Again I agree with everything you say. I’d go as far as to say that grilled pizza is a niche that some people like to show off. Not for me. My stone on the bottom rack of the oven at 550F, of course pre-heated as the oven heats up, has done well enough for me. If I want brick oven thin crust pizza… I travel to NYC. :) Nothing like it here in Orlando. If you’re ever in NYC and in Greenwich Village, run, do not walk to Spunto.
Yeah, I am off grilling pizzas. Was a fun disaster.
I always hit up a new pizza joint every NY trip so will add that to the list.
I am trying to replicate Grimaldi’s pizza, especially the way the moz melts. That was an eye opener for me.
One thing I do is use the broiler. Have a pizza stone on top rack and set oven to 550 for an hour. Then switch to broiler while doing all the prep work. This cooks the toppings pretty quick. About 90-120 seconds. I turn the pizza once.
I used to put a cast iron skillet upside down on the top rack to get closer to the flames but it destroys the coating.
If you don’t make mistakes cooking, you don’t learn. Believe me, I know. And sometimes you can eat the mistakes. Sometimes. :)
I’m not a home pizza maker, but from what I understand about the heat from pizza ovens is that the melting isn’t so much melting at those temps, it’s boiling. The water within the cheese itself is heated to the point it boils, creating steam, which in turn pushes out on the cheese making the bubbles. Attempts at anything with much lower heat just give you the melty look of something out of a salamander. Not bad, just very different.
I’ve tried making pizza at home a few times in my oven and gave up. I love neapolitan style and it’s just way to hard to get everything tasting just right at home. And the kicker is that I can walk five minutes from the house and buy the exact pizza i want, cooked in a wood oven.
Pretty sure I won’t be matching grimaldi until I can get a much higher, more consistent heat. That’s ok, I can settle for a more typical american melted mozzarella.
So if I cook at just 550 in the oven long enough to properly cook the dough my cheese goes oily and looks like a pincushion.
I noticed in the grill if I took it off before it burned the bottom the crust would be way too underdone but the moz melted very nicely.
So I am going to try the broil at the last minute technique mentioned above by @cheapfilms . I am kinda suspicious because none of the recipes have mentioned it but it sounds like a very worthy experiment. I think the issue is the toppings will then burn because the crust doesn’t cook fast enough, but no harm in trying. Ruined pizza is still very edible.
Maybe throw some extra cheese over the toppings before putting in the broiler.
Hrm, or maybe toss over a piece of aluminum foil?
It’s a fine balance on time and you’ll have to keep an eye on it. I wasn’t getting a good crust until I started leaving the pizza stone in there for a while. Here’s my last result. Meat toppings are proscuitto and some leftover pork chashu:
An alternate method my friend uses is to cook the pie in a cast iron skillet on the stoptop first then put into oven for the toppings. I’ve never gotten good at it.
That’s some nice looking melted moz, much closer to where I want to be than I currently am.
I preheat the oven for at least an hour with the stone it, so 100% agreed there. Much better result.
The Instant Pot I ordered on Prime Day was finally delivered-Yay!. I think I’m going to start with some ribs…Any suggestions? I know I’ve read many other uses upthread…now to just find them again.
I have yet to do pressure cooked ribs. I want to try them though. I’ve also not done them sous vide.
But you have GOT to add these to the list:
pot roast
dry beans
stock
chili
And highly recommended though I haven’t made them are:
Get some liquid smoke. It does some awesome stuff for any kind of pressure cooker barbque.
One thing I would recommend, which goes along with the ribs in this regard, is to make a pork shoulder or corned beef. These are really great things for a pressure cooker, as they reduce the cooking time to such a trivial amount compared to traditional cooking.
I’ve done that for thick crust pizzas and it works really well. But it was a giant pain in the keister to actually make dough, let it rise, toss it and form a pizza crust, top, cook, etc. So I do it super rarely. Yeah it’s better than ordering delivery but delivery is sooooooo convenient!
Awesome I didn’t realize there was a so much pressure cooker info on Serious Eats. I’ve got some research to do.
A couple weeks back I made Sous Vide ribs from Serious Eats. I dd the 12 hours at 165 method but I probably went almost 14 hours. I finished them in the oven per the instructions and they turned out awesomely cooked. I finished some in their sauce recipe and some with Sweet Baby Ray’s and for whatever reason the Serious Eats sauce flavor wasn’t liked much at my house. I did use Liquid Smoke with them, 4 drops per ziplock with a 4 rib section. All in all a good experiment.
I’m excited to see how these turn out, it’s really all about the speed factor. I like spending a lazy Sunday with the smoker but being able to make some ribs on a weeknight with minimal effort…that sounds amazing.
Timex how much Liquid Smoke do you add?
I have done them both ways and in my opinion, the sous vide style was superior. Not that the Insta-pot was bad but the texture of the meat done sous vide style was perfect. If time is a factor by all means pressure cooking is a good alternative but since sous vide is basically set it and forget it, there’s no real benefit to offset the better result I get, for me to go with a pressure cooker, as long as I have the foresight to start them the day before I want them.
I cooked a thing.
Andouille sausage with various vegetables, and wheat berries.
For anyone who doesn’t know… Wheat berries are essentially farro, but way less hipster and trendy, so they are way cheaper. Similar texture.
They can be used in similar ways but they are different grains and don’t have quite the same flavor, texture, or cooking needs. Also, FWIW, on Amazon farro is actually around the same price or cheaper - ~0.26-0.32/oz vs. about 0.36/oz.
I’m guessing farro gets jacked through the roof at places like Whole Foods, but then, so does a lot of stuff.