Evans - Pizza

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contents

introduction

I have had a very long love affair with pizza. It started at a young age when my mum would make pizzas on the weekends. My mates would come over to watch some movies and eat pizza after a day of surfing and kicking the football down at the beach. Mum would first make the dough, then top the bases with the best toppings she could find. The pizzas were quite simple and therein lies the beautyyou just need a few quality ingredients and the rest, as they say, is as easy as (pizza) pie.

When I started my apprenticeship, at the age of seventeen, I was taught how to make authentic pizza by an Italian fellow named Arturo (or Arthur as he was often called). Arturo was a real pizzaiolo (pizza maker). To watch him work was like watching an opera, a ballet and a rock concert all at the same time. Every part of the pizza-making process has a rhythm and feel to it, from the making of the dough, to the rolling out, tossing and flattening of the dough.

It wasnt until I was thirty years old that I took on the biggest challenge of my culinary career and opened up a pizza restaurant. At the time, I had opened three award-winning restaurants that specialised in contemporary global cuisine, but I wanted to open a very cool pizzeria. I spent a year researching and working in pizzerias to uncover the secrets to the very best pizza. I can remember locking myself away for more than three months in the kitchen, experimenting with my pizzas. I would spend a whole day on the margherita, making 50 different versions of it. I would end the day completely and utterly exhausted, but having perfected the topping. I did the same with all the pizzas that made it onto the menu (and even with those that didnt). I wanted them to be faultless and, most importantly, they needed to be able to be replicated and recreated without me present in the restaurant kitchen. I believe I have achieved this and the restaurant has gone on to win numerous awards, including the Best Pizza in the World award in New York City in 2005 and also a few Best in Australia titles.

But awards aside, what I am most thrilled about is that I have been able to write this book with the knowledge and trust that YOU can create my pizzas at home for family and friends and, most importantly, for yourself, with the same results that I achieve in my restaurants.

As with all recipes, these are just ideas that work for me and my tastebuds, so I hope that they inspire you, and I encourage you to experiment with different flavours. I look forward to hearing about your culinary triumphs. (I am always thrilled when one of my readers sends me their success stories!) Send your top pizza toppings to . If you take just one of these recipes and incorporate it into your cooking repertoire, then I know that all the work that has gone into making this book has been worth it.

Cheers, Pete

a quick history of the pizza

Although well embedded in modern culture, the pizza, in its most humble form, has been around for centuries and originally would probably have been as simple as mixing flour with water and heating it on a hot stone, or even baking beneath the stones of the fire. After cooking, it would have been adorned with a variety of toppings and used in the place of plates, or utensils when it would be broken into pieces to sop up broths or gravies.

It is widely believed that the idea of using bread as a plate can be attributed to the Greeks, who ate flat round bread (plankuntos) that were topped with seasonings and ingredients before baking. Being both thrifty and convenient, it was very much the food of the working man and his family.

Once this concept of plankuntos made its way to Naples in Italy, it started to develop into the pizza we recognise and love today. By the early nineteenth century, the first pizzerias were born to meet the growing demand and popularity of tomato-topped pizzas.

The pizza that really made a name for itself was the margherita. Created by pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito in a pizzeria in Naples to honour Queen Margherita of Savoy (the queen consort of Italy), the margherita was made using the colours of the Italian flagred (tomatoes), white (mozzarella) and green (basil).

Fast forward a few hundred years and not much has changed. Italian immigrants took pizza to America where it gained popularity from returning World War II GIs who had adored pizza in Italy. Different US states have made the pizza their own, with New York becoming famous for its thin-crust pizzas, while Chicago created the now legendary deep-dish pizzas.

Pizzas are now one of the worlds bestselling fast foods. But they can be so much more than the fast food that you pop down the street to pick up, or punch a few numbers into a phone to order. I honestly believe we should all be preparing them at home, as pizzas are about fun, cheap, humble food that all the family can get involved in making, and the great thing about pizzas is the variety of toppings you can put on them. They are almost endless.

My philosophy behind making a great pizza is very simpleless is more! You want to have wonderful toppings on the pizza that shine and stand out but you dont want too many competing flavours and you definitely dont want to drown it in too much cheese. Please keep in mind these pointers when making the pizzas in this book so that you can make award-winning pizzas too.

ingredients for the perfect pizza

the oven

The domestic countertop electric pizza ovens are brilliant as they can generate enough heat to make a commercial-quality pizza at home. This is because they have heat elements at the top and bottom, as well as a ceramic pizza stone, which helps to create the perfect crispy crust.

A conventional oven, with the aid of a pizza stone (a flat piece of unglazed stoneware) heated to its hottest setting will also give good results. All domestic ovens differ, but as a general rule, the higher you place the pizza stone in the oven, the better the result. If you have a hooded grill at home, then crank it up as hot as it goes and follow the steps that I have outlined for a conventional oven. And, of course, if youre lucky enough to have a wood-fired oven at home, this is the original and best way to cook pizza.

the dough

Making pizza dough is so easy; take the time to give it a go. You can store proved dough balls in the freezer, then defrost when ready to use. Its fun for the kids and very cost effective. You need to use strong flour to make a proper pizza dough (I like to use 00 flour). In my restaurants, and in this book, we use dry yeast which we activate with lukewarm water before mixing into the dough. Next step is proving. This is when the dough rests, giving it time to rise and for the yeast to ferment before baking. The ideal temperature is between 27C (80F) and 43C (109F). Any hotter and the yeast will be destroyed, resulting in a heavy and stodgy dough; any cooler and the yeast will not activate, resulting in an inferior dough. I roll out the pizza bases with semolina, polenta or flour as it gives the dough a beautiful crisp finish. I love a thin crust, so that I dont bloat my guests bellies, but if you like a thicker dough, then by all means go for it. Finally, remember to dock the pizza (prick the base with a fork), to stop the dough from bubbling up when its cooked.