Re: ?_Lehmann:
The RECIPE BANK has some really great pizza dough formulas (use the word “dough” for your search word). When it comes to sauce, I agree with Patriot that Stanislaus is hard to beat. I’ve also become a great fan of using fresh garlic, green leaf basil, and green leaf oregano rather than the dries stuss that is so commonly used. One of my all time favorits sauces is Stanislaus 74/40 Tomato Fillets (drained). First brush the dough skin very lightly with olive oil or a blended oil, then apply about a tablespoon of diced garlic and randomly spread it around on the dough skin (don’t go for a uniform coverage) but you don’t want it all on a single pile either. Then apply about 3 fresh basil leaves torn into pieces or cut into strips, if you want to add oregano, use 5 fresh leaves cut into strips (the oregano isn’t really needed). Then apply some of the tomato fillets, again, we are not looking for complete coverage. Now it’s time to add the cheese, I like to use a whole-milk Mozzarella torn into pieces (peeled like an orange), about 4-ounces on a 12-inch pizza is right. Then add the remained of toppings and bake. An alternative to the tomato fillets is to use fresh sliced tomatoes. In either case, I think you will really like this pizza, it has a real “gourmet” appearance, and the taste/flavor is wonderful. You can actually taste all of the different toppings, plus, because you’re using fresh basil and maybe fresh oregano, your pizzas won’t be accused of causing gastric distress and heartburn with your more senior customers. If you run into resistance from the younger kids with the tomato fillets or garden fresh tomatoes, just open a can of your favorite prepared pizza sauce, add 1-ounce of powedred Parmesan cheese and 1/2-ounce of powdered Romano cheese to the can, and use this to relplace the fillets or fresh tomato. I don’t like to add garlic or onion to the sauce as it causes the pectins in the tomato to gel, thickening the sauce. This leads to us adding more water, which thins the sauce and reduces the flavor impact of the sauce. If you feel that you’ve just gotta have onion and/or garlic of any kind in the sauce, put it into a small plastic bowl of water, then microwave it until it comes to a full boil before adding it to the sauce. This helps to inactivate the material in the onion and garlic which is responsible for causing the pectins to gel.
If you can, get over to the NAPICS Show in Columbus, Ohio this year. Jeff and I will be working the Test Kitchen again and we will be demonstrating this type of pizza assembly along with out Oven Wrapped Hoagies and our Fresh Approach to Pizza Slices.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
