hot as I can, at least 500 degrees. A commercial pizza oven is probably going to be set at 650 degrees if not hotter than that.

[Italiancook]

By the light of day, all your comments make me feel less discouraged. I've decided to ditch the pizza dough in the freezer, since it has no flavor. I'll try a couple different recipes that include flavor seasonings. Chocomouse, thanks for posting what you use. That will be my jump-start. Mike, I can't use your pizza crust recipe, because it has cornmeal, which I shouldn't eat.

Maybe the mushrooms and onions weren't to blame on the moistness of the crust. Probably was the tomato sauce.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Also remember time adds flavor to your dough. There are dough recipes out there that recommend allowing your dough to proof over five days in a refrigerator. The sweet spot in our house is somewhere between 1.5 and 3 days. To shorten the time I now go for longer on the counter which requires less time in the refrigerator and makes for faster pizza dough. But it still always ages for at least a day and a half.

As BA said, this is an evolutionary process. I still change things from time to time and I try new things just for the sake of trying them. Most recently I've started adding chickpea flour to up the protein for my daughter who only eats pasta, bread, and pizza.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Made pizza last night. To echo some comments from Mike and BA - I use parchment. I roll out the dough and place it on parchment on a peel. Then I put sauce and cheese and toppings on and then slide the pizza onto the pizza stone. A cookie sheet or the pack of a sheet pan would work just as well as a peel. I cook the pizza on the parchment on the stone until the crust is set then slide the parchment out and give the pizza a turn.

I understand people who don't like pizza stones and if I only used them when I was making bread or pizza I probably wouldn't use them either. But I leave them in the oven all the time and they help to regulate the heat and keep it constant.

We have a commercial range now and it is hard to disassemble and put back together. It goes up to about 500 and that is what I use to make pizzas. Before this we had a commercial range and it was stupid easy to take off the oven knobs and adjust it to 750-ish (750 is as high as my oven thermometers go) which was unsafe but made great pizza pretty quickly.

I made my own sausage last night. I used a 1.5 tsp of fennel, oregano, garlic, onions, crushed red pepper, and basil. I used 1 tsp of salt into 3/4 lb of ground pork. I could have used more of everything except maybe the salt and the red pepper. I might also add a little cayenne and the Italian sausage at the store adds parsley and thyme. Some of the online recipes say to grind the spices in a food processor which would only make sense if you have a little food processor or are making large quantities of spice mix. Either way my kids liked the sausage so I'll keep experimenting.

I may start making my own sauce and, if I am really ambitious I might try my hand at cheese making. The New England Cheesemaking Supply that Mike pointed out is about an hour or so away so maybe I'll drive up and talk to them.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Update - I tasted my sausage this morning and it does not need more heat. It could use a little more sweet and more of some of the other spices. Maybe even back off the heat. I need to find balance and make it a day in advance instead of an hour.

It was also leaner than the sausage I buy and gave off very little fat when I par-cooked it.

Finally, I realized I do not need to grind up spices in the food processor. I can use a coffee mill for that!

[chocomouse]

Len, I'll wait 'til you adjust the seasonings for your sausage before I try making some. But that sounds like a good start.

I have questions for those of you who bake your pizzas at 500*:
1. Thin or thick crust?
2. Lots of toppings, and do you pre-bake the toppings?
3. For how long? Thanks!
When I have baked mine (thick crust, lots of toppings, no pre-bake) at 450* the crust has been overcooked (almost burned), nearly raw in the middle, veggies charred.

[BakerAunt]

My pizza baking experience will likely not be of help to Chocomouse, but since this is a pizza baking thread, I'll put it in for those who are interested.

I do the KAF Ultra-Thin Crust Pizza, with more vegetables than they recommend, which is baked for 15 minutes on a stone at 425F, which gives me a good chewy crust--which is what I like. The combination of durum wheat and semolina appears to be the key, as is waiting to add the olive oil until preliminary mixing is completed; I drizzle it in as the machine kneads. I suspect that if I were to move it directly to the stone after 10 minutes, it would be crispy. My husband likes fewer toppings on his pizza, and I've found that I need to wait and add the cheese on his after 10 minutes, or the cheese will burn.

I remember a thread on the KAF Baking Circle where someone was having trouble with his crust. Cass thought it might need more kneading. I thought it might need a lower speed. The original poster wrote back and said that longer at the lower speed of "2" was the answer.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Italiancook]

I've often toyed with the idea of making sausage. Rachel Ray on "30-minute Meals" (Food Network) used to make different kinds of sausage. The host of "Southern At Heart" (Food Network) made "Breakfast Sausage." She put brown sugar in it, which she said made it breakfast sausage. I like the idea of making my own, because I could have sausage without black pepper. But I've never taken the plunge.

[chocomouse]

Italiancook, thanks! I'll try to find the 30-Minute Meals on the Food Network online.

Baker Aunt, I think that I've not ever used durum flour in my pizza dough. I do use a cup of semolina, and then 2 more cups of flour, some combination of AP and whole wheat. It does make it chewy, as we like it. I knead it in my bread machine, as I do all of my breads.

[Italiancook]

chocomouse, I quickly checked Food Network. If you put 30 Minute Meals in the Search box, it will take you to Rachel Ray's recipes. I searched her recipes and quickly found 3 of her sausage recipes. I searched for Sausage. Searching for Homemade Sausage brought up one of the recipes. I only made it as far as the 2nd page of her recipes. I hope you have success there.

[BakerAunt]

I should mention that adding the oil later makes a bit of a mess, and it does not all seem to be incorporated, in spite of my best efforts. The first time, it was a mistake (forgot to add the oil until late in the process.) I usually pour any oil pooled in the mixing bowl into the bowl in which I will let the dough rise, and turn the dough to get it all covered. Every time, I say to myself, I will not do it this way again, and then I taste the texture and chewiness of the crust, and I do it again because I like the result.

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