pizza my way - part 3

Very often the dishes that I chose to prepare are driven by what I have on hand. I just dislike the inefficiency of taking a trip to the store to get the needed ingredient a recipe calls for. I can always manage to improvise and substitute with ingredients that I know would work, if not enhance the dish.

Lately I have been in the groove of making pizzas. This is because I have plenty of home made andouille sausages.

Like most Americans my notion of pizza was a baked pie loaded with a lot of bad sausage and top with cheese like substance that is more like chewing gum than cheese. My first experience of a seafood pizza called Pacific Northwest in Portland, Oregon forever change my preference of a pizza. Now I only eat pizza that I taught myself to make, with nearly all ingredients prepared from scratch.

for me a pizza is not worth eating if the crust is not freshly made

 once you get a hang of it it is really very easy

 this one has wild shrimp and cuttlefish, as well as thin slices of my home made andouille

 i typically make a 12-inch pizza with 1 cup of flour

capers works very well with the ingredients - note that it is important to control the moisture content; just a thin layer of tomato sauce

 i prefer hard Italian cheese like parmesan with has a lot of umami - just a little bit goes a long ways

all ready to go into the oven

 i baked it at about 350F in a convection oven for 10 minutes

 from start to finish it takes only 40 minutes; it is very meditative if you just crank up your favorite music

here is a similar pizza but this time i added a little bit of hamburger meat which i briefly saute with garlic, black pepper, and salt

 i dislike canned pizza sauce so i make my own with Trader Joe's plum tomato; do not buy the unsalted one (trust me)

 a bit more salt, oregano, and black pepper and reduce the mixture a bit to concentrate the flavor

capers are a must

here you see the saute'd hamburger meat

 i thought i would go to town with this pizza by adding an accent of anchovy

 i used only 4 of these tiny fillets by cutting them up with a pair kitchen shears

 the pig pan mess

a perfect baked pie

OMG! every bite is umami bomb

I used many different topping with these pizzas. Generally meat and shellfish goes really well as is smoked salmon.

 this one has shrimps and squid

here is the result of using the pizza screen - i really like it because you don't have to waste a lot of electricity preheating as in the case with pizza stone; in fact with conviction oven you can turn on the oven just a few minutes before putting in the pizza