Ten Tips for Better Pizza

We make pizza nearly every week here at Chez Bullhog. When you have an outdoor pizza oven, it’s hard not to: pizza has become an obsession. But, even without using the special oven, we’ve gotten pretty good at turning out a quality pizza. Here are some tips:

1. For half the flour in the dough, substitute Caputo flour. This flour (tipo 00), made by Antico Molino Caputo in Italy, is formulated to let pizza dough stretch out. Using it in a recipe will keep your shaped dough from springing back from the rim when you flatten it. Available in Seattle at Pacific Food Importers, or through several sites online.
2. Cut the yeast by 1/3, and let the dough rise longer. Many dough recipes have more yeast than necessary in order to decrease the proofing time. If you’re not in a hurry, let your dough rise at 70º (or even cooler) for at least 4 hours. Pizza aficionados let their dough rise in the fridge overnight, and then let it sit at room temperature for a few hours before shaping and baking. See ‘Pizza time Pizza with long-rise dough’ for details.
3. Drizzle olive oil onto the blank pizza. Joe Fugere, owner of Tutta Bella in Seattle, told me that when his original restaurant was certified by the Neapolitans, he had to omit this step. I never put olive oil into the dough, but I find that a thin coating of good olive oil enhances the flavor and keeps the crust from getting soggy during baking. 
4. Use vine-ripened tomatoes and make your own sauce. The best and sweetest tomatoes are vine ripened. When our tomatoes are ripe, we don’t bother making sauce, we just slice them onto the pizzas. Otherwise, we make a sauce with ripe tomatoes, a bit of onion and garlic, and freeze or can it. Second best is a big can of San Marzano tomatoes turned into sauce. When making sauce from canned tomatoes, use a bit of sugar to brighten its flavor.
5. Seek out quality toppings. The best toppings make the best pizzas, and in many cases less is better. A little prosciutto, a few good olives, herbed mushrooms dotted here and there. Locally made sausage, some fresh arugula – well, you get the picture.
6. Try different cheeses. This can make such a difference to your pizza and, again, you don’t need massive quantities. Some suggestions: well-drained buffalo mozzarella, truffle-infused pecorino, gruyere, Italian fontina, cacciocavallo, or fresh mozzarella. You can still top the whole thing with a handful of shredded mozzarella if you like.
7. Balance salty with savory or sweet. All of the components of pizza already have salt in them, so you can easily overdo it with salty toppings. On the other hand, a fresh Margherita pizza (fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and basil) needs capers or a generous sprinkle of salt to balance it.
8. Learn to use a peel. There’s a reason they use peels (wooden or metal paddles) in pizza places. A wooden peel gets a pizza into the oven safely; a metal one turns it halfway through baking and pulls it out when it’s ready. While you can get the pizza out of the oven with a spatula or two, I’d recommend that anyone who wants to bake better pizza invest in a wooden peel. When the peel is topped with bread flour or semolina, your pizza will slide right off it and into the oven!
9. Make your oven hotter. My outdoor oven is at about 650º when we bake pizzas in it, and will turn out a pizza in 4 minutes. Admittedly, most ovens don’t get that hot, but will go to 450º or more. At 450º, a 12-inch pizza bakes in 8 or 9 minutes.
10. Bake the pizza directly on a pizza stone or quarry tiles. I’ve saved the best for last. This simple addition to the center rack of your oven, even if you’re baking your pizza in a pan, will instantly yield better pizza. Be sure to preheat your oven for a half hour before baking for best results. See ‘Baking bread on Quarry Tiles’ for more information on using quarry tiles. 

One Final Note: Even as recently as last year, I would have included longer kneading on this list. Italians recommend 20 minutes of kneading the dough, which many Americans find excessive. As I play with some aspects of this, the list may evolve to include a 30 minute rest period – after mixing, but before kneading – which I am learning is nearly as critical for gluten development as the kneading itself. Stay tuned!