Pizza Pizza Pizza - Sauce

After creating a masterpiece of a base for your pizza, you need to lavish it with the best tomato sauce you can.  The sauce is the element that underpins the whole taste of the pizza and is also the bed that all the other ingredients rest upon.  It should be rich and flavoursome but simple enough not to overpower the class of the toppings you expect to put on it.

There is nothing fancy in a tomato sauce.  It can be as simple as just tomatoes but usually a little pepping up helps the overall depth of flavour.  Firstly, do not be shy or embarrassed about using tinned tomatoes - they are your best option when making sauces like this.  But, make sure you buy the best tinned tomatoes that you can.  Pizza enthusiast the world over agree that San Marzano tinned tomatoes are the best ones, but they are hard to find.  Me, I use Napolina chopped tomatoes and they have always worked well for me and they are available everywhere.  I use the chopped ones as they are the same price and they're getting mashed anyway so a lot of the work is already done.  Cirio are also good.

The Sauce.
1 x 400g tin of tomatoes (should make enough sauce for 4 pizzas)
1/4 tsp of fresh ground black pepper (or whatever suits your taste)
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 to 1tsp of dried oregano

That is all you need to make a perfectly good tomato sauce.  Mix all the ingredients together, mash it down a bit with a fork or at potato masher - but do not blend or blitz it.  You will make it too smooth and most likely will crush all the bitter seeds.  You want a bit of a lumpy texture to this anyway.  Leave it in a covered dish in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavours develop and that's it done.

Note - if you are cooking your pizza in a wood-fired over, then there is no real need to cook the sauce first as wood-fired ovens are so hot they cook the sauce on the pizza (but sometimes I do).  However, if you are cooking the pizza in a regular oven (on a pizza stone) then you may want to cook the sauce through.  This thickens it a bit as well.  Once cooked, put into a covered dish and let it sit to cool and then store in the fridge till required.

Optionally for the sauce you can add any of the following:
1 tbsp of fresh, torn up (not chopped) basil leaves
Some very finely chopped or grated garlic to taste
A large splash of red wine vinegar
1tbsp of good olive oil

There you have it.  Perfect pizza sauce without that store-bought stink you get from sauce in a jar.

Ciao and enjoy.

Coming soon - dressing a pizza and cooking them to perfection.  In the meantime, here's a sampler to get you in the mood :-)

Oatcakes, just oatcakes ma'am.

Simple, quick and better by a country mile than the shop bought pieces of cardboard you get.

Recipe 1.  Courtesy of, well actually stolen from, Colin at Bread in Fife.  This makes 9 oatcakes about 3" in diameter.

• 215g medium oatmeal
• 10g coarse or pinhead oatmeal
• 25g butter at room temperature or 20g olive oil (or sunflower oil)
• 4g salt
• 4g soft brown sugar, optional
• 100g of boiling water

Preheat your oven to 160degC and have a rack on the middle shelf.

Mix together all the dry ingredients, rub in the butter and then add the water and mix well.  If the mixture is very wet and sticky, leave to stand for a minute and then get to work.  The mixture should be wet but firm enough to make into balls without sticking to your hands.  However, if it is too dry you will have problems shaping your oatcakes.

100g of boiling water and the dry mix.

Take a large walnut sized ball of mixture (about 40g) and roll into a ball, then press flat.  Put it onto a dry, clean part of the worktop (no flour) and either roll out with a rolling pin, flatten with you hand or do as I do and place the dough scraper (the red thingy) on top and press flat while spinning the scraper.  The actual shape is far less important than an even thickness.  Use the side of the scraper to tidy up the edges and get rid of the 'raggedness' as these will just burn first and fall off if you don't.

Flatten and shape your oatcake.

 The oatcake WILL have stuck to the worktop so use the scraper to slide under and lift it off and place it on your baking tray.  The baking tray should be cold and not floured or greased.

Slide it off with the scraper.

Make all 9 oatcakes and once the tray is full, put them into the preheated oven for 40 minutes at 160degC.

Ready to bake.

DO NOT let them burn as they will taste horrible.  They are ready when they are firm and do not bend when you try to lift them.  To test if they are fully done, turn them over and if there is any 'softness' in the middle or you see what is obvious damp patches, then put those ones back in the oven for a couple more minutes, bottom side up.

Let them cool on a wire rack until cold and then tuck in either plain or with chunks of cheese, pickle and/or mustard.

Cool on a wire rack

The darker looking ones are my take on Colin's Cheesy Chilli ones.  Make and bake in the same way as for the plain oatcakes and here is my recipe (makes 6)

• 100g of medium oatmeal.
• 10g of olive oil
• 4g of salt
• 1 tsp of hot chilli powder (or smoked paprika I used this time)
• 1/2 tsp of onion powder
• 1/4 tsp of white pepper
• 4g of soft brown sugar
• 20g of very finely grated strong Scottish Cheddar
• 45g of boiling water

Mix all the dry ingredients, add the oil and mix through well.  Add the cheese and mix well then add the boiling water and mix very well.  Then continue as for first recipe.

Enjoy.

Pizza Pizza Pizza - Base

There's only one kind of pizza - a good one.  The rest are all crap and there is a lot of crap out there, a lot!  You must start with a good, fresh dough and to get a good dough, you really should start the day before.  Good dough cannot be rushed and it needs time to develop.  Would you build your house on a base of crap?  No, so please don't try and build your pizza on one.  Here's the recipe for the perfect pizza dough.  When making bread and pizza dough you need to be precise so measure everything by weight instead of volume.

For 'N' number of 200g pizza bases you need:
N x 125g of flour
N x 75g of water (60% hydration - some people like 65%)
N x 2.5g of salt
N x 0.25g of instant yeast (yes, that little)

For example, if you want to make 4 pizza you will need:
500g of flour
300g of water
10g of salt
1g of instant yeast.

People will argue until they are blue in the face about what type of flour to use and it is a matter of preference, but to get the best results you need a good quality flour.  If you can get Italian 00 grade flour (the same type they use for pasta) then use that, but a good stoneground, strong white flour also works well.  Supermarkets sell many different types these days.  Check the label for the protein content, the higher the better, but you re looking for 12 or 13% at least.  Best of all, experiment with different types and see how they cook out.

Making the dough:
Start the day ahead if possible but if not, as early in the day as possible for as late a cooking as possible.  There's no hard and fast rule, but try to allow at least 8hrs for rising and resting.  Resting being a very important part.  You can't stretch out a dough that hasn't rested enough as it'll keep springing back and drive you nuts.

You can mix all the ingredients by hand from scratch (the best way) or you can initially mix them all up in a mixer until they are combined, but stop as soon as they are - you do not want to heat the dough at all.  For the by-hand method, put the flour on a clean work surface, make a well in the middle, pour in all the water and then add the salt and yeast.  Gradually combine the flour into the water until it all comes together to form a ball.  Now you are at the same stage as if you used the mixer as above.  Kneed the dough until it is smooth and elastic.  The smoother the better, but you can give yourself a bit of leeway if you are going to let the dough rise for longer.

If you have made dough for 4 pizzas, divide the dough into 4 equal portions and form into a ball by rolling and tucking the dough under itself.  Put each ball into a lightly oiled tub that has a lid.  See photo -

Put the tubs into the fridge and rest over night.  Then next day, take them out of the fridge and let them rise for about 6hrs at 26degC or 8hrs at 15degC or somewhere in between.  Once it has roughly doubled in size, they it's ready to use.  Tip one out onto a floured surface then shape/stretch it out to the size you want and then it's good to go.  Do not kneed the dough first as this will 'toughen' it up again.  Handle it as little as possible and with TLC and you'll end up with a thin base, thicker edges and a base that will cook to perfection.

Follow up posts will include pizza sauce, pizza toppings and cooking pizzas.  Ciao!

If you want to get really into pizza, then see here for further info.
AVPN - Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana
AVPN - A PDF file with all you need to know.