Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza Biography
source(google.com.pk)

When they moved back to the States, Sonia Lee was horrified at the price of pizza. “In Italy, it's considered peasant food,” Pete Lostritto explains. In other words, approachable, delicious and affordable. Here, the cost was $25 for one pizza, and the quality of that pizza was lacking.
They wondered, why couldn't they recreate Italian pizza here? "In Italy,” Sonia Lee clarifies, “pizza belongs to everybody. We can have quality for everybody." Knowing they were on a quest for a great pie, Grayson's mother suggested they dine at Il Pizzaiolo in Colfax. "If the crust and the tomato sauce is right, then it's perfect," says Sonia Lee. Perfection was found at Il Pizzaiolo.
Il Pizzaiolo’s chef and owner, Pete Lostritto, was born in Brooklyn and studied the art of pizza making in Italy, in Rome and also in Cinque Terra in the Liguria region. In August 2013, the Lees decided to call Lostritto and ask if he was interested in partnering and expanding his business. As it turned out, he was.
Less than a year later, early this month, the Rocklin store opened. And next month, they’ll open another in Loomis.
For pizza aficionados, the photos will speak for themselves. The quality of this thin-crust, minimal-ingredient pizza is very close to that what you find in Italy: Simple, straightforward and delicious. Living in Italy taught me that the best flavor comes from quality ingredients balanced with the proper amount of salt and/or fat.
The Rocklin shop’s approach to food is right in line with this, using minimal ingredients. "The food is simple," says Grayson Lee. "We want guests to taste every ingredient."
Their first pizza is a classic example of the ingredient plus salt and fat theory -- starting with the uncooked tomato sauce. "It will cook in the oven," explains Sonia Lee. Fresh milk mozzarella and a little extra virgin olive oil adds the fat. Throw on some basil and you’ve got their margherita pizza. The wood oven reaches temperatures between 800 and 900 degrees, cooking the pizzas in just 90 seconds.
The oven does much more than simply popping out perfectly cooked pizzas. It is the only heat source for all of the homemade ingredients in the shop. Everything -- from bread for the croutons on the Caesar salad to the cooked pizza toppings to the house-made sausage -- is prepared in the oven earlier in the day before the oven reaches maximum temperature.
Because the pizzas cook so quickly, Grayson Lee explains they are more concerned about quality over convenience. They won’t take call-in orders. “It’s best eaten fresh, right out of the oven. We want people to experience the sights, the smells, to have a glass of wine, to experience some of the slow movement stuff. Ideally guests will eat in, but if they have to take it away, that’s OK too,” he says.
To finish a meal, they offer authentically prepared Italian desserts such as tiramisu and gelato, also at stunningly low prices. "Some businesses want to make money and are not concerned with the customer,” said Sonia Lee. “In Italy, the customer is treated like family.” Lucky for diners, Pete and Jacqueline Lostritto share that same belief, and this explains the surprisingly low prices; each pizza measures approximately 12 inches across, and only costs eight dollars.The Italian hoagie that I'm sharing with Mandy's Pizza owner Steve Negri is fantastic, but it's the crisped, golden-brown roll that deserves a special shout-out.

The roll — made at a local bakery using Negri's recipe — has been made for food-allergy sufferers. If you suffer from allergies to foods like nuts, dairy, gluten and others, you can eat this sandwich, or the shop's pizza, without worry.

"I started making these products because my son, Brandon, has food allergies," explains Negri, who has owned Mandy's for about three years. He recounts how sad it was that Brandon could enjoy only the smell of pizza.

So he worked with Brandon, now 11, developing recipes for the food he serves in his shop. Three weeks ago, he also released a line of allergen-free dessert mixes that are on sale at Mandy's, and in area stores like Soergel's, in Wexford, and Eden Market, in Mount Lebanon.

Great care goes into making Mandy's allergen-free menu items in a kitchen where standard pizza and sandwiches are also made. The crusts and rolls are taken directly from a vacuum-sealed bag and never touch countertops or areas where allergens might be. Mandy's has an employee who cooks only the allergen-free food.

"It's a lot of work and we take it very seriously," says Negri. "Because of my son, I know how important these safety issues are, but I also know how important it is that people suffering from allergies, especially kids, get to eat food that tastes good."As I mentioned in my Bermuda Pizza blog, I was going to do some more research on making great homemade pizza. I did a little research and found Chef Ruth Gresser, owner and chef at Pizzeria Paradiso in Washington, DC.

Chef Gresser is considered by many to be one of the best pizza makers around. She gets high praises from The Washington Post and The Washington Business Journal as well as Zaget’s Guide. As a graduate of Madeleine Kamman’s Classical and Modern French Cooking School in Glen, NH, Ruth has been a chef demonstrator for The Smithsonian Institution as well as a guest chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.

Chef Gresser has put together a series of cooking videos on making pizza that I will be posting on my web site. You can see the first three on making pizza dough by hand and with a mixer here.

When I emailed Ruth about my Bermuda Pizza experience and asked her some general questions about preparing a great pizza, she wrote back and gave me some great advice that I would like to share with you. We also talked about doing a Novice2Pro interview and I’m hoping as I experiment making pizza in our wood-burning oven, Ruth can guide me to success.

Chef Gresser’s Response

Here is Chef Gresser’s response to my email. There is a lot of great information in it for anyone who enjoys making pizza at home.

I can’t tell you the reasons you preferred your friend’s pizza over your own, I will give you some general thoughts on pizza making and the wood-burning oven.

I find that the three main factors contributing to the final pizza you make are

the texture of your dough
the way the dough is handled and
the temperature at which the pizza is cooked.
The discussions proceed from there to the variations due to the different ingredients used, the rising times and temperatures, and the cooking methods used.

I believe that the dough should be soft, supple and well hydrated. This kind of dough requires less movement to stretch and results in a nice oven spring and an open structure in the crust. Because the dough is easy to work, you can stretch the dough using either a rolling pin, or your hands, or a combination of the two.

Dough worked solely by hand will produce a more varied crumb, but not necessarily a better crumb. The main thing to remember is that if you use a rolling pin, do not treat the dough aggressively or roughly. If you work the dough too roughly, it will loose more of the structure you have created during the rising than is necessary, and it may not recover in the oven.

Finally, there is a wide temperature range to be discussed, with the minimum temperature needed to make a pizza of the quality I believe you are looking for being 600-650 degrees. The range goes from there to 800 or 900 degrees. We cook our pizza at 650 degrees, and the pizzas take about 5 minutes to cook.

The higher the temperature, the less time the top of the pizza will take to cook. This obviously means that the crust needs to be completely cooked that same time frame. We keep our temperature on the lower side because the pizza we make is not too thin in the center and has a corona that is bready in style of crumb and texture. By cooking it at a relatively lower temperature, the crust is given time to cook thoroughly without scorching excessively.

As I said earlier the conversation continues from here. I would suggest you focus on these three areas first and develop a pizza that you find appealing. If you still think that your pizza can use improvement, start experimenting with different flours, leavens and risings.

Hope this is helpful and I look forward to hearing back regarding your results.

Have fun and Eat Your Pizza,
Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza

Easy Recipe For Pizza


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