zom-zom wrote:

Pasta wrote:

bpchnc wrote:

zom-zom wrote:Why not just use a grill? That can make a spectacular crust.

you should quit listening to bobby flay.

Who is he?

A wife beating Celebrity "Chef".

ORLY?

If you don't know who Bobby Flay is, then you probably haven't had the pleasure of watching that Former Fratboy's Flaming Failures on the Food Network. I haven't seen too many shows where the host apparently hates what he is doing, directly, on national networks. Always a thrill...

Pasta wrote:
A wife beating Celebrity "Chef".

Is there a link to this story (the wife beating bit)? I had never heard this before but want to believe it--the guy works my nerves something fierce.

I would probably get cable if there was a show where he beat up on rachel ray every week.

I've never had Cable Tee-Vees, so I don't watch any of these irritating cooking shows.

Just like my dad never watched cop shows, I guess.

I have watched Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay kinda cracks me up sometimes. He's more like some chefs I've worked with.

zom-zom wrote:Brick ovens are great, I cooked pizzas in a wood-fired brick oven from Italy. Extremely expensive. Fairly pricey to build one as well.

Ever felt compelled to build a tandoor? I was reading up on it maybe ten years ago on the internets--apparently you take a barrel, drill a hole near the bottom for oxygen, and then line its interior with layers of concrete and pulverized glass, for insulation. I still chew on that idea sometimes--way cooler than my rusty Weber grill out back....

I've been toying with building a brick fireplace/oven thing on my backyard patio that I'm enclosing. Maybe an indoor/outdoor thing.

I also have plans for a dirt/rock/clay/stone oven that I'm going to build at our cabin someday.

Tandoor sounds interesting.

Camaro wrote:

Pasta wrote:
A wife beating Celebrity "Chef".

Is there a link to this story (the wife beating bit)? I had never heard this before but want to believe it--the guy works my nerves something fierce.

You want to believe a woman got beat up?

Uncle Ovipositor wrote:

Uncle Ovipositor wrote:1. Why did you microplane the cheese?
2. Why did you put the cheese under everything else?
3. Why on the top rack to start?
4. Why no oil in the dough?
5. Why not "A film of me making a pizza that's 2:43 seconds long" instead of "Pizza explained in 3 minutes or less?"

1. Ease. Only the romano. The mozz was shredded.

I'm not sure how this is easier. Funner, but not easier. Since romano won't melt like mozz, it's more likely to burn in smaller bits like that.

2. What do you mean? As in why did I place the toppings on top?

Yes - why are they resting on the cheese instead of under it? Generally people put cheese on top because it melts evenly while the other components bake. It also helps seal their moisture in so that the pizza doesn't get dry.

3. Less chance of browning it too quickly.

You might want to try not doing that. I don't think you're at risk of browning it too quickly - when it's brown, you're done.

4. Dough was coated in OO.

Seriously? You rolled it out and then coated it in olive oil? Or is it just that you lubed the cake pan up with it? You might want to try mixing it in and not coating it. It's not going to stick, and when the oil is in the dough you get a nice flavor out of it.

I have an idea: Stop. Where did I say I rolled it out and then coated it? Oh I remember, nowhere. Also, fuck putting the toppings under the chesse. Additionally fuck worrying about the romano burning-that's underneath EVERYTHING.

Thanks for all yer valuable advice CHEF.

PS: This response generated in three minutes or less.

Partially inspired by this thread, me and miss dined on pizza this evening. It turned out okay - I'd give it 65% on the pizzometer:



I have a fundamentally weird relationship with pizza, after dropping out of uni first time around and restarting my course I had to pay my tuition fees and rent and work thirty plus hours a week of sub-minimum wage toil to scrape by in a high street pizza kitchen - no big deal of course and hardly Dickensian misery, for the most part there was a lions-led-by-donkeys sense of camaraderie and ten years on I'm still close friends with people I worked alongside.

In all the shifts there I learned nothing about how to make good pizza and even avoided it for a couple of years afterwards but as clichéd as it might sound, I’ve come to regard pizza as one of those simple and righteous forms of endeavour, like writing a pop song using three chords.

It’s nothing like you might encounter in Naples but the two main factors that have improved my home baked efforts are:

i) use Italian double zero flour

ii) a really fucking hot oven

I’d never thought of zom’s suggestion about using a coal-fired grill before but I can see how that might work, the dough should be cooked very quickly, it should char slightly and make a crust, trapping the bubbles within.

The sauce is less important but if you have access to a good, hot oven I think raw cherry tomatoes work well, it’s a pain but if you can dip them in boiling water and peel then first then it's good to denude them of their tastless skins. Tonight I tried a bit of garlic and thyme along with them and just a touch of sugar and white wine vinegar.

Just a short walk away away from where I stayed on holiday a few weeks ago was a van that cooked pizzas to order - you'd drop by after lazing on the beach as they were making the dough in the late afternoon and pick it up a couple of hours later, each one took less than five minutes to cook and was as near to perfection as you could hope for.

Regarding my Bobby Flay Accusation. I at one time worked for a minor celebrity Chef, who attended the Culinary Institute Of America at the same time as Mr. Flay. This Chef's roommate dated mr. Flay, and he used to beat her around. If you've noticed the vacuous "Eye Candy" on his show, then you'll know he seems to be a man with a type. I dunno, everything I've heard reads, "MAJOR FUCKING SCUMBAG!".


Plus, his food's pretty fucking lame.

Hiwatt wrote:I have an idea: Stop. Where did I say I rolled it out and then coated it? Oh I remember, nowhere. Also, fuck putting the toppings under the chesse. Additionally fuck worrying about the romano burning-that's underneath EVERYTHING.

Thanks for all yer valuable advice CHEF.

Well, see, I was torn. You went to all the trouble of boasting about how you'd explained pizza in 3 minutes or less and made a movie showing how to do it, but you're movie makes you look like a fucktard making a fucktard pizza.

But I decided that since you liked pizza you might appreciate someone not pointing out what a fucktard you are and instead offering you some advice so that you could stop making fucktard pizzas and make edible pizzas before you posted films of your fucktard pizzas online and told everyone how smart you are.

My mistake. Carry on, fucktard.