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Via TaMara of Whats4DinnerSolutions, this week’s Food God is JeffreyW:
I’ve Been Dreaming of a White Pizza
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Not sure why but I got a notion to build a pizza with a white sauce today. I surfed around looking at recipes and went with what I would call a Mornay sauce if it was over pasta. Just a basic white sauce, a roux of flour and butter with milk added and cheese stirred in as it thickened. I grated some Parmesan and Romano for this one, about 2 cups. The white sauce was 2T each of butter and flour and a cup and a bit of milk. I splashed in a wee bit more milk when it looked like the sauce was a bit thick. I ended up troweling it onto the pizza dough. I stirred in some dried basil, was really wishing I had some fresh, and five cloves of smashed and minced garlic.
I layered in slices of mozzarella, and added blanched broccoli and diced grilled chicken. Grated some more Parmesan on top but I don’t think it was needed.
This went into a 375 oven. I looked in after 12 minutes and saw that it wasn’t even close yet. I took the opportunity to brush some olive oil onto the crust. The sauce and the mozzarella combined into a roiling bubbly sea with islands of green dotted about and I was worried that the pizza would be a bust. It was smelling great, at any rate. I lost track of the time but I’d guess it was in there for another 20 minutes. I pulled it out when the top was showing some nice color.The sauce was still very liquid as it came out but it set up nicely as it cooled a bit and wasn’t runny, relieving me of that particular worry….
Much more, including JeffreyW’s recipes for “Deep Dish Pizzas, a variety of pita pizzas and an array of pizzas topped with his Awesome Sauce” at the link. Give TaMara some click love!
Next week’s Swap Topic: Rice.
Martin
375? Pizza wants heat. Fire up your barbecue, crank it up to 700 and then you’re getting somewhere. Chuck in some wood chips for flavor.
asiangrrlMN
Want. Jeffrey W’s food pr0n always makes me so jealous – and hungry!
txvoodoo
@Martin: You’re right! Although most home-use ovens won’t go that high. But I’d go at least 475-500 for a good pizza.
lawrence
bechamel, thickened milk sauce, usually precludes adding cheese on top (read marcella hazan’s classic italian cooking…worth every penny). also, at least 500 F. sorry, i don’t mean to be snotty, just trying to help (i used to cook for a living).
scav
Had a white sauce pizza that was walnut and sage once that nearly made me weep. that simple. that good.
Xecky Gilchrist
I made a pizza for dinner this very evening! A variation on the Epicurious margherita topped with vegan sausage along with the mozza. Pretty darn yummy!
ETA: yeah, 375 is chilly for a pizza. 500 degrees with a pizza stone for me!
But whatever temp it was cooked at, the white pizza in the post looks terrific.
Wag
My favorite pizza has a hand thrown thin crust (extra semolina flour for structure) brushed with homemade pesto, topped with asiago, fresh tomatoes, hot sausage, then grilled at 500 degrees. Add some freshly chiffonadded basil or arugula and sprinkled with toasted pine nuts
Tastes like summer from my garden.
Just Some Fuckhead
Are you cheating on me with JeffreyW?
Suzan
you are evil. White pizza is my favorite. Our local used to deliver it but dropped it. How hard is it to make the crust?
Wag
I see a recurring theme of high heat, which I fully support.
But if you’re making a thick crust pizza, longer and lower sounds fine to me.
spudvol
Pizza Making
ruemara
I’m making a garlic shrimp pizza for sat. trader joe’s garlic pizza dough, some chopped up garlic shrimp and enough cheese to choke a horse.
jeffreyw
I see that I failed to note that this was a cheese crust pizza, mozzarella was rolled into the edge. A thick cheese crust like this wants a longer time at a lower heat to fully melt the cheese within.
TaMara (BHF)
@Just Some Fuckhead: I want you to know, I am checking in from my undisclosed location only to see if you showed up. Hi honey ;-)
TaMara (BHF)
@jeffreyw: Oh, you know they’re only happy when they can whine about something.
Okay, have fun, back to my vacation.
jeffreyw
@Suzan: Lots of crust recipes out there, all claiming to be the best evah! I used this recipe, doubled, for the crust. It worked pretty well.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TaMara (BHF): Hi
Xecky Gilchrist
@jeffreyw: Aha, gotcha. I’ve never tried the filled-crust thing before, must correct that oversight!
jeffreyw
@Xecky Gilchrist: I find that the string cheese snack things work great for this. Be sure to get real cheese, I failed to do that one time, grabbed some kind of cheese-like product that didn’t melt. Made good re-bar though, giving the pie a remarkable structural strength.
SiubhanDuinne
Fixed for truth.
barath
Here’s my recipe for a thin-crust low-calorie (but very tasty) Garlic-Kale pizza. (It’s not really authentic because I made it up, but we like how it’s turned out when we’ve made it this way.)
1. First follow this foccacia bread recipe:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/baked-good/recipe-moms-rosemary-focaccia-030668
2. When the dough is ready, rip it in half and use a rolling pin to flatten the dough onto a baking tray with olive oil. Let it rise, ideally for at least and hour, but 20 minutes is enough.
3. Separately, chop the kale and slighly brown it on a pan with a little olive oil.
4. Once the dough has risen, lightly dab tomato sauce on the dough. Add kale. Take 3-6 cloves of garlic and squeeze them through a garlic press onto the kale mix. Add some of your favorite cheese (we’ve used everything from cheddar to goat cheese to asiago).
5. Bake for about 20-30 minutes at 400F.
Lyrebird
Hm… I did click over — lovely azaleas!! — but I see more comments here. For anyone trying to go gluten free, try this crust first:
http://www.nourishingmeals.com/2009/12/thin-buckwheat-pizza-crust-gluten-free.html
It works without any sweetener, and it’s super easy… Mmmmm it’s easy if (like me) you substitute store bought buckwheat fl (only use about 2/3 the volume, or add water big time) rather than doing things with fancy machines (vita-mix in this case). (Ali Segersten actually knows how to COOK, unlike some other fancy machine enthusiasts I might mention… Miaow.)
dogwood
I do a Greek pizza that people really like. Good thin crust, standard white sauce, topped with roasted garlic, Greek olives, onions and feta.
J.W. Hamner
A pretty interesting way to make Neapolitan pizza st home is the “skillet-broiler method” from Kenji at Serious Eats. It’s pretty effective and doesn’t heat up your whole house like warming up a baking stone does… gives better leopard spotting too. I made this Fontina, Parmigiano, And Oregano Pizza using his methodology. The only pain is cleaning the burnt flour out of the skillet after.
metalgirl
@dogwood: recipe, please (quantities, measurements, etc.)
Origuy
Since it’s a food thread, some good news about the Pacific salmon season.
Craig
Okay, can I give you a really crazy one? My lovely wife had this in Rome, and we often try to recreate it. Make yourself a nice bechamel sauce, spread it on the dough, and sprinkle on (a) fresh rosemary, (b) shredded potatoes (the “Simply Potatoes” brand in the supermarket is handy for this), and (c) a bit of coarse salt and fresh-ground pepper. Sounds insane, but it’s really quite wonderful.
Mousebumples
If anyone has a good recipe (including a step-by-step process) on how to make Chicago-Style Deep Dish, I’d appreciate it. (My one attempt was a massive failure that gave me more of a soup-like thing in a “bread bowl” than a pizza.)
I had a great place (in Iowa, even) when I was in college, but no one near me now makes a decent Chicago-style pizza. (And, no, I’m not driving 3+ hours to Chicago for pizza.) If there are any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
GregB
Proof that progressives and liberals are the real racialists.
White pizza!
Why do you hate Thomas Sowell?
Punchy
Za starts and stops with Gumbys, yo.
k9ml
I work in a pizza joint, repair pizza ovens and used to own a restaurant. Hot, hot oven for pizza, thin or stuffed. Grew up in an Italian-American parish on the west side of Chicago. Chicago style pizza is a really basic dough and ingredients. Not much sugar and tart tomato sauce.
Suzan
@jeffreyw:
Thanks. But really, 24 hours? Yeast? No cheater recipes?
Violet
@Suzan:
You can use that recipe at Step 5, which only takes 1.5-2 hours. Not a short time, but shorter than 24 hours!
Martin
@Suzan: Can’t cheat fungal growth. The good news about pizza dough is that it freezes really well. I usually mix up 3-5 batches, give it a rise, punch it down and freeze it. On pizza days, I have my wife take one or two out of the freezer at lunch and let it rise on the countertop. It’s ready to go when I get home.
dogwood
@metalgirl:
It’s not a pizza that I got from a recipe book. I just threw it together once and it turned out. I use the pizza crust recipe from Joy of Cooking. I think any standard white sauce recipe will do. I’ve made so many white sauces I don’t use a recipe or measure any more. As far as the toppings go, just put on the amount that seems balanced to you. I would recommend not overdoing the feta though. I know this isn’t much of a recipe, but one of the reasons I cook, but don’t bake, is the fact that I can’t stand to follow recipes or adhere to exact measurements.
Schlemizel
@Mousebumples:
I have not made deep dish in a long time – the kids didn’t like it & it was extra putzy work so I just let it go. I’ll see if I can dig up my recipe in the morning.
As I recall one of the keys was to use canned roma tomatoes, well drained and chopped in place of the sauce. I also browned off the sausage so it would be less grease in the pie. Then I would layer cheese over the crust first to help seal it off, load in the veggies, mushrooms, sausage whatever and bakr around 425 for half an hour. Sometimes there will be a lot of juice from the veg, I’d drain it out before serving.
I thought about browning the veggies before too to dry them out a bit but worried about overcooking by the time the pie was done. Might try that if I ever decide to give it a shot again
Schlemizel
@Suzan:
After the kids came along I cheated all the time & bought pre-made crusts at the grocery store. The younger two both worked pizza joint kid jobs & I buy dough from their places, most of the usual suspects will sell you dough I believe. I’d kneed in garlic & herbs some times depending on mood & toppings.
I guess I’m lazy enough that this works for me. I’d make dough but don’t feel I HAVE to make it.
sfinny
Well, I am lazy and single so my pizza recipe has devolved to the Salad Bar Pizza. Stop at the grocery store and buy some Nan bread, fresh mozzarella, veggies from the salad bar like onions, mushrooms, olives, peppers, broccoli. Get home and throw it all together on the pizza stone. Dinner!
Greyjoy
Trader Joe’s sells pizza dough in their refrigerated department. I myself will be attempting a pizza soon with dough made in my bread machine. What’s the best thing since sliced bread? A bread machine. You add the ingredients and it does all the work! I love technology.
One of the reasons I bake is because then I get an entire cake for $5 worth of ingredients. And that’s using top-notch ingredients.
Mnemosyne
@Mousebumples:
Cooking Light, of all places, has a good deep dish recipe. I used the refrigerated dough from Trader Joe’s rather than making my own. You need to make it in something like a cake pan or pie tin — you’ll never be able to get the sides to stand up on a flat pan.
For the real Gino’s East taste, you put finely-ground cornmeal in the dough and use it to coat the pan.
Yutsano
Yeast hate me. Like with the fire of a thousand suns hate me. I’m on their Most Wanted list. So I go with the pros here.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, one of my co-workers had his first slice of Chicago-style deep dish (there’s a place in Burbank that makes it now) and he said, “It’s like lasagna pizza!” Which I thought was a pretty accurate description, myself.
@Yutsano:
Seriously, Trader Joe’s refrigerated fresh dough will do everything you want. Just make sure to let it warm up to room temperature before you start messing with it. You guys do have TJ’s in the PNW, right? If not, Whole Foods makes some, too.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: There’s one not too far that is a massive traffic nightmare to get to. But one of my co-workers also happens to live over another one. It’s further, but MUCH easier on the traffic side of things. The Seattle street system was designed by engineers on peyote.
Daaling
If you want white sauce pizza it’s pretty hard to beat Pappa Murphys. The key is whole milk mozza cheese. That is what makes their pizzas so good. There are numerous recipes that do a not bad job of duplicating their recipes. Just remember to use whole milk cheese to get it as close as possible.
http://tammysrecipes.com/gourmet_chicken_garlic_pizza_copycat_papa_murphys
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
I like Shirley’s pizza recipe from the teebee show “Community.” To wit: Cream cheese & ketchup.
The prophet Nostradumbass
When it comes to pizza, if I make my own dough, I use a recipe from the Il Fornaio baking book. It’s a very nice dough.
handy
Lord, an actual topic to which BO_Bill could add to the discussion and the guy doesn’t even show up.
Anyway, I’m pretty much a pizza whore. Or, rather, if pizza were a woman, my standards are damned low. I like Dominos, Pizza Hut (but only when I feel really dangerous), the Costco combo slice, DiGiorno’s–all that slop. Of course if I’m in NY I lurv me some Ray’s. And margherita pie in Naples is definitely a must-eat experience. I’m just saying I’ll eat pretty much any kind.
Thinner the crust the better, naturally.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
If you are referring to the Joe Mantegna place, then, yes it is. I had Lou Malnati’s the one time I visited Chi and–OMG–that was good stuff. Not pizza really. But damned good.
Mnemosyne
@handy:
Nope, it’s a new place called Prizzi’s Pizza, on Riverside near Hollywood Way. The Joe Mantegna place is Taste Chicago and, sadly, is not very good. If you want Chicago-style thin crust, Casa Bianca in Eagle Rock is the way to go.
There are lots of pizza rivalries in Chicago — IMO, Gino’s East is way better than Lou Malnati’s, but friendships have broken up over which pizza is better. Apparently Giordano’s used to be really good, but my husband’s family has been disappointed every time they’ve ordered from them recently.
ETA: Sorry, the restaurant is Taste Chicago — Taste of Chicago is the annual food festival in the eponymous city.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@handy: Something I’ve noticed about pizzas, particularly the national or regional chains. There is an inverse relationship between the number of gimmicky pizza promotions they have and the quality of their product.
different-church-lady
At the rate we’re going at in the northeast, we ought to have garden fresh basil in about 2 weeks.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah Taste Chicago. Mediocre and overpriced. Agreed on Casa Bianca as well.
Mnemosyne
@handy:
I literally just tried Prizzi’s this week — it’s getting a lot of buzz and my boss read about it in the LA Times so she insisted that we go for lunch. It’s definitely the closest thing to real Chicago deep dish I’ve had outside of the Chicagoland area. Needed a little more cheese, but otherwise very authentic.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
another karmic reason i am not a billionaire:
if i were george soros, there is no way in hell i could resist some short term ad placements on the rush limbaugh bazuko circle jerk of sadness.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne: I’ve never been to Chicago, so take this how you will, but there’s a local place where I live that has “Chicago style” pizza I really like, Patxi’s. I’ve been to the one in Palo Alto.
Yutsano
Note to Burnsy: TE/GE grows a pair.
I figured this was coming. It wouldn’t shock me if a huge church crackdown is next.
(oh, forgot, Hufflepuff link.)
Martin
@Yutsano: Religious Freedom!
Daaling
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I have been to Chicago and went to Pizza Uno. Apparently that is the place that invented Chicago deep dish pizza. I wanted to get that 12″ for 2 people and they said 9″ would be plenty. I couldn’t see how but they were right. 9″ wide but probably 3 or 4″ thick.
Yutsano
@Martin: Oh yeah baby. You can enjoy all the religious freedom you want, but the IRS will kiss your tax-exempt status good-bye if you keep trying to shove a political agenda.
Martin
@Yutsano:
But I worship free market Jesus, and Grover Norquist is my pope. Forcing me to pay taxes goes against my religious liberty.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Daaling: That’s pretty much the experience I have had at Patxi’s.
Yutsano
@Martin: Suck it up champ. You gots a choice: you can churchify, or you can political active-like. You wanna do both, you’re gonna hafta explain to Grover where your tax-exempt status went. And vaya con Dios.
Martin
@Yutsano: I wonder if that would primarily affect the placement of ballot initiatives. The church support behind Prop 8 was pretty well documented.
dogwood
Back to pizza. A local favorite that is sold in a family owned pizza joint in my small community has a mustard sauce topped with German sausage, onion and sauerkraut. It’s great. They’ve made a fortune off that pie.
Yutsano
@Martin: Right now they’re starting on just the 501 c 4 (parentheses left out on purpose, FYWP), but the chain could lead back to some large church organizations as well, including the Catholics and the Mormons. Remember: they got Al Capone like this too.
Joey Maloney
OMG, did y’all see Jon Stewart last night? If you didn’t, go watch it on the web. He de-fucking-molishes Hannity and the Breitbartpocalypse. Remember what he did to Glenn Beck? This is better.
Schlemizel
I think I use to do this in a spring form pan because it was easy to clean. I olive oiled the pan & dusted with corn meal because thats the impression I got from our Chicago experiences. If you try this please let me know how it goes.
1 lb Italian sausage (bulk not links)
1 28 oz can plum tomatoes, well drained & chopped
1 ts. dried oregano
1 ts. dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried basil leaves
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper (or to taste)
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 lg green pepper, quartered, seeded, and thinly sliced
2 med to sm. onions, thinly sliced
12 oz sliced Mozzarella cheese
1 C (4 oz.) shredded Mozzarella cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese (as desired)
Chop the tomatoes and place in a bowl (I sometimes put them in a collander to help them drain). crush the garlic and mix into the tomatoes along with the herbs. Let sit while you do the rest Brown the sausage, stirring to break up the lumps; remove to a paper towle with a slotted spoon to drain. Add the sliced mushrooms, green pepper, and onions to the sausage drippings an saute briefly, no more than 2 minutes. Drain them too.
To assemble the pizza, place the sliced Mozzarella in a single layer on top of the pizza dough. Tear the slices to fit, so most of the surface of the dough is covered. Distribute the browned sausage over the cheese, then the sauteed vegetables mixture (still crisp, but draining off any moisture that has accumulated). Add half of the chopped tomato mixture, distributing it evenly over the vegetables. Sprinkle on the shredded Mozzarella and distribute the remaining tomato mixture. Sprinkle the top generously with grated Parmesan cheese.
Bake in a preheated 450 degree oven about 25 minutes or until the edge of the dough is browned and the cheese is melted. If the vegetables have cooked out a lot of juices, tip the pizza
Abo gato
I got a Traeger grill a month ago or so and I have been making killer pizzas in it. The grill rocks. It uses wood pellets to fire it up. Very little waste, very little ash to clean. The thing kind of works like a wood fired convection oven. Top temp is a little over 450. With a pizza stone in there, my thin crust pizzas have been cooking in about 12 to 15 minutes. I made a slightly thicker crust pizza the other night and cooked it for about 22 minutes. That pizza had home cured bacon, kale, red onions and pesto sauce. Amazing stuff. For the crust, I’ve been using the artisan bread in 5 minutes a day pizza recipe. You make a bin of it and keep it in the fridge. Take out a chunk, roll it out and you are ready to go. I also use parchment paper to roll it out and transfer it to the stone. Leave the paper for about 5 minutes of the cooking time then remove it for the rest of the time. No sticking and no failures.
Abo gato
Oh, and with the Traeger, you get a nice smokey flavor as well.
Mousebumples
@Schlemizel: Thanks for the recipe! I’ll definitely give it a try – although, I’m not sure when. I don’t have any pizza dough in my freezer right now (like others, I tend to make multiple batches of the dough ahead of time), so I’ll need an extended period of time to work on that …
Again/Still: the recipe is much appreciated. Thanks again! :)
presquevu
For the crisp, but chewy texture that is the ultimate in thin crust, high heat is essential. The kiln shelves, plate setters, and triangular prism ceramic spacers available at ceramics supply stores are all very useful in setting up a two-tier pizza stone to avoid overheating the stone by radiant heat from a hot fire from underneath in a Big Green Egg type charcoal cooker.
Cracker dough using lard and ammonium bicarbonate, with some sourdough starter rocks. With a crust this good, less is more when it comes to toppings.
Watched a local butcher make his amazing hot Italian sausage once. He used an Italian sausage seasoning mix by McCarthy Spices and Blends, a good pasta sauce for red color, water, and some Dave’s Insanity sauce for heat. Crazy good. I’ve been adding some Thai sweet chili sauce and substituting some Ethiopian hot chili powder for the Dave’s. Start with salt and pepper bulk pork sausage from my butcher, mix up, and fry a little test portion for seasoning, make final adjustments. Merguez on a pizza also hard to beat, as is lemon-minty topping for Turkish pizza, lahmacun. Have drifted from smoking as crepinettes on Holy Smokes silicone pads to smoke-braising in a Pampered Chef muffin pan, most recently with sassafras wood.
For the wood-fired flavor where not practical to cook with wood, I have smoked flour to use for dusting when rolling out.
Pretty much can’t make enough roasted garlic for a pizza party, goes even faster when roasted with smoke.
Craziest sauce ever was a mix of pomegranate molasses and coriander chutney.
Best red pepper to top with is a toss-up between nanami togarashi and Indian dry garlic chutney.
Used to typically roll up leftover toppings into a big stromboli, but at last pizza party tried throwing them in a stock pot for pizza soup analog to tortilla soup.
samara morgan
@presquevu: i agree with this. pizza stones are unbeatable, and the kiln styling rocks.
i also recommend brushing the entire crust with extra virgin olive oil before laying down the sauce and toppings.
And Fleischmans pizza dough yeast is a great shortcut for your own wild yeast sourdough capture.
Schlemizel
@Mousebumples:
NP – I like to share this stuff. I grew up in the kitchen & mostly cook by the seat of my pants now unless it is something I have never tried before. I do a lot more “toss in some stuff and mix until it feels right” than 1/4 cup this, 1 tsp that, beat for 5 minutes.
I own about 200-250 cookbooks so if there is ever anything you want a recipe for I can probably find 2 or 3 different ones & maybe throw in my experiences too.
Schlemizel
@presquevu:
Where do you get sassafras wood for smoking? That sounds really interesting!
Had not thought about smoked flour, there is another idea I am stealing 8-{D
I often roast an oven full of garlic at once because I like it in lots of things. I am going to make a roasted garlic soup this weekend; really looking forward to it.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemizel:
Layering the bottom of the crust with cheese is really the key — it prevents the wetter ingredients from soaking through and making the crust soggy.
Schlemizel
@Mnemosyne:
yes and you really want to use sliced not shredded for this work. I have also “layered” these things like lasagna, a layer of stuff then cheese, then stuff then cheese. I’d sprinkle parm in the layers
tony
@Mousebumples:
A friend of mine uses the New York cheesecake pan with the separate bottom and sides – it worked really well.
Of course, in this modern age you can get Chicago pies sent by Fed Ex…
Schlemizel
@tony:
Yeah, thats a spring form pan, its what I always used.