I have a hankering for a homemade pizza. Any of you FoodieDopers have have any good recipes?
Rule: Must be onion and garlic-free.
This is off the top of my head, but here goes.
Ingreds.
2 cups flour
7 g (one satchet) yeast
1 tsp sugar
3/4 cup warm water
Toppings to suit.
Method
- Mix in sugar with warm water. Make sure water is only lukewarm, otherwise it will kill the yeast, and make sure it is not too cold, otherwise it won’t work as well. Mix in yeast.
- Sift two cups of flour, make well in centre. Pour sugar/yeast/water mixture into well and mix with knife. That’s very important, a butter knife works best. When mixed well, it should be moist, but not too moist, and keep together. If not, add more water/flour.
- Knead until smooth.
- Whatever you do, don’t roll it with a pin. Hand massage it out on your tray. You can leave it to rise, I usually do… but it doesn’t really matter, it’ll rise later, unless you put on really heavy ingredients.
- Spread on your sauce. And top with you favourite toppings, making sure that moist toppings (eg, mushrooms) go on last.
- Cook for… hmm… well until cheecse is brown… somewhere between 15 and 45 minutes at 180 degrees. I’m not sure what that is in farenheight.
Cheers.
Engine.
My dough recipe is similar to the one above, except with a few tablespoons of olive oil added.
However, one important tip you might want to try is to partially bake your dough before sticking the sauce and toppings on it. If you don’t, the sauce tends to seep into the dough and get it a bit mushy. I would roll out the pizza dough and stick it in a 500 degree oven. Pizza likes HOT HOT ovens. I cook it for about 7 minutes and then add the toppings.
You don’t have to do it this way, as long as you work quickly with your dough. But it’s guaranteed to give you crispy pizza.
As for toppings, start with tomatoes, olive oil, and cheese and go from there.
Oh yeh, mine is not a crispy pizza recipe. I suppose if you wanted a crispy one, rolling it out with a pin seems to do the job. To each their own.
Martha Stewart has a really good one. Go to her website and do a search for ‘Perfect Pizza’. It’s really tasty, and easy. I usually add some fresh basil to the top of it.
Those Boboli crusts at the grocery store aren’t too bad either—just pile on the toppings and cook at the temp it recommends until bubbly. The crust comes out crispy and chewy. Very easy and quick.
Tortillas work well also. Just cook em under the grill a bit first, then spread with toppings, then back under the grill.
I use the Mama Marie’s brand, and canned sauce. The trick I learned is a variation on one of the instrctions from the back of the crust package. They say to brush the crusts with vegetable or olive oil before applying the sauce and toppings. I used Italian style salad dressing instead.
Sorry, there’s no such thing.
:eek: A life (or pizza) without onions and garlic is hardly worth living (YMMV 
).
But if you’re serious, my other topping of choice would be roast peppers. Almost enough to make up for the lack of onions an garlic. And my particular favorite is pizza with roast peppers, chicken and smoked gouda. Just a thought.
Use your favourite packaged pasta sauce to paint the prepared bases. Paul Newman’s original is good for some reason. Use whatever toppings you like - last one I made I used canned Stagg’s Chili. The most recent tip I learnt was, after cutting the pizza into slices sprinkle salad leaves over it. It creates the appearance of a more substantial meal.
I don’t have a choice- they make me violently ill. But roast peppers sound mightly tasty… 
You’re allergic? I used to gag at the smell of garlic, and I couldn’t stand onion, but it’s slowly gone away. Maybe I had a bit of what you have?
<You’re allergic? I used to gag at the smell of garlic, and I couldn’t stand onion, but it’s slowly gone away. Maybe I had a bit of what you have?>
No, allergic since before I could remember. They both literally make me vomit if I happen upon just a cross-contaminated itty bit in my food. Hence the need for homemade pizza.
Eek! Evil hamsters ate my quote tags…
You’re not getting very good advice here if the idea is to make home made pizza. The link to Martha’s site is probably the best.
First and foremost, you need a pizza stone. I recommend a large rectangular one (not a small circular one) and you can just keep it right in your oven.
There’s 8 million dough recipes. The one in this thread and martha’s are probably fine.
For sauce, Martha uses canned whole tomatoes. It sounds pretty good. I use the tomato puree (not sauce, puree). It’s got a good consistency and is less work than Marthas. I heat it in a sauce pan until its the desired thickness. It’s fine as is, but you can add some honey if you want it sweeter, or black pepper or some herbs to season it. I do add a little olive oil to it.
But, think of the crust like a canvas, and the sauce like gesso. They’re not the places to get creative. Save that for the toppings.
For toppings, I’m a meat guy. I buy the packages of pepperoni (NOT turkey pepperoni) or a stick of pepperoni or get it at an italian deli. I like using the fresh mozzerella but it doesn’t have much flavor so I also add parmesan (that I grate) and/or romano and/or fontina. Find an Italian deli that has cheeses and slices pepperoni right there.
Also, hormel sells this cooked, crumbled bacon for salads (not bac-o-bits, but real bacon) that is awesome on pizza, IMO.
Pizza’s work. But if you like being in the kitchen and just making stuff, it’s a lot of fun. I put on my crappy clothes, my apron, get a couple beers ready and go at it.
For pizza sauce, I recommend starting with the following ingredients:
Peeled chopped Italian plum (Roma) tomatoes, seeds removed (canned are fine in this case, if you can’t find really ripe fresh ones. It helps to drain canned tomatoes of extra liquid.)
Extra virgin olive oil
Tomato paste
Hot pepper flakes
Salt
Pepper
(Of course, I would also throw garlic in there.)
That’s a good base. Heat some olive oil (around 3 tablespoons or more. I like a lot of olive oil). Add hot pepper flakes to the oil and cook for 30 seconds to a minute to release the flavors. Add your tomatoes. How many? Enough. Two normal sized cans will do it. (I’m bad with proportions as I do it by feel.) Simmer the tomatoes over medium-low heat. Add some point, add about a tablespoon of tomato paste to thicken the sauce. Taste. If it’s too acidic, correct by adding sugar.
If you want, you can also add: fennel seeds (my favorite), dried oregano (just don’t overdo it), chopped anchovies, dried basil. Add these in the beginning of cooking. Fennel seeds and anchovies can go in the oil before the tomatoes; dried herbs after you add the tomatoes. If you decide to use fresh herbs, add them at the very end of cooking.
Roast peppers, as have been mentioned, make an excellent topping. So do artichoke hearts, portabellas, goat cheese, prosciutto, olives, etc. Fontina cheese is my favorite all-around pizza cheese.
Tuna (canned), an egg, a few olives and/or capers
Stop looking at me like that
I’m a bit of a minimalist when it comes to pizza:
Canned tomatoes, drained and chopped
Salt
Pepper
Dried Basil
Dried Oregano
Hot Pepper flakes
Mozzarella cheese, shredded
Parmesan/Romano cheese, grated
Olive Oil
Fresh Basil
Take your dough, add the tomatoes, season with herbs n spices, top with cheese and sprinkle with olive oil. Bake until done, preferably on a stone, top with fresh basil just as it comes out of the oven, if desired.
I second this. Here aare the things I learned about making pizza over many attempts; finally I’ve got it right where I want it.
- Pizza stone is essential. There are other ways to get teh dough hot enough fast enough (tiles in the bottom of a gas oven, for example), but a pizza stone is far away the easiest method.
- A very hot oven is also very important. I do mine at 450 or 500. You want your pizza to cook quickly: this keeps the dough from overrising, and keeps the dough from getting soggy.
- Combine steps 1 and 2 by putting your pizza stone in the oven at least half an hour before putting the pizza in. This gets the stone scorchingly hot, and sears the bottom of the crust so that it gets all crispy and delicious.
- A pizza peel is really, really nice, but not absolutely essential. If you don’t have one, you can use the bottom of the biggest cookie sheet you have. Slather the sheet or the peel with cornmeal, put the prerolled crust on it, then shake it around and note where it sticks; wherever it sticks, lift it up and add more cornmeal underneath. Do this before adding the sauce and toppings, or you’ll regret it! Also check whether it sticks right before you slide it onto the stone: the worst pizza disaster is when you try to slid the unbaked pizza onto the stone, and it sticks at one corner and sort of flops upside down onto the stone :(.
- You can add herbs, poppyseeds, peppercorns, etc. to the crust to make it look interesting and give a little extra flavor; it’s easy as hell to do and impresses your guests.
Otherwise, follow your taste for ingredients.
Daniel