Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza (22 page)

Reheating Pizza

You made the pizza, you served the pizza, and you stored away the leftovers. Now, you want to eat the pizza that you stored. Sounds like a good plan. I applaud you for your foresight and planning! Reheating pizza that was stored in the refrigerator or freezer is quite simple. You take it out, you unpack it, and you reheat it. Well, there are better ways to do many things and that is true for reheating pizza, as well.

Munching on Chilled Pizza

You do not need to heat the pizza. Refrigerated pizza it will be cool but not frozen. Some people like cold pizza (I am one of them) so if you have never tried it go ahead and do so. It is not for everyone but you just might find that you like it!

Frozen pizza is another story. Most people have never tried it and most would think they would never want to. Well, it is not as bad as you might think. When I was first out of college and living on my own, I used to buy pizza frequently. I would put some of the leftover pizza in the freezer (not well packed because I had not yet been enlightened, but that is a different story). My microwave oven would only fit one piece of pizza in it. While one piece was in the microwave, I would be standing there with one piece of frozen pizza in my hand or on my plate. Being the impatient and adventurous lad that I was, one time I took a bite off the tip of the frozen slice of pizza. Hmm, I thought “Not bad, how about another bite? Well, that was pretty good”. I found I liked it enough that each time I pulled out frozen pizza to reheat I would eat a few bites!

Now this is not as gross as it might seem. Unlike frozen pizza you buy at the grocery store, we are talking about frozen leftover pizza that you made. Pizza you make is not just any old pizza; we know that because we made it and we only make great homemade pizza because we are using the
Passionate About Pizza System
! We also know that the pizza was cooked and is ready to eat; that is, other than its icy temperature. Set aside your fear or revulsion and try it one time. I do not think you will ever want to eat a full meal of frozen pizza but it is somewhat refreshingly cool and crunchy. This is where you are making comments about me being weird and I can understand why you think so!

Reheating in the Microwave Oven

Microwave ovens are fast, easy to use, and convenient. They also have a tendency to defrost things unevenly, make bread tough, and can destroy packaging material as items are heated. So, use your microwave carefully.

I have found that the auto-defrost cycles on many microwaves work adequately to defrost frozen leftover pizza. You will be best off if you take the pizza out of the packaging in which you froze it and use a microwave safe container. Err on the side of using less time, less power, or the settings for less weight when starting the defrost cycle. You can always run the microwave longer if the pizza has not defrosted completely when the first cycle finishes.

Heating up the leftover pizza in a microwave to eating temperature is just a little tricky. You want to heat it up to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the pizza (remember those safe food storage rules on
page 50
). However, you do not want to cook the pizza so long that the crust gets tough. This is one case where you will need to experiment with your microwave to determine what power level, length of time, and cooking settings make the most sense. Once you have figured it out, write it down! At least remember it so that you can repeat it in the future.

Reheating in the Oven

You baked the pizza in the oven and your oven works great at reheating leftover pizza as well. Although you baked the pizza according to the style you chose, you do not always reheat it the same way you cooked it.

You should reheat pizza at 350 degrees Fahrenheit rather than the temperature at which you baked it the first time. This temperature quickly reheats the pizza without it burning. If you use a higher temperature, you run the risk of burning the outside surfaces of the pizza before the heat has had time to penetrate the pizza to the core. This is especially likely when you place thick pizza, high moisture content pizza, or frozen pizza in the oven to reheat.

Place the leftover pizza on an oven-safe pan or pizza screen and place it in the preheated oven on the center rack. The pizza toppings will usually melt and drip at the edges of the pizza slices so be prepared for the drips. For pizza that is at room temperature, baking it for just a couple of minutes will suffice. For pizza that is at refrigerator temperature, it will likely take 4 – 6 minutes to come up to a safe temperature. To reheat frozen pizza it will likely take 8 – 10 minutes. This is another situation where the temperature of your oven, of the leftover pizza, and the thickness of the pizza will cause the amount of time required to reheat the pizza to vary.

Watch the pizza closely while it reheats to check for doneness. You should look to see the toppings slightly boiling across the entire surface and look for further browning of the crust. If you see the very edges of the pizza showing signs of burning, then take it out right away.

You can let the pizza sit for a few minutes after it has come out of the oven to let the temperature stabilize throughout the pizza. This also lets the cheese and toppings set.

Part Two: Recipes

Part two of Passionate About Pizza:
Making Great Homemade Pizza
builds on the skills described in part one and covers the various recipes that you will use to make your favorite pizza. Remember, there are two choices to make; the form of pizza you want to have and the flavor combination you will use. Putting those together gives you the ultimate control of your pizza! You can mix just about any flavor with each of the different forms (or styles) of pizza.

This section details the following (click to follow link):

Dough Recipes
Sauce Recipes
Thin-Style Pizza Recipes
Thick-Style Pizza Recipes
Pizza’s Close Relatives
Pizza Recipe Compendium

Pizza Recipe Basics

The
Passionate About Pizza System

You will make great homemade pizza every time you try if you ignite your passion and follow a systematic approach to making pizza. Plan your pizza-making activities, use the same equipment and high-quality ingredients each time, use proven preparation techniques, rely on your RECIPES, and work to make continual improvements.

Recipes

“Recipes; I never follow a recipe.”“I like to cook by feel.” “Recipes are for the timid.” “I like my pizza one way; I am not interested in other recipes.” I have heard many a pizza lover or good cook say things like that. My wife did not like to use recipes when she started cooking. Well, I think that you will benefit from recipes, even if you never follow one exactly. In this introduction, I will tell you why. My wife has become a convert over the years and uses recipes, now. I think you will, too.

Recipes are a Framework

I am going to do what editors generally considered a no-no in a book. I am going to repeat something verbatim! I am doing it because it is so important for you to understand what I am trying to say. This next paragraph is an exact duplication from the introduction of the
Passionate About Pizza System
in Part One: Foundation.

A recipe describes the proportions of the various ingredients and the methods used to combine them to create the finished product. As such, a recipe provides a blueprint to success. If it is someone else's recipe, you can be sure that at least one other person used it with success. If it is your recipe, you can reuse it and fine-tune it so that you
know
that you will be successful. Do not look at a recipe as confining you; rather, look at it as a framework of known success that you can modify to suit the occasion.

Let the recipes in the following chapters guide and inspire you, not limit you!

Two Types of Recipes – Form & Flavor

As I have mentioned before, there are two parts to a recipe for pizza – the form (or style) of the pizza and the flavor combinations. The following chapters describe the recipes in just that way. First, there are recipes for pizza dough and pizza sauces. There is one chapter for each of the major styles of pizza. Then, there is a chapter listing a broad range of flavor combinations, as you would normally find in a pizza cookbook. By giving you the two types of information separately, you can easily match the style (or form) you want with the flavors you want to suit your mood on any given pizza!

Express Yourself with Custom Recipes

You do not need to limit your pizzas to the recipes found in this cookbook or any cookbook for that matter. What you like as a normal recipe will probably taste good on a pizza, within limits and with some modification. Here are some of the things to consider.

Match the crust type to the character of the food. Heavily spiced foods or foods with strong taste will work better on thick crust or whole-wheat crust. Use some kind of sauce for moistness or the pizza will probably be too dry. For example, you can turn an adapted marinade or a puree of a tasty bean or vegetable into a sauce quite readily. You generally want to use some kind of meat, vegetable, or fruit (or a combination of any of these) for the main ingredient to give the pizza balance. You usually want some cheese on the pizza, although you do not need it. Try to match the variety of cheese to the taste of the recipe.

The dough will soften the tastes, so do not use bland spices. Start with an idea or a food you like. Marinades or cooking sauces work well, though you will probably want to thicken very thin marinades. Sautés, stir-fries, etc. can all be adapted very easily. You can also try to duplicate a pizza you have tasted in a restaurant!

Put Your Passion Into Your Pizza

The recipe you choose largely defines the output of your pizza-making effort. Express your passion by choosing the right recipe for the right occasion. Make pizza that you like, that your family likes, or that you know your guests will like. Try something new like a recipe you have never tried before or one of the recipes in this book that seem outside your comfort zone. Creating your own recipes, or even customizing a previously written recipe, is one of the best ways to express your passion for pizza!

Although most pizzas have cheese on them, it is not required. You may have a sauce or type of topping that stands on its own without needing cheese or that is just plain better without cheese. If you prefer it that way, go for it! You might try experimenting with this idea just for the fun of it.