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I've actually had some really good frozen pizzas. The best ones I ever had were actually $4 frozen pizzas from the supermarket that were made in Italy. I'm not

I've actually had some really good frozen pizzas. The best ones I ever had were actually $4 frozen pizzas from the supermarket that were made in Italy. I'm not sure how they made a pizza in Italy and shipped it to NZ and managed to sell it for $4, but they were great, or at least the quattro fromaggio ones were. The ones with any frozen vegetables like mushrooms were sort of crap, the mushrooms went all watery. In my experience with frozen pizza, the ones with less ingredients are better. Any frozen vegetables will go watery, so your options are really pepperoni or plain cheese. You want a pizza with a nice thin base Let the pizza defrost for a little bit with the wrapper off before you put it in the oven, then blast it in the oven at maximum temperature. It helps if you put the pizza on a pizza stone or on a rack, rather than on a tray. If it's on a tray, the bottom tends to get soggy.

flukus 8y ago
ALDI has some really good ones for $3AU too, the supreme ones (basically ham, cheese and capsicum if that counts as supreme) anyway. I cook from frozen normally, but for a really "gourmet" frozen pizza experience defrost is completely and stick it under the grill. Wonderful grilled cheese on top and still a soft fluffy base underneath.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  As a recent immigrant to Australia, I'm yet to try the Aldi frozen pizzas. The 3 for $6 ones look good though. I'm constantly impressed with the quality of Aldi food for how insanely cheap it is, especially their frozen goods. I can eat well for $5 per day on Aldi food.
  - jwdunne 8y ago
    Same deal in the UK. Some people turn their nose up at it, along with their fellow German brethren Lidl. I don't see why. Some of the food outright beats the food from Tesco, where it can sometimes be twice as expensive.
- unwind 8y ago
  Uh, off-topic but as a non-native speaker, is that use of "capsicum" standard? Where are you located? I had to look it up to make sure you meant (US: bell) peppers.
  - flukus 8y ago
    Capsicum is the standard name in here (Australia) from wikipedia: >The large, mild form is called bell pepper, or by color or both in North America and the United Kingdom, but typically called capsicum in New Zealand,[8] Australia, South Africa, Singapore, and India. It does seem strange that even anglosphere countries in the eastern hemisphere ended up with a different name for some reason. Presumably it was also called that in the UK at some point too.
    - stevesimmons 8y ago
      I grew up in Australia calling them capsicum. Now I live in the UK and the Netherlands, it is pepper/paprika respectively. Some other differences in Australian and UK usage are zucchini vs courgette and eggplant vs aubergine. Not much of a French influence down-under. And Italian immigrants dominated Melbourne's fruit and veg trade in the 1960s.
      - toomanybeersies 8y ago
        I always get confused and just use one or the other. Conveniently it doesn't really matter because everyone understands me when I use any of the above in Australia.
    - mkingston 8y ago
      > Presumably it was also called that in the UK at some point too. Perhaps it became common in all of these countries at the same time, long after colonisation, leading to different marketing/naming between these countries.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
I really, really love Red Baron frozen pizza. I dunno, I think it's the crust maybe? It's crisp but not cracker-like, a bit buttery, almost pastry-ish. (Geez, I sound like a shill. After 5 years and 8000+ HN karma, Red Baron's sockpuppet account finally pays off!)
- abraae 8y ago
  Playing the long game! Very good.
Arnt 8y ago
Just a detail: That's bluewater shipping, which is unbelievably cheap these days if you have the right kind of load. Some of the modern ships carry a thousand containers per crew member. The cost of the crew, fuel and ship itself is spread over many containers, and if your load has the right weight/volume ratio, you can negotiate extra low rates.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  I just find it so fascinating that it can be cheaper to ship things from Europe than make them locally, even if logically I know that it makes sense. As another example: the budget branded fries that I brought for $2 for a kg came from the Netherlands. Not only was I amazed that it was cheaper than locally made fries, but that was cheaper than I could buy fresh potatoes. Somehow it's cheaper to grow potatoes, cut them up, package them, and ship them to New Zealand, than it is to grow potatoes in New Zealand and drive them to the supermarket. Looking at ballpark estimates, potato chips weigh about 500 kg/m^3 [1], meaning you can fit 27 t in a shipping container [2] with some space left over, as 27 t is the maximum weight for a 40 ft container. This would cost around $4,500 to ship from Rotterdam to Auckland in a refrigerated container [3]. So per 1 kg packet, you're looking $0.17 for shipping costs. That's pretty astoundingly low. [1] http://www.mpd-inc.com/bulk-density/ http://www.mpd-inc.com/bulk-density/ [2] http://www.dsv.com/sea-freight/sea-container-description/dry-container http://www.dsv.com/sea-freight/sea-container-description/dry... [3] http://worldfreightrates.com/freight http://worldfreightrates.com/freight
  - Arnt 8y ago
    The key word is "fresh", also termed "spillage". The potatoes you buy have to be there when you walk into the shop, fresh enough that you don't walk out again or complain. Shops throw away a lot of vegetables, even fairly robust ones like potatoes, and of course the spillage percentage is added to the price you pay. The fries are much more flexible time-wise.
  - philbarr 8y ago
    You still have to drive it to the stores once it's on land though...

flukus 8y ago

ALDI has some really good ones for $3AU too, the supreme ones (basically ham, cheese and capsicum if that counts as supreme) anyway. I cook from frozen normally, but for a really "gourmet" frozen pizza experience defrost is completely and stick it under the grill. Wonderful grilled cheese on top and still a soft fluffy base underneath.

toomanybeersies 8y ago
As a recent immigrant to Australia, I'm yet to try the Aldi frozen pizzas. The 3 for $6 ones look good though. I'm constantly impressed with the quality of Aldi food for how insanely cheap it is, especially their frozen goods. I can eat well for $5 per day on Aldi food.
- jwdunne 8y ago
  Same deal in the UK. Some people turn their nose up at it, along with their fellow German brethren Lidl. I don't see why. Some of the food outright beats the food from Tesco, where it can sometimes be twice as expensive.
unwind 8y ago
Uh, off-topic but as a non-native speaker, is that use of "capsicum" standard? Where are you located? I had to look it up to make sure you meant (US: bell) peppers.
- flukus 8y ago
  Capsicum is the standard name in here (Australia) from wikipedia: >The large, mild form is called bell pepper, or by color or both in North America and the United Kingdom, but typically called capsicum in New Zealand,[8] Australia, South Africa, Singapore, and India. It does seem strange that even anglosphere countries in the eastern hemisphere ended up with a different name for some reason. Presumably it was also called that in the UK at some point too.
  - stevesimmons 8y ago
    I grew up in Australia calling them capsicum. Now I live in the UK and the Netherlands, it is pepper/paprika respectively. Some other differences in Australian and UK usage are zucchini vs courgette and eggplant vs aubergine. Not much of a French influence down-under. And Italian immigrants dominated Melbourne's fruit and veg trade in the 1960s.
    - toomanybeersies 8y ago
      I always get confused and just use one or the other. Conveniently it doesn't really matter because everyone understands me when I use any of the above in Australia.
  - mkingston 8y ago
    > Presumably it was also called that in the UK at some point too. Perhaps it became common in all of these countries at the same time, long after colonisation, leading to different marketing/naming between these countries.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

I really, really love Red Baron frozen pizza. I dunno, I think it's the crust maybe? It's crisp but not cracker-like, a bit buttery, almost pastry-ish. (Geez, I sound like a shill. After 5 years and 8000+ HN karma, Red Baron's sockpuppet account finally pays off!)

abraae 8y ago
Playing the long game! Very good.

Arnt 8y ago

Just a detail: That's bluewater shipping, which is unbelievably cheap these days if you have the right kind of load. Some of the modern ships carry a thousand containers per crew member. The cost of the crew, fuel and ship itself is spread over many containers, and if your load has the right weight/volume ratio, you can negotiate extra low rates.

toomanybeersies 8y ago
I just find it so fascinating that it can be cheaper to ship things from Europe than make them locally, even if logically I know that it makes sense. As another example: the budget branded fries that I brought for $2 for a kg came from the Netherlands. Not only was I amazed that it was cheaper than locally made fries, but that was cheaper than I could buy fresh potatoes. Somehow it's cheaper to grow potatoes, cut them up, package them, and ship them to New Zealand, than it is to grow potatoes in New Zealand and drive them to the supermarket. Looking at ballpark estimates, potato chips weigh about 500 kg/m^3 [1], meaning you can fit 27 t in a shipping container [2] with some space left over, as 27 t is the maximum weight for a 40 ft container. This would cost around $4,500 to ship from Rotterdam to Auckland in a refrigerated container [3]. So per 1 kg packet, you're looking $0.17 for shipping costs. That's pretty astoundingly low. [1] http://www.mpd-inc.com/bulk-density/ http://www.mpd-inc.com/bulk-density/ [2] http://www.dsv.com/sea-freight/sea-container-description/dry-container http://www.dsv.com/sea-freight/sea-container-description/dry... [3] http://worldfreightrates.com/freight http://worldfreightrates.com/freight
- Arnt 8y ago
  The key word is "fresh", also termed "spillage". The potatoes you buy have to be there when you walk into the shop, fresh enough that you don't walk out again or complain. Shops throw away a lot of vegetables, even fairly robust ones like potatoes, and of course the spillage percentage is added to the price you pay. The fries are much more flexible time-wise.
- philbarr 8y ago
  You still have to drive it to the stores once it's on land though...