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Raw pizza toppings

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Kris

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We have always used pre cooked pizza toppings. Thinking of maybe using raw but trying to figure out how to use them.

Do you pre cook and then top or do you keep them raw in make table and just add to pizza?

Stuff like Italian sausage and beef.

Thanks for the input.

Kris
 
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When I started in pizza a couple of decades ago, we actually did use raw ingredients on pizzas. Too much danger of cross contamination now. However, we will most likely will be precooking our own ingredients as we have not found a product we liked yet. Burke was pretty good, but it still lacked the texture we are looking for.

It is much easier using precooked though.
 
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Kris:
We have always used pre cooked pizza toppings. Thinking of maybe using raw but trying to figure out how to use them.

Do you pre cook and then top or do you keep them raw in make table and just add to pizza?

Stuff like Italian sausage and beef.

Thanks for the input.

Kris
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I’m trying to think of the benefits of using raw sausage or beef on a pizza.

I haven’t come up with any yet.
 
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td_VP192:
I’m trying to think of the benefits of using raw sausage or beef on a pizza.

I haven’t come up with any yet.
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More grease… where is the bulk of the flavor… in the grease.
 
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td_VP192:
I’m trying to think of the benefits of using raw sausage or beef on a pizza.

I haven’t come up with any yet.
Click to expand...
I’ve used this analogy on the board before, but I I really think it’s true: If you went to a steakhouse, would you be OK with them taking a pre-cooked steak out of the refrigerator and re-heating it? I’m guessing not, but that’s exactly what happens when using pre-cooked meats on pizza. Meats have their best flavor when they are served immediately after being cooked… not cooked, frozen, stored, shipped, thawed and re-heated.

Dewar’s got a major point though… using raw meats means being MUCH more careful about cross-contamination, but that’s just part of running a kitchen. There aren’t many kitchens out there that don’t deal with some kind of raw meat, and they all handle the cross-contamination issue.
 
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In order to mass produce the toppings and to keep the texture consistent, additives and such must be added. Even the higher end products taste mass produced to me. I had a pizza at a small pizzeria in Dallas some months back and the sausage on the pizza was wonderful. I asked the waitress and she said the owner was very proud of it and cooked it himself. You could taste a definite difference.

As much of the cross contamination occurs during assembly of the pizzas (including garnishment afterwards), we will not be putting raw meat on them. However, we will be cooking our own meats separately and before they hit the make table.
 
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yes go ahead use your pre cooked toppings , you can also purchase your dough frozen from a vendor,try to make it very easy on your kitchen and down the road you are going to wonder why you do not have good sales
my advice is not to use precooked . go as FRESH as possible
good luck
 
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I think we’ve officially split the topic…

The definition of pre-cooked isn’t being used the same by everyone.

Some folks seem to be talking about rabbit pellets – stuff bought frozen, pre-cooked, from their supplier.
Others are talking about cooking the meat on-site but prior to being placed on the pizza.

Sausage != steak.

Fresh (uncooked) sausage on a make-line is an opening for cross-contamination – not to the other products on the make line (which are assumed to also be pizza toppings and thus cooked regardless), but from the raw pizza to the cooked pizza (slow period, the pizza maker is the phone guy and the oven guy).

Cooking sausage for same or next day in-house as part of prep cuts down cross-contamination concerns GREATLY.

If you want to test how important some grease is to the flavor, cook some ground beef. Drain half, and drain and wash the other half (rinse it good). Now taste each. The drained beef will have a ton more flavor than the rinsed beef. The only thing you washed off was the grease.
 
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snowman:
Cooking sausage for same or next day in-house as part of prep cuts down cross-contamination concerns GREATLY.
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I think the whole split is definite . . . that said, I find anyone who still uses raw pork or beef on a pizza make station to be a bit on the foolish side of life and begging for food borne illness. Plastic gloves or not, there’s gonna be someone who makes a pie, the goes straight to the oven or boxes - over and over.
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snowman:
If you want to test how important some grease is to the flavor, cook some ground beef. Drain half, and drain and wash the other half (rinse it good). Now taste each. The drained beef will have a ton more flavor than the rinsed beef. The only thing you washed off was the grease.
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If you are sauteeing the meat, then you are also washing away the fond/crust that has developed on the meat itself. Point is well taken that sausage and beef fat carry big flavor - they also carries flavors to the taste buds, even when it isn’t the flavor source. (Gotta say that a 25% fat sausage will create quite a pool of grease if cooked from raw atop a pizza.)

I’ll be blending and stvffing my own sausages by March, I hope. Fontanini may be good, but I will hold mine up to theirs most days (1450’s recipe). Cool factor of hand stuffed links will score huge in the marketplace (I hope).
 
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we’re going to be getting most of our meats, especially the ground beef and the sausage from our local butcher. okay, I’m a west coaster so i know this is different in some parts but around here a lot of people are health conscious, even when eating pizza, when I go somewhere and theres a pile of grease on top of my pizza I find it very unappealing, so the thought of that sausage cooking in all that grease on top of my pizza…ugh…nasty, but again different region, so I know in chicago its pretty common place to do it that way. if you start doing it, I’d love to know how it goes over with customers!!
 
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Wow, I wish these two site would just merge. I posted in great detail on the other site, along with pictures. I know Kris will see it as she posts there a lot. I do not have the energy to repost here. And I think linking is a no no, is that correct? :lol:
 
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Posted for thepassionofthecrust:

Code P is a raw bulk sausage. It goes on raw and cook on top of the pie.

I have tons of raw meat in my store. I dice season and cook my chicken.

I have raw wings.

I season and prepare my ground sirloin.

And of course the code P which I also use in my meat sauce.

Look at nicer restaurants,(steak houses, seafood etc) they get all their meat in raw. I think as pizza people we all just got used to thins premase pre prepped food.

No one in my area uses it, and all their sausage is dried out and hard.

Same with the chicken, yuck.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh175/thepassionofthecrust/planetpizza019.jpg

That is exactly how it goes in the oven. Not the size, you do not want to go bigger, or it won’t cook all the way through.

Here is the finished product, I call it the carnivore combo.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh175/thepassionofthecrust/planetpizza030.jpg

These are the Cambros I was talking about. You put them in the freezer for 8 hours and the will stay frozen, even if not in the line for 8 hours. Great for catering or outside events.

Not cheap though, and terrible customer service.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh175/thepassionofthecrust/196047505669.jpg
 
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