Praise Pizza, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Pizza, all humans here below;
Praise Pizza above, ye crispy host;
Praise Cheese, Crust, and Holy Sauce.
Amen.- “606” from the old Mennonite hymnal. Real heads know what’s up.
If I lived in 2005 and I wrote an internet comic I would describe pizza as “epic sauce,” “amazeballs,” or something equally trivial. Fortunately, 2005 occurred 15 years ago and I can’t draw, so I’ll just stick with “pizza rules.”
Cooking pizza survives as one of the few enjoyable experiences of a quarantined existence. Even in a hypothetical non-COVID ridden universe cooking pizza would still slap. Unlike many, many things both the journey and the destination of pizza construction bring enjoyment. Pizza delivers an activity both endlessly adaptable and easy to complete. Furthermore, since honesty remains of foremost importance for Dang, Dude, making pizza doesn’t have to involve that much actual cooking if you don’t want it to. Pre-made crusts, canned sauces, and pre-sliced pepperonis still sit on the shelves of most grocery stores. Hell, a dumb 5-year-old can assemble a pizza without making that much of a mess. So take heart the less culinarily inclined, you too can manufacture a perfectly delectable pizza without turning into a wannabe Grant Aschatz or David Chang.
That being said, a lot of people have a lot more time now, so why not try to take your pizza out of the simple “construction-type” and onto greener more fecund pastures? If not an Elysian Fields type pizza at least something better, or at least more interesting, than what DiGiorno or Pizza Hut. The rest of this newsletter will spell that out.
This next part is going to be controversial.
I won’t give instructions about the crust. For one, flour and yeast remain in short supply and if you can’t get them I don’t want you give up. Second – and most controversially – I firmly believe that the crust sits in dead last in the pizza part rankings. The sauce and the toppings occupy positions of more importance. Thirdly, pre-made frozen or unfrozen crusts will do the job just fine. Finally, my fav type of crust, that Neapolitan style that somehow is both chewy and soft is nigh impossible to make at home. In lieu of all that I’ll focus on the sauce and the toppings.
Below I’ve typed out some instructions for a specific type of pizza, a red-sauce caramelized onion and sausage pizza. Many other types of pizzas exist, but hopefully this will give you some guidelines to work with, if this specific type of pizza doesn’t appeal to you.
First, the sauce. The number one thing to do? Make it a day ahead. Gives time for the flavors to percolate. I don’t think a professional chef would use that verb, but whatever. My second tip? Throw in a little bit of red wine, really cuts the acidity of the tomato sauce, and gives it a nice bit of color. But what about a recipe? Keep reading bucko.
Get a couple of cloves of garlic. 2-3. Either chop them up really finely or grate them with a microplane. Put the now smaller garlic into a pot with a couple of glugs of olive oil. Cook on low until fragrant. While the garlic cooks open up a can of tomato sauce and pour it over the garlic.
Note on tomato sauce: Like if you really want to you can cook down some tomatoes for a couple of hours and then smosh them into a sauce. But even most quarantined people don’t want to do that much work. So take the can and put it in the pot with the garlic.
Now comes the part that people who actually want a legit recipe will hate – adding the spices.
When making my sauce I usually just open up a bunch of vaguely “Italian” spices and throw them in with the tomato sauce and garlic. Generally, I add rosemary, oregano, basil (fresh if I have it), thyme, salt, pepper, and a little bit of crushed red pepper. And then play around with whatever happens to sit in my spice cabinet. Maybe some sage, perhaps some marjoram, possibly parsley, or whatever. Have fun! No one can tell you what to do in your kitchen. After you’ve added the herbs, toss in some glugs of red wine. The cheapest bottle you can find works great. Then let it all simmer for a couple of minutes. Don’t let it boil.
After a few minutes, like no more than 10, let it cool down. Throw the sauce in a sealed container and put it in the fridge until you use it the next day.
I have just described a recipe for red sauce. No sauce, white sauce, pesto, BBQ also all work well for pizzas. But having a nice red sauce in the back of your pocket seems pretty cool. So try perfecting this one first.
Toppings come next. The best part of the pizza. Combinatorial mathematicians have yet to discover the outer limits of delicious topping arrangements. My uncle makes a really good potato pizza. Prosciutto has been making a comeback. Hell, I’ve seen some damn cucumbers on a pizza. Really, this shit is like Minecraft creative mode (sorry for writing this last sentence, but it came into my brain and I can’t get it out).
Toppings Note: I retain the belief that no pizza should have more than 4 toppings. Three is the sweet spot. Anything else weighs the pizza down and makes it too much a mess. For toppings think less is more
Just letting people run wild with their toppings can provide a bit of choice fatigue however. Making decisions is hard. So I’ll give you a suggestion. Caramelized onion, sausage, and gorgonzola pizza. That shit rules.
Caramelizing onions seems like a lot. It takes a while. The process is always a little finnicky. However, with just a bit of olive oil, a little heat, and a pinch of salt, the onions transform from a bitter, crunchy allium into a sweet, earthy, jammy allium that will rock your world.
Caramelization just takes time and patience. To caramelize an onion, cut it into slices. Then put a tablespoon of oil into a pan and turn the heat to medium low. Put the onions in and stir every 2-3 minutes. After they get soft and translucent, toss a little bit of salt – like ½ a teaspoon – on them. Keep them on a low heat, constantly stirring for 50-60 minutes. All the liquid eventually boils out of the onions and they start getting browner. When this happens you have to really watch them to make sure they don’t burn. Maintain the stirring until they turn golden brown and taste delicious. Now they can go on your pizza!
The sausage comes next. You could make your own, by mixing some ground pork with some spices, but I prefer to just buy the bulk Italian sausage my grocery store makes. Jimmy Dean also works. Do not just cut up some links. If you can only find links, cut them open, and squeeze out the uncooked sausage inside. Discard the casings. Now just cook it up in a pan until cooked through and crumbly.
Another area of controversy comes from my use of cheese on pizza. A lot of people love pizzas drowned in cheese. Not me. I like a little more restraint. For this particular topping combo I prefer gorgonzola. It has funky kick, and melts pretty well. Remember that a tad of gorgonzola goes a long way. You could also use ricotta, or a traditional mozzarella if you’d like and it’d be just as good.
Construction: Take your sauce from the fridge and put it on whatever dough you happened to use. The onions go next. Then the sausage and finally the gorgonzola. Doing the cheese laste helps keep everything on the pizza by melting on top of it. If you’re using a mozz you can put it on after you put the sauce on.
Now comes the baking. Follow the directions for whatever dough you used. If you made a dough, it will probably have you do it at a high heat for a short amount of time.
Once the oven has finished with the pizza, take it out and let it rest for a couple of minutes before cutting. That way the cheese solidifies a little bit and doesn’t turn into a sloppy mess.
Enjoy. Preferably with a nice cold Coca-Cola. And some chips. And maybe a bagged iceberg lettuce salad. A truly delicious meal.