Today I am going to make a different post, and many times I have been asked about what tips, tricks, or recommendations I usually use when making pizzas. Well, well, I’ve thought about them, and although at first, they may seem obvious, I’ve put together a few to start:
Tips and tricks for preparing pizza at home
The First And Most Important “Make Homemade Dough”
The first and most basic advice of all is to lose your fear and start making pizza dough at home. Making pizza dough is very simple. If you have never made pizza dough, follow this recipe to make basic pizza dough, and once you make it two or three times you will realize that making pizza dough at home is easier than you think and can be done easily. do almost without staining.
Put The Oven At Maximum Temperature
One of the main keys to the success of a good pizza is the oven in which it is made. In the wood-fired ovens of restaurants, temperatures of 400-500ºC are reached, although, of course, they play with the temperature difference inside the oven.
In our case, we are not lucky enough to have a professional pizza oven, so we are going to have to make do with our kitchen oven. In principle, the two ovens that are most commonly found in homes are electric and convection. The cooking times of the pizza will be different in each case:
- Making pizza in a convection oven: this is the oven I have. In this case, we will put the oven at almost the maximum 240-250ºC with the fan function on, placing the pizza on the central tray. At this temperature, we will have the pizza ready in 4-5 minutes.
- Making pizza in an electric oven: these ovens transfer the temperature to the pizza worse and therefore we have to have the pizza between 10-12 minutes in the oven. One trick is to start by putting the pizza on the bottom tray of the oven so that the lower heating element makes the dough crisp and then move it up to the top tray for the last two minutes to get the pizza to brown evenly.
Use A Stone For The Oven
This is something that can be optional since you have the oven stone or you don’t have it. The truth is that a good stone costs between €25-35 and if you like cooking it is not that expensive, because it is one of those things that if you take care of them they last a long time. The good thing about the oven stone is that when you put the dough in, it loses moisture much faster and thus you can get the dough to be much crunchier.
Pre-Bake The Dough
This is a trick that will come in handy for those who don’t have a stone from the oven, although if you have a stone it’s also worth it. Moreover, I do it like this. The trick is to put the dough, already extended but without any ingredients, in the oven for 1-2 minutes, just enough so that it loses a little elasticity and that’s it. In this way, we also manage to remove moisture from the dough and thus make it more crispy.
Use Homemade Tomato
This may seem silly, but it is not. The pizzas that are based on tomatoes, the truth is that it is quite noticeable. In my case, I use homemade tomatoes that my mother prepares for me from the tomatoes from my own garden.
In general, we will always look for the tomato sauce to be as dense as possible, and therefore, have less water content, and in this way, we do not moisten the dough too much and get that crunchy touch that we like so much.
For those who are not so lucky, there is a concentrated homemade tomato, almost like the Italian passata at Mercadona, which is very good. In its day I remember that Lidl had a tomato with basil that was very good and very cheap. There are also some I leave with the online sites where I have seen that you can find them ( here and here ). In addition to finding them online, you can always go to an Italian product store that you have in your city and ask for a good sauce.
Fresh Mozzarella Or Real Cheese
The truth is that I usually use any cheese that I have at home to put on the pizzas, whether it is cured sheep, goat, Valdeón cheese, etc. When I use mozzarella, it is usually the fresh one, the one that comes in individual plastic bags with a little water. For this, I am quite a hooligan and I do not usually use these bags of “Special pizza cheese” or things like that because I am sure they are the remains of processed cheeses in a factory, which they give them a treat and put them in as “cheese style mozzarella”.
Prepare Some Ingredients In The Pan Beforehand
Another of the tricks that I usually do is to pass some of the pizza ingredients through the pan first. For example, if I am going to plutonium or pepper, first I fry them over low heat in a pan with a little oil and then I put them on the pizza. In this way, we avoid burning or toasting ingredients.
Do Not Use Many Ingredients
Another of the basic things is to be very clear about what you want to make the pizzas. A pizza has to have a base that can be tomato, one or two ingredients, and then a topping such as pesto, olive paste, or a poor man’s Parmesan, etc. By putting many ingredients on the pizza at the end, you get that the pizza doesn’t taste like anything and you can’t differentiate the flavors well.
Add The Fresh Ingredients At The End
Another one of my tricks is to add some raw ingredients once you take the pizza out of the oven. For example, this works very well if you usececina or bresaola,boquerones or anchovies,foie, etc. In this way, what you achieve is that the ingredient is not roasted in the oven and the pizza has much more flavor.
A Little Parmesan Or Other Cheese To Decorate
Lastly, I usually grate a little Parmesan, Pecorino, or Grana Padano once we have finished making the pizza. The truth is that it is a custom that I have picked up like any other. I use a regular potato peeler to get the cheese to stay in flakes. The truth is that it gives it a very good flavor.
Well, these are the tricks that I use, although everyone makes pizzas in their own way, it would be missing more! If you have come this far, I invite you to take a look at the pizza recipe book so that you can choose one that you want to make.
You may also be interested in Nine Mexican food you should try
