Ok, here's my basic pizza sauce. On lazy nights when I'm in a hurry, sure, I'll use a bit of jar sauce (I like Bertolli Tomato & Basil, real basic), Whatever you do, don't use any of the jarred sauces called "pizza sauce". Any that I've tried have been absolutely terrible. Trust me, there's nothing like making your own pizza sauce. To start with, there are two brands of crushed or diced tomatoes that you can use as a starting point. Del Monte Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Oregano and Garlic is a decent one. It has finely diced tomatoes of decent quality and taste. There isn't much sweetness so I tend to add a bit of sugar to cut the acidity. Cirio Crushed Tomatoes is a recent favorite for when I'm looking for a more Italian taste... it has a higher sugar content, so I don't add sugar when I use Cirio. The box is a bit awkward to open... be careful. But lately, my all time favorite to use for pizza sauce (and sauce recipes) is Tuttorosso Natural Crushed Tomatoes with Basil (a six pack of 28 ounce cans on Amazon, $19) . The "crushed" is so extreme that it makes the sauce in the can thick. I will always add a half cup of water or so to thin it out a bit when making pizza sauce. The flavor that this brand gives to the sauce is amazing. Ingredients 1 - 16 ounce can/box of crushed or diced tomatoes 2 tablespoons of dried basil pinch of salt 1 tablespoon sugar (unless using Cirio brand) 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil optional, 1/2 teaspoon of chopped/ground red pepper flakes (if you like heat) optional, 3 cloves garlic, finely sliced (or a tablespoon of Bellino Minced Garlic) optional, 1 small diced onion, sauteed in olive oil first Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat for 5-10 minutes, then use an immersion blender to smooth our the texture. If when using the Cirio crushed tomatoes the sauce looks a bit thick, add a bit of water (2-3 tablespoons) and blend again. When I use the Tuttorosso, there is no need for the immersion blender but I always add about 1/2 cup water. If you like a chunkier sauce, use the Del Monte diced tomatoes in your recipe but don't blend it. For a fresher flavor, combine all the ingredients and don't heat it. Simply blend to a smooth liquid and use this directly on your pizza. Heating the sauce combines the flavors cohesively while using a cold sauce on pizza gives a brighter, fresher flavor. Try it both ways and see what you think. In summer, you can simply use tomatoes off the vine to make a sauce. Drop the whole tomatoes (San Marzano plum or any paste tomato varieties types are great) into a pot of boiling water for a few seconds, then transfer immediately into an ice water bath. This loosens the skin. Remove from the ice water then using your hands, slip the skins off. Crush them in your hands then use in the recipe preparation above.
I use a small ladle to spread the sauce on my pizza, just remember... don't use too much sauce. (Store any unused sauce in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks). There are some pizzas (like a basic pizza Margherita) that are much better with a splash of sauce here and there with some of the dough showing through. And experiment: while most put the sauce on the dough first, other types of pizzas call for the cheese underneath the sauce. Your choice. Buon appetito! --Jerry Finzi If you enjoyed this post, please SHARE it with your friends. Grazie mille! When I was a young boy we would drive down to Hoboken (Click to read about our visit to a Hoboken Festival) to visit my Uncle Sal and Aunt Antionette in their red brick row house. The part I loved best was their lower floor... I suppose you could call it a basement, but it was really like a finished apartment, even though there were large, silver-painted heating pipes running along the ceiling, with the aging Nonna Finzi sitting quietly in the lower front parlor as the loud chaos of our Italian families cooked, played and teased each other. When it was warm out, the men would play and gamble and argue in the bocce court behind their vegetable garden. But most of all, I remember the kitchen down there... white subway tile running all the way up to meet the ceiling... and the big pots... and those great smells. It seems that just about every time I visited, there was a huge pot of Sunday Gravy on the stove top simmering and letting its rich smells escape through the place and into my nostrils. There seemed to be an endless supply of meatballs (polpette), sausages and brasciole. Then at Easter time there was a real treat: Pizzagaina. In our family, that's what we called it. PizzaGAINA, pronounced PEETS-a-GAYN-a. But depending on what part of Italy your family comes from, and the dialect spoken, you might hear it called any of the following: Pizzachiena, Pizza Chena, or even Pizza Rustica. A rough translation in all cases is "full Pie" with the latter being "rustic pie". Pizza Cena would mean "dinner pie". There is also another version called Pizza Ripiena that is thinner and more of a double stuffed crust pizza, and definitely not as thick as the Pizzagaina "full" pies. Never thought about it before, but maybe they are called "full" because that's how they'll make you feel. It’s usually made before Easter on Good Friday and eaten on Easter Sunday as a celebratory meat pie to break the Lenten fast. After having given up all red meats during Lent, this dish is really going off the wagon because it contains lots of different meats and cheeses. An Easter feast might also have meat in other courses, too. You can imagine in times past how a spring lamb or pig were slaughtered or even a cinghiale (wild boar) was hunted and butchered in preparation for the Easter festa--a big deal after a lean winter and Lent. Usually, a hour or two before they put out the pasta, sausages, brasciole and meatballs, my Aunt Anne would put out a tray of mixed antipasti along with the Pizzagaina for slicing. While I loved picking on a few olives, some chunks of provolone and salami, the real prize was getting a nice wedge of pizzagaina. Often it was still warm with its thick, eggy, meaty filling of salty ham, salami, chunks of hard boiled eggs and other things I couldn't identify as a kid (more than likely mortadella or capicola). There are two ways to make this Easter pie--one using thin, layered slices of cold cut meats, with the other using diced pieces of meat and sausage. The base of the filling is made with egg and cheese, something similar to a French quiche (but to my taste, far less greasy). Pretty much every family will have it's own version. My Dad would call this type of recipe ba-BOOK-kia (sp?), a Molfetese dialect word he used to mean "all mixed up together". (I never did discover what word this was--if anyone knows, let me know). While the ingredients might be similar, everyone makes it differently, and the recipe might change from region to region, perhaps a frugal habit of using up what meats were left over by the time the long winter reached Easter. Some make it looking very much like a proper meat pie in a pie pan, while most use a high sided spring form pan. Still others might make a large one in a lasagna pan, with far too many eggs (in my opinion), and cutting squares to feed a large family gathering. On Easter Sunday this year, Lucas and I set out to make our own version of this classic holiday pie... Let us know how yours turned out! Babbo Finzi's Pizzagaina For the Dough 1 pound flour (to ensure a good crust, it's best to weigh the flour) 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 sticks cold butter (1/2 lb), cut into small pieces 1/4 cup whole or skim milk, plus a little more if needed at the end 1 beaten egg with a pinch of salt to brush the crust For the Filling 32 ounces ricotta cheese (well drained, preferably the night before) 1 dash nutmeg 25 cracks black pepper 2 large eggs 1 cup sharp provolone, 1/2" dice 1 cup Fontina, 1/2" dice 1 cup smoked mozzarella, 1/2" dice 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano or caciocavallo, grated 1/4 pound Boars Head Piccolo Prosciutto or Speck, sliced 1/8" thick 1/4 pound Boars Head Pickle Pepper or capicola, sliced 1/8" thick 1/4 pound Boars Head Crushed Peppermill Turkey, sliced 1/8" thick (NOTE: You can substitute 3/4 pounds of 3-4 of your favorite meats for the above... chicken, pork, ham, boar, sweet or spicy sausage broken up, etc.) A wide array of methods are use to make Pizzagaina Making the Dough for the Crust In either a stand mixer with a dough hook, or a food processor with a blade, add all the flour and salt and mix a bit before adding the small pieces of butter. If using a stand mixer, you can mix on medium--if using a food processor, pulse until the mixture starts coming together, but don't over process or your crust won't be flaky. Drizzle in the 1/4 cup milk and the 2 eggs (You can beat them before adding it you wish). This should make a dough ball form as you continue to mix/pulse. If the ball doesn't quite form, drizzle in a little bit more milk, but stop when a ball forms, then turn it out onto a work surface lightly dusted with flour. With your hands (but without kneading), press your dough into a large ball at first, then flatten it into a thick disk and wrap in plastic wrap and set aside to rest at room temperature. Do not over mix or knead your dough or it will be dense and loose its flakiness. Making the Filling
Putting Together the Pizzagaina
You can get 8 or 9 decent sized slices out of this pie. Serve as an robust antipasto or have a slice with a salad on the side for a lunch or light supper. You can also serve a slice with a dollop of marinara on the side. It's also great for an Easter breakfast or brunch. There you have it, our Pizzagaina recipe. I hope you like it. As you can see, I made mine so the cheese has a softer, creamier texture. I think it has a better mouth-feel than some of the gelatinous or dried out versions I have eaten. I'd love to hear what you think. Boun appetito e Bouna Pasqua! (Click HERE to see a similar recipe) --Jerry Finzi You can also follow Grand Voyage Italy on: Google+ StumbleUpon Tumblr Copyright 2016, Jerry Finzi - All Rights Reserved
Here's the thing. I love pizza. Always have, always will. I loved it since I was a kid and my Mom would make it in our little kitchen. She'd give me a little ball of dough to make a tiny one just for myself. The smell would waft out into the halls in our little apartment building, and my cousins--who lived upstairs--would know it's time to invade. I also hung out at the local pizzeria when I was a teen. I worked in the back helping to make dough and sauce, folded delivery boxes and delivered for tips... and got a lot of free slices. Dripping hot, cheesy, burn your tongue heat on a cold winter's Friday night--that's the best. But it wasn't until about 8 years ago that I became determined to make my own pizza at home. A baking stone, a good cutter, bread flour and a professional oven peel and almost a year of practice and lots of so-so pizzas. I even remember one time when I forgot to put the stone in the oven and shoved the pizza off my wooden peel right onto the oven rack. What a mess! Somehow, I managed to get most of it off the rack and folded it over and made my first ever Stromboli. I now consider myself somewhat of a pizza expert. I can manipulate the dough recipe to make it more crisp, more fluffy, more thick like a focaccia, super thin and more. I can make a Sicilian style, an upside down Chicago deep dish, rustic shaped, pan pizza, heart shaped and dog bone shaped. I've even made double crust stuffed pizzas and my own version of the edge-stuffed crust. Desert pizzas are killer when we have friends over. And at Thanksgiving time there's my Thanksgiving Pizza made with turkey, stuffing, cranberries and gravy. You can't belive how good that one is. I'm so into the nuances of pizza-making that I even noticed how a rainy day has a great effect on my pizzas... rainy day pizzas and better. Now I'm going to where pizza all started. I'm going to sample pizza all around Italy. But not the tourist pizzas you get across the street from the tourist hot-spots, but the real pizzas from the little mom & pop pizzerias and bakeries. I'm going to take notes with my mouth, my tongue and my belly. I'll see if there are differences between pizzas in Tuscany, Rome, Puglia, Amalfi or the mountain villages of Basilicata. I'll take pictures when the pizza is blog-worthy. I'll come back with new recipes and perhaps a few new techniques. Maybe I'll get a brick pizza oven someday so I can make those smoky, semi-charred pizzas. Stay tuned... and have a slice on me. Jerry F. |
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