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For good pizza you need high quality but basic ingredients. Theoretically you could grow your own tomatoes and basil and bake something reasonable at home (alth

For good pizza you need high quality but basic ingredients. Theoretically you could grow your own tomatoes and basil and bake something reasonable at home (although the store bought cheese was shit and making your own is hard). In practice I haven't enjoyed good pizza until fairly late after the iron curtain fell.

ghaff 2y ago
And arguably a high temperature oven. One of the reasons pizza is financially successful as fast food is that one of the hard parts is having the right oven. You can fake it at home to some degree even without much special equipment but making a good pizza (whatever that means to you) at home is more work than most people are going to put in.
- morbicer 2y ago
  I guess it depends on what level of finesse you are aiming for. My mom makes a pretty good pizza (better than many commercials joints) in regular home gas oven. But the work is there: you need to knead the dough properly and let it rest for a day. Of course, an Italian might scoff at the result.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  I've had exceptional results with the frying pan stovetop/broiler method. Assemble the pie in a frying pan. Cook ~5 minutes (until the edge of the crust just starts to brown) on the stovetop, then duck it inside a pre-heated oven (as hot as it will go), under the broiler, for about 3--4 minutes (it will bake fast, pull it out before it's burnt, though some crisping is fine). I do this with homemade sourdough crust and mostly hand-prepped ingredients (I'll usually go with a store-bought sauce, video below shows how to hand-make fresh from tomatoes). It beats the pants off any store-bought and most restaurant pizzas. Original inspiration: <https://yewtube.com/watch?v=HXAW2GseICs https://yewtube.com/watch?v=HXAW2GseICs> Headline comment: "There is more drama in this video than in the entire Transformers franchise." Watching this again for the first time in a year or two ... I've made some changes (dough, prep, toppings), but the key is the cast-iron pan, stovetop, and broiler, and results are delish. (The YT channel is also great for baking, and is where I learned much of my own sourdough game.)

ghaff 2y ago

And arguably a high temperature oven. One of the reasons pizza is financially successful as fast food is that one of the hard parts is having the right oven. You can fake it at home to some degree even without much special equipment but making a good pizza (whatever that means to you) at home is more work than most people are going to put in.

morbicer 2y ago
I guess it depends on what level of finesse you are aiming for. My mom makes a pretty good pizza (better than many commercials joints) in regular home gas oven. But the work is there: you need to knead the dough properly and let it rest for a day. Of course, an Italian might scoff at the result.
dredmorbius 2y ago
I've had exceptional results with the frying pan stovetop/broiler method. Assemble the pie in a frying pan. Cook ~5 minutes (until the edge of the crust just starts to brown) on the stovetop, then duck it inside a pre-heated oven (as hot as it will go), under the broiler, for about 3--4 minutes (it will bake fast, pull it out before it's burnt, though some crisping is fine). I do this with homemade sourdough crust and mostly hand-prepped ingredients (I'll usually go with a store-bought sauce, video below shows how to hand-make fresh from tomatoes). It beats the pants off any store-bought and most restaurant pizzas. Original inspiration: <https://yewtube.com/watch?v=HXAW2GseICs https://yewtube.com/watch?v=HXAW2GseICs> Headline comment: "There is more drama in this video than in the entire Transformers franchise." Watching this again for the first time in a year or two ... I've made some changes (dough, prep, toppings), but the key is the cast-iron pan, stovetop, and broiler, and results are delish. (The YT channel is also great for baking, and is where I learned much of my own sourdough game.)