Quick and Dirty - But Still Tasty - Pizza

So you want pizza.  Not just blaugh pizza, but tasty pizza.  With the nice chewy crust.

Sure you could go to a pizza joint, plop down a few bucks and bring home a ho-hum pie, but with a little prep, some not-so-specialized equipment and a little know-how, you too can have some decent pizza in about 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes.

Step 1 Prep!

A lot of how your pizza comes out depends on how you deal with things BEFORE you even mix your dough, grate your cheese, or even turn on the oven.

GET A PIZZA STONE.  You do NOT need one of those $50 things.  I personally like a couple of unglazed quarry tiles, stacked.  I found a bunch of them for $2.00 each from my local home improvement store.  They're marble.  Then one day I found a marble cutting board @ Christmas Tree Shops for cheap.  The tiles I was using had just broken (heating and cooling over a years time will do that) so the timing was perfect.

You can use about any kind of flat stone as long as its not painted or glazed.  But it's crucial.

Move a rack in your oven to the topmost position.  Place the tiles (or stone) in the middle.  Close the oven and turn it on to "broil".  You want to get those stones good and hot.

You need something to use as a peel. I have been using an insulated cookie sheet for years now, but that's just what I have on hand.  Better yet, get yourself a real wooden peel.

Comments

[catzrock333]

I took one look at the picture and thought, "WOW, THAT LOOKS DELICIOUS! Can't wait to try!!

[Peale]

Thanks! I appreciate the compliment!

[rdswords]

I'm pretty sure you can also make this step easier by just putting a sheet of parchment paper on your pizza peel and build the pizza on top of the parchment paper. Just slide the pizza (with paper) onto the pizza stone and let it cook. You can pull the paper out from under the pizza after the dough has mostly cooked, but it really shouldn't hurt anything if it stays there the whole time.

[Peale]

Parchment paper is expensive (though reusable, to a point). Corn meal adds a pleasant texture (to me) to the finished product, and it's cheap.

Another method of doing this would be to shape the dough on a bed of corn meal, instead of sprinkling/transferring the dough. Good if you're making lots of pizzas (eg, a pizzeria) but not so good for a one-or-two off. Unless you scraped up the excess corn meal afterward.

[Your Average Guy]

*Applause* :P

[GinsuVictim]

You forgot to list the yeast. It's in the photo, but not the ingredient list.

[Peale]

D'oh! Fixed.

[GinsuVictim]

Literally...."dough" fixed