 I was never interested in making a Neapolitan pizza. I know: heresy. Right? When I began making pizza, I didn’t even really know what Neapolitan pizza was. I grew up on a Southern Connecticut version of New York-style pizza. And one of my favorite pizzas was from the counter for Caruso’s Pizza in the old Grand Central Station. That was before they turned Grand Central into a food court surrounded by dozens of trains rushing for the suburbs.
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 AI can't make this pizza. But you can. It's simple, you're essential, and it costs under three bucks. Welcome back to Cheap The Pizza! Yes, finally! This is for you, my pizza-newbie friend. (Or maybe for you, you forever-curious experienced pizzamaker.) All this madness began because there are people who insist eating out is cheaper than cooking at home. To that, I say, “Poppycock, codswallop and claptrap!” I say you can make a pizza with an ingredients cost of under three bucks—and I’ll show you how. In the "Cheap The Pizza" intro two weeks ago, I described the ignition point: my ire was piqued by the ridiculousness of some claims around eating-out economics. Last week in How To Part I, we talked about the recipe for the dough. Today, we’re going to tweak that recipe, make a sauce, and bake a pizza. But first, we’re going to ask the age-old question: Why are we even doing this? 
Welcome to Free The Pizza's "Cheap The Pizza, Part II." The pizza in the picture above? I did it “all wrong.” Still looks pretty good, right? Tasted pretty good, too. To recap last week’s rant: it’s crazy that there are “thought leaders” claiming it’s cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. My counter example: pizza. If you’re interested, you can make a 12-inch pizza at home with an ingredients cost of under $3.00--literally, about $2.50. That pizza, hot and fresh from your home oven, tastes better than one from your local joint that charges $14.00. It’s also easy to make, and I promised to show you how. BONUS: If you’re an experienced home pizzamaker, this is an interesting exercise and it's fun. (I’ve been doing this all week long. I’m having a blast. It doesn’t get old.) Today is about two things: 1.) an overview of the process, and 2.) a simple pizza dough that requires no kneading and demands only a few minutes of hands-on time. Next week, we’re baking the pizza on an upside-down cast-iron skillet in my home oven.  Careful. I might be on a harangue. I’ve stumbled onto nonsense and horse hockey. I got angry. You’re gonna laugh. There’s a new myth thriving in Social Baloney Land. Ready? “It’s cheaper to eat out than it is to cook meals at home.” As the trolls like to say when speaking webernet-ese, BWAHAHAHA! I am now launching a counterattack on this pernicious gift of dirt gargle. Ready? I guarantee you can make a 12-inch homemade pizza for under three bucks.  What’s an anti-vampire pizza? Please allow me to answer your question with a question: Do you enjoy garlic? This is an easy-to-make pizza. (Recipe follows at the end of this post.) This pizza also sounds very minimalist--enough so that people will say, “That doesn’t sound very interesting." And that’s the beauty of it: nobody sees this pizza coming. When it arrives, they're awestruck at how crazy flavorful it is and their heads spin like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist on meth. (Is that so wrong? It's Halloween!)  Last week’s anti-political rant about the Detroit pizza served to reporters on Air Force One got me thinking: how many people even understand the thrill that is Detroit-style pizza? It’s easy to make, comes with an element of crunchy, caramelized high like none other, and it’s a total surprise how much people love it. I’ve made over 1,000 round, flat pizzas recognizable as some evolution of Neapolitan tradition. And people love them. One guy I know says my pizza has ruined him for any other. But the few dozen Detroit-style pizzas I’ve made are the ones that make people’s heads snap around in surprise.  This is a serious question, and I’d love to have your answer. I ask this because a lot of folks out there really want to understand how to make pizza. They want to be able make an artisan style pie anytime they feel like it. But there are other people who just want a recipe. They just want to throw together a bunch of ingredients and have a good, solid pizza come out the other end. These are two very different things.  PART 3 IN A 7-PART SERIES Welcome to the third point of focus for pursuing pizza perfection (knowing, of course, that perfection is unattainable). This part of the process can get people all worked up. I’m not sure why. I suspect it has something to do with a) our trust in machines, and b) the distrust of our innate abilities, which those machines have beaten into us.
Since we’ve already focused on 1) Style Of Pizza and 2) The Oven, it’s time to focus on 3) Making Dough. This is all going to sound insanely simple. Ya know why? Because it is. It's so simple, it freaks people out. And I will freely admit this: since focusing on this part of the process more, my pizza has improved considerably. And it almost happened by a glorious accident. My stand mixer was in storage and I couldn't get to it.  PART 2 IN A 7-PART SERIES.
Maybe you’ve seen the photo: a picture of what looks like The Charcoal-Tortured Dough Monster That Ate Naples. In the twisted wreckage of this pile of alternately half-baked and black-scorched pizza ingredients is a substance formerly known as cheese, some reddish, sauce-like protoplasm, and the scant remains of an unidentifiable cased meat product, all of it looking amoeba-like and desperate to escape the camera’s eye. And there’s the post that goes with it: “What am I doing wrong!? I just got my oven and I can’t get it hot enough and I’m making ugly, deformed pizza and I’ve thrown away nine of them this weekend alone and I hate life! Help me.” Welcome to Pizza Social meeting the lack of focus. |
AuthorBlaine Parker is the award-winning author of the bestselling, unusual and amusing how-to pizza book, Free The Pizza. Also known as The Pizza Geek and "Hey, Pizza Man!", Blaine is fanatical about the idea that true, pro-quality pizza can be made at home. His home. Your home. Anyone's home. After 20 years of honing his craft and making pizza in standard consumer ovens across the nation, he's sharing what he's learned with home cooks like you. Are you ready to pizza? Archives
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