Dan Richer, Chef of Razza, with Katie Parla delivers the truly complete cookbook about one of my favorite foods: The Joy of Pizza: Everything You Need to Know. Richer has made a study of pizza over the years and everything he’s learned about it is in this book. No matter which style of pizza you prefer, Richer has it covered. We first saw Dan Richer when he was featured on CBS Saturday Morning.
Diane’s favorite pizza is the Margherita. Richer’s recipe on page 174 walks you through the process from start to finish. With just six ingredients–dough, tomato sauce, mozzarella, sea salt, extra-virgin olive oil, and fresh basil leaves–you can create a delicious pizza in as little as 15 minutes! With food prices zooming upward, preparing food a home takes on new meaning.
Are you a fan of pizza? What’s your favorite? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Where pizza begins: ingredients and how to choose them — 4
Dough — 5
Toppings –17
Rubrics — 52
Techniques — 60
Before you start — 61
Mix the dough –65
Bulk ferment with Stretch and folds — 77
Shape and proof — 83
Stretch and build — 93
Bake — 102
Pan pies — 117
Wood fired masonry oven baking — 123
Pizza dough recipes — 141
Classic and seasonal pizzas, sauces, and condiments — 170
Resources — 253
Videos and PDFs — 255
Acknowledgements — 256
Index — 257
My wife’s favourite is …
Pizza Hawaii!
I’ll take anything that’s a bit hot, peppers or hot sausage will do, olives and ham or bacon – just no sardines please.
I prefer the original Italian style with a thin crust, the US style with a lot of dough I find ***expletive deleted***.
I still remember when Italian “guest workers” more than 60 years ago introduced the idea of Pizza in Germany and soon it was available everywhere.
Actually we have similar stuff in Europe which we also like:
Flannkuchen (flame cake) in the Black Forest and Alsatia.
Langalló in Hungary
The main difference to pizza is that sour cream is used instead of tomato sauce
For both the baking has to happen on burning wood, that gives them a special taste
Wolf, my son loves Hawaiian Pizza, too!
I love pizza and veat more often than I should being diabetic. I prefer your basic pizza-cheese, lots of sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms. Ham, ground beef, bacon are all fine. I usually get mine from Dominos-medium for $&.99. I also like deep dish on occasion. Jet’s is my go to place for that. No pineapple please. Fruit doesn’t belong on a pizza. I find making one from scratch never turns out well. The dough never turns out as well as one from a pizzeria. A regular oven can’t cut it. Besides, time you buy all the ingredients it gets rather costly.
Steve, the Buffalo area features at least a dozen first-class pizzerias. I’m with you on fruit on pizza: it’s a Bad Idea!
Just noticed. That pizza in the picture looks awful. I wouldn’t accept awful.
Steve, I think the pizza in that picture might taste great!
I agree. The crust looks good and that is the most important factor, along with the sauce and cheese. There is a famous place around here called Pizza Wagon but I can’t eat there because I dislike their sauce.
Jeff, when Diane makes a pizza at home, she uses a sweet sauce she likes.
What’s not to like? If it’s done right, pizza is the best comfort food. But I do think of pizza as more of a takeout/restaurant food, as opposed to something I would make in my own home. We have a restaurant here called Italian Pie that makes a good pizza. When I get one, I prefer an all-veggie pizza: I find most meat toppings are way too salty.
Deb, I’m a fan of veggie pizza, too! In theory, I could eat a different style of pizza every day of the week given our large variety of pizzerias. But, Diane controls the menu so pizza shows up at the Kelley household about once a week.
Once A WEEK! Wow. Only allowed about every 3-4 weeks here, but I’m trying, with varied success, to lose weight plus the crust is all carb, all the time.
Rick, like Beth, I go for the thin crust with fewer carbs.
Sorry, that should of course have been “Flammkuchen”.
I agree that it’s almost impossible to make a really good pizza at home – the quality of the dough and the high temperature (290 Celsius, ie 600 Fahrenheit!) are impossible to achieve.
A bit OT:
Our favourite pizza place in my German hometown started 60 years ago as a boccia club for the Italian guest workers of a textile company which gave them some room to experiment. Soon Germans came too to enjoy the pizza and other Italian food.
The textile company and its guest workers are long gone but the restaurant still exists.
And now we found two really good pizzerias near where we live – one is easy to reach by foot, the other is down by the Danube, takes a drive, but a really wonderful landscape.
My experiences with those US pizza chains weren’t so good – not to my taste.
Wolf, the hot items for the Holidays are a lot of pizza ovens for home use. While tempted, I’m not going to ask Santa for a pizza oven. They’re pricey–$599 for the good ones–and $599 can buy a lot of pizza from any of our excellent pizzerias!
And most people have no room for it …
None of the US pizza national chains are worth a damn. Closest to edible is Uno, and a Whole Lot of people hate their standardized version of Chicago deep dish.
Todd, we had an UNO here, but it folded pre-pandemic. Now it’s a BOSTON MARKET.
Without knowing any statistics I’d guess that most pizzas are ordered from one of the big three chains–Pizza Hut, Domino’s, or Papa John’s. All three are convenient, and their pizza is at least OK. Of the three, I prefer Papa John’s, but it’s a close call. I really prefer a local chain called Fellini’s. My preference is for vegetarian pizza, which cuts down on the grease. No fruit, please.
Forgot Pizza Hut and Little Caesar’s. Wow, they’re all pretty dire. PJ’s might be the least worst among those, indeed.
Todd, for some reason our kids loved Pizza Hut. But I wouldn’t eat anything but a salad there. Never ate a LITTLE CAESAR’S. I only ate one DOMINO’s pizza. When the server brought out the box, I lifted it and asked him, “Is there anything in here?” The pizza tasted and had the weight of styrofoam!
The last time I ordered pizza from a chain was … never? When you live in New York (let alone Brooklyn), there is NO EXCUSE for putting up with chain pizza (though we have all three of those in our area). Obviously, we love pizza. It’s probably Jackie’s favorite food. She agrees with Diane on the Margherita. We usually get a large Margherita, with half mushrooms for me, and take the leftovers home. Locally, we have Peppino’s (where we ate on the way home from New Orleans) and Nino’s (the closest, also tasty). Jackie’s other favorite is the Sicilian square slice from L & B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst (you can look it up). They serve so much that it is always fresh and never needs to be reheated as some slice joints do. The only “chain” of sorts we go to is Grimaldi’s when we are in Florida. We used to go to the famous John’s of Bleecker Street (there is also a branch in Midtown), but the last two visits have been disappointing – more like eating grilled cheese than pizza. Too much melted cheese, not the way we like it. I’m not a huge pepperoni fan, though I will eat it. I prefer sausage and/or mushrooms, but peppers & onions also OK.
Fruit? No way.
Jeff, like NYC, Western NY is home to a dozen or more top pizzerias. Many of the pizza chains–Pizza Hut, Dominos, Little Caesar’s–have struggled in this market.
Good. Sbarro I only see in malls and airports and highway rest stops. But I suppose I should mention them. They might even be worse than LC.
Todd, SBARRO used to be featured on the Rest Stops on the NY State Thruway. I avoided them.
The one in the picture looks perfect to me. I don’t really like pizza from most of the chains because it tastes like I might as well make frozen pizza. Megan’s first job was at Little Caesar’s Pizza and scrubbing the sauce off her uniform was a nightly affair. I like green pepper and sausage the best. Although vegetarian is fine too, Just no onions for me. Do not care for pepperoni or pineapple.
Patti, Patrick loves Detroit-style pizza and JAY’S ARTISAN PIZZA features it frequently. When Patrick and Katie come home, each has a favorite Western NY treat they must have: Katie yearns for TED’S HOT DOGS and Patrick can’t wait to eat a GOOD GUY’S CHICKEN-FINGER submarine sandwich!
Don’t really care how it’s made.
My preference is cheese, sausage, and mushrooms but I’ll eat anything as long as there’s no anchovies or pineapple involved. I also like a thin crust.
Pepperoni is just little holders for grease.
Beth, sounds good to me! I, too, can’t stand anchovies (way to salty!). And pineapple on a pizza is just plain WRONG!
I love pizza, and wish I could have it more often, but…diabetes and weight. Our favorite place is Flying Pie Pizza, and though Barbara likes the everything combo (no anchovies), we usually get thin crust, pepperoni and double mushrooms. Those double mushrooms make all the difference.
Can’t say I like Margherita pizza, it’s just cheese and herbs. The one in the picture looks burnt to me.
Years ago, I tried making homemade pizza, but it wasn’t as good as the local Pizza Hut, if that tells you anything.
Rick, as Wolf points out, most kitchen ovens can’t reach the high temperatures needed to make great pizza. We have so many great pizza options here, it’s hard to limit pizza to just one per week.
L & B Spumoni Gardens.
Jeff, impressive!
Linda likes pineapple so I have it occasionally, but I’d never order it for myself! Anchovies are an abomination! We usually get Papa Murphy’s and bake it at home! I eschew Domino’s for political reasons and find that Little Caesar’s acts upon me like a mega-dose of Ex-Lax! I’ll bet 95% of the people that buy the book you’re flogging use it once, if that, and never again!
Bob, pizza devotees will consult THE JOY OF PIZZA for the directions on dough and baking temperatures for different types of pizza. It can serve as a reference book, not just a cookbook.
So, no other double mushroom fans?
Rick, I get Jackie’s share of the mushrooms. She doesn’t eat them.
Rick, if I’m doubling anything, it’s the cheese!
Re pineapple:
Before there was pizza Hawaii in Germany someone “invented” toast hawaii:
Put a little bit of butter on the toasted slice of bread, some ham, a slice of pineapple and some cheese on top and put around 12 or 20 of those in the oven until the cheese melts.
I used to do that for my parents and my sisters as a teenager – everybody was impressed.
But I used “real cheese” like Emmentaler not the horrible stuff sold by Krafft.
It’s remarkable how bad pizza is around Philadelphia, with such a pocket of Italian-American population. The best and most consistent pizza Alice and I have had was only in the first two-three years in Philly proper, Savas’, notably the efforts of a Greek-American…he kept alligator meat on his toppings menu mostly as a joke (I gather he’d been provided with some gator tails some years previously.
And, just to be clear, Uno is still marginally better than Papa John’s. The local Wegman’s was baking some pretty good pizza for a while, then started burning them all on purpose (I don’t eat meat, but apparently they had discovered they hadn’t quite been cooking the meat pizzas as long as somebody wanted).
Todd, we love Wegman’s subs, but their pizza tastes like cardboard. There are a couple of PAPA JOHN’S in Niagara Falls and another in Tonawanda, but I’ve never tasted one of their pizzas.
If your local Wegman’s is making cardboard pizza, it’s unlikely you want the similar product of PJ’s. They might have t, he least sugary tomato sauce of the national chains aside from Uno, which packs in so much oil and vegetables it would be hard to tell (in the non-meats, imagine the meat pizza is a grease-fest), and I will eat the jalapenos they provide, and might dip the crust bones in the garlic butteroid, and that’s as far as it goes. Little Caesar’s and Sbarro are the closest to typical elementary-school cafeteria pizza, in my experience.
Todd, I think of PIZZA HUT, DOMINOS, LITTLE CAESAR’S, and PAPA JOHN’S as “industrial” pizza. At PIZZA HUT you could see the staff feed “pre-made” pizza onto a rotating belt that moved the pizza into a heating device (I hesitate to call it an oven) and the finished product would roll off the belt for the server to deliver this mess to our dining table. Yuck!
The subs at our Wegman’s are hit and miss…apparently, as per Alice, their meat subs are pretty good on balance.
Todd, Diane likes Wegman’s Turkey Sub so that’s what we get. I can eat just about anything.