General Pizza tips & Quick Questions

I've never tried tomato puree as a base - doesn't it overpower the other flavours?

I use a very simple base - a couple of cloves of garlic fried in olive oil, then add half a tin of chopped tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes until it has 'cooked down'. If you don't like the 'bits' you could whizz it through a food processor.

I don't use cheese either - a drizzle of olive oil is delicious, keeps the toppings moist and saves a lot of fat too.

The dough is one of my favourite things about pizza so I always keep the toppings simple. One of my favourites is sliced olives, red onion, garlic, fresh herbs, a sprinkle of salt, a drizzle of olive oil - and that's it! No sauce or cheese. This way, because the dough is 'bare', the flavours from the toppings sink into it - yummy!

I cook it at the highest temp my oven will get to - 220 - for 15 mins.

Hi this is how I make my pizzas

I make the basic pizza dough
then roll it into a circle or make it into a rectangle to fit on oven dish (so yo u can cut it in squares and share it)
always make a border around pizza so toppings and cheeses do not fall out
if you make the rectangle pizza you can put different topping on each half or on four parts of it,to make a border lift and twist pizza between your fingers looks a bit like braid, all around pizza border
to spread tomato sauce evenly on pizza (I use only passata p.s. buy mine from Asda it's called Valfrutta ,as this is what they use in Italy and I am half italian so .....;) )just put some on one half of pizza and lift dish and tilt in all directions until all pizza is covered evenly with sauce .Do this so that pizza isn't soggy once cooked.In the meantime if you use mozzarella cheese I strongly recommend to drain it in a sieve for at least 10 minutes otherwise it will sog the pizza .
So next put cheese and then toppings
enjoy!:D

That is similar to my pizza sauce, which is an onion, canned chopped tomatoes (Lidls - very cheap) some dried basil or italian seasoning & some garlic (either crushed & fried with the onion, or garlic powder), and some tomato puree. Easy

For two pizzas

500g bread flour
15g dried yeast
15g sugar or honey
15g salt
and some hot water, about half a opint usually does it.
dissolve sugar in hot water

mix it all together and knead until smooth silky dough.

tomato sauce, I always have a jar of passata in the house but a liquidy rather than paste like puree will do, slice up some onions chuck in, grind some pepper over it and a dollop of garlic if you like and whatever herbs take your fancy, 1tsp or so.

then I use whatever cheese I like bit of Mozzarella for a treat, get good salami as thinly sliced as poss, peppers tomatoes, as much or as little as you like.

Then I bung it in the oven and beat back the guests while I try and slice it before it all dissappears!

Had pizza last night as a result of this thread and I thinking it has been demanded again for tomorrow!

Pooky wrote:

I never pre cook mine - I picked up a couple of cheapie pizza trays in sainsburys about a year ago - they were value ones at 97p each - they've not buckled or dented at all.....they are wonderful - I've got 3 now - 2 for pizza's one for garlic pizza bread - handy when you're entertaining - especially when they are that cheap.

good idea about the pizza trays!

so do you just freeze them on the pizza tray and cover them with clingfilm and then take the cling film off when you want to cook them and then put them straight in the oveN?