Pizza And Crushed Tomatos

[kokopuffs]

A recipe in the book ARTISAN BAKING ACROSS AMERICA entitled Pizza Margherita calls for crushed tomatos. Would a can of San Marzano tomatos be suitable? Are there other suitable substitutes for crushed tomatos that anyone knows of?

Another question: what's the reason that pizza dough calls for less yeast than bread dough?

[marinboy]

Regarding the tomatoes, we're still getting great heirloom organic tomatoes this late in the season in CA but if you can't then organic italian san marzano tomatoes are your best bet. For tomato sauce for pizza I also like to use a product called Pomi... it comes in boxes and can be found at a good grocery store. Just reduce it by about half and finish it with butter (I know it's unorthodoxed but it works).
Regarding the dough, you probably have a recipe for a thin crust pizza which is my personal favorite. The less yeast the less fluffy and more crisp the dough will turn out. Hope that helps!

[kokopuffs]

Thanks and the recipe is for a Neopolitan style pizza: thin crust.

And what is "POMI" that you mentioned?

Just finished eating my first pizza-from-scratch. Marvelous. Really tasty for the most irregularly shaped pizza that I ever ate.

[Mezzaluna]

Pomi is a line of Italian tomato products made by the Parmalat corporation. They make such items as ready-made sauces, tomato purees and other products to aid in making "speed-scratch", homemade sauces. It comes in boxes (like Swanson's broth) and in jars.

http://www.parmalat-asia.com/content...08&BrandID=191

[mudbug]

kokopuffs,

Any good quality canned whole tomatoes would work as well. Just drain (unless you want to retain some of the juice) and quite literally squeeze them in your hands and let them squish out between your fingers. San Marzano tomatoes would be about as good as it gets short of a homemade sauce from Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes...

You may be interested in this thread on San Marzano tomatoes.

Nothing like fresh, homemade pizza dough for your pizza! We've got some in the oven as I type...!

[Pongi]

koko,
for a "neapolitan style" homemade pizza it would be better using whole canned tomatoes (of course San Marzano are the best) than tomato purees like Pomì. Although used in pizzerias, they're not suitable for homemade pizza, which is supposed to have a longer baking time that would overcook the tomato. For the same reason, pre-cooking the sauce isn't recommended.
I drain canned tomatoes, crush them with a fork and sprinkle with salt and some EVOO before spreading them on my pizza - rather sparingly, as pizza crust shouldn't be overwhelmed by tomato (this was the main mistake I made when I started making pizza by scratch!).
As for neapolitan pizza dough, it's supposed to be rather thin, crispy outside and soft inside - not just bread covered with tomato. This is the reason why you need less yeast and more water than a regular bread dough. This also makes easier to spread the dough. BTW, this has to be done by hand, never with a rolling pin (another mistake I made at the beginning). To prevent dough shrinking, I spread the dough on a parchment paper sprinkled with flour, without greasing it. It works very well.
As for the flour, most recipes suggest to use a blend of high gluten and double 0 flours. I generally use only a pure high gluten flour like Manitoba and I'm very satisfied of the result.

I also read on a book ("La vera cucina di Napoli" by Jeanne Carola Francesconi) that a good recipe for homemade pizza dough calls for 100 grams of potatoes, boiled and mashed, each 400 grams of flour. I never tried this recipe, so can't say how it works...but if someone will try it, I'll be glad to know the result

Pongi

[gilbear]

Pongi: I have used leftover mashed potatoes to start my pizza dough, and it works quite nicely. The dough is crisp and crunchy yet retains a nice tenderness. I have also added garlic powder and dried herbs to the dough. It's not traditional, but it makes my mouth very happy.

[kokopuffs]

Pongi and others:

Really appreciate the input. Nope, no rolling pin used here and the flour for the dough is King Arthur Bread Flour clocking in at around 13% protein. Yes, my dough was really sticky even just prior to shaping. Manually shaping the dough was done on a well floured countertop before placing it onto a well floured peel. And for god's sake don't use cornmeal on the peel because it burns very bitterly in such a hot oven.

The crust, made with love, was soft inside and slightly ever so slightly cruchy outside. It rose nicely, too. 'Twas baked for 6-7 minutes at 550 degrees, the highest temperature that my electric oven will go and seemed a bit underbrowned although the mozzarella cheese was starting to overbrown. Perhaps I'll retard adding the cheese until halfway through the bake and will brush the perimeter of the crust with water at oven time for better visual results.

What I really like the most about the Neap. pizza is its lightness - unlike what I'm so accustomed to at typical restaurants.

[Pongi]

I agree that mozzarella overbrowning is an issue for pizza homemakers who have to deal with the limitations of an electric oven. Of course, the solution is adding mozzarella halfway through the bake, but another option is mixing half mozzarella and half Stracchino (AKA Crescenza, or Certosa) cheese. Not only stracchino, which is softer and moister, prevents mozzarella from overbrowning, but also gives pizza a very nice taste. Although not "typically neapolitan", this type of pizza is very popular everywhere in Italy, both at home and in Pizzerie. The only issue is that the dough can remain slightly undercooked in the middle due to the moistness of stracchino.

Pongi

[gilbear]

Kokopuffs, are you using a Pizza stone? It gives the capabilities of household ovens a boost by retaining heat. It makes the crust nicely crisp on the bottom and gives your toppings time to develop on their own.
You might also consider using fresh mozz. instead of the kind suitable for grating. The higher moisture content seems to help. I like to quarter Boccocino and sprinkle them around.

[kokopuffs]

Yes, I'm using a 1" thick rectangular baking stone from William Sonoma, thicker than a typical round pizza stone. And the crust tastes fine although looking a bit pale.