DIY Pizza: Cheaper, Tastier, More Fun
Pedro Marques
make pizza." The ingredients cost next to nothing, and you’ve always
got a market hungry for your product.
Turn that logic around, and you’ve got an economic case for homemade
pizza. Flour and packaged yeast are cheap, water is free (or close to
it), and you probably already have the toppings in your fridge. A
homemade pizza party can cost less than $2 per person. You can’t even
get a slice for that these days.
Worried that you lack the know-how or heat to make pizza at home?
Andrew Burman, a graduate student in New York University’s Food
Studies program, insists he can make fantastic homemade pizza—from
scratch—using ordinary kitchen equipment in less than 45 minutes.
“It’s all about the heat,” Burman says.
To make the dough, he empties the contents of one package of
Fleischmann’s yeast in a measuring cup, and covers it with 1¼ cups of
warm tap water. Then he mounds two cups of all purpose flour on the
counter, and makes a well in the center. He slowly pours one cup of
water/yeast into the well, stirring it into the flour with a fork,
until he’s got a shaggy dough. He adds a generous pinch of salt and
begins kneading.
“I want the texture to have the stickiness of a lint roller,” says
Burman. He adds the remaining water/yeast and a bit more flour. He
kneads for 5 minutes, until the dough, according to Burman, “becomes
smooth, like a baby’s head.” He lets the dough relax, covered under a
damp paper towel, for at least ten minutes. “It’ll be even better in
half an hour, and really good after a day in the fridge,” says Burman.
Meanwhile, he has a cast iron griddle heating on the stovetop, and has
turned the broiler on high with a rack four inches below the heating
element. He cuts off a racquet-ball sized portion of the dough, and
uses his fingers to stretch it, careful not to break the dough.
He puts the dough on the griddle, drizzles olive oil, thinly sliced
red onions, grated Parmesan and green olives on top, and pops it under
the broiler. He watches it until the dough rises and browns, and the
toppings melt and bubble, about 4 minutes. “You could call this pizza,
flatbread, it’s all the same thing,” says Burman. Bottom line: It
tastes really good.
If the thought of making pizza dough doesn’t thrill you, try a premade
crust, like Boboli (original, thin crust or two minis, $4.39), or a
tube of Pillsbury pizza dough ($3.99) (Stock Quote: GIS). Or try
frozen pizza dough. Though you’ll have to defrost it a day ahead, it’s
less expensive than the other pre made varieties; my supermarkets
carries a local brand for $2.49 a bag. Though pre-made doughs are
pricier than homemade, and a whole lot less fun, they still cost less
than ordering in.
Toppings can be as pricey or as inexpensive as your budget will bear.
For a classic margherita-style pizza, reach for a large can of whole
tomatoes ($1.29) instead of pricier tomato sauce, chop, and scatter on
the dough. Shred some mozzarella ($2.49 for half a pound), and spread
it on top of the tomatoes. When the cheese melts and bubbles, take the
pizza out of the oven, and top it with torn fresh basil ($1.49 per
bunch).
Or, get creative. At Otto, Mario Batali’s high-end Manhattan pizzeria,
they make an incredible vongole pie with whole clams, mozzarella and
garlic; he makes another with garlic, olive oil and fresh chiles (ask
for an egg on top. It cooks sunnyside up, and that runny yolk is
divine.).
At the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont, I recently tasted
two non-traditional pizzas made with all local ingredients: feta
cheese, spinach and pumpkinseed oil on one, and sliced tomatoes,
Vermont bacon and cheddar cheese on the other. They were as tasty as
they were unusual.
And though I appreciate Dominos (Stock Quote: DPZ) CEO Dave Brandon’s
“super big taste bailout” offer to Main Street Americans, now that I
can make creative pizzas for pennies, $15 seems like big bucks for a
couple of pies.
Al
A large pizza is only $5 where I live. Ingredients are expensive. And
most of all, my time is worth something. DIY pizza makes no sense for
me.
Rod Speed
They dont cost anything like $5
> And most of all, my time is worth something.
Like hell it is when you just veg out on usenet instead.
> DIY pizza makes no sense for me.
Wrong, as always.
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds
<7u7237...@mid.individual.net>,
"Rod Speed" <rod.sp...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> >>
<reams of your puerile shit any 2 year
old could leave for dead flushed
> where it belongs>
Larry Caldwell
5fbd57...@b7g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, albu...@mailinator.com (Al)
says...
> A large pizza is only $5 where I live. Ingredients are expensive. And
> most of all, my time is worth something. DIY pizza makes no sense for
> me.
The big advantage, like with all foods, is that home made tastes better.
Compared to real food, that $5 pizza is only marginally edible. A
really good 16" pizza is going to cost you about $17 at a pizza parlor,
and about half that at home. Rule of thumb in the restaurant business
is that 1/3 the price goes to food, 1/3 goes to overhead, and 1/3 goes
to profit. That $5 pizza has about $1.70 in ingredients in it, which
means synthetic cheese, and not much of it.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---