@aq & @mrb_bk - so sure, I get it, errrrrybody likes 🍕
But why did you both write this book? And how did you go about it?
Many late nights experimenting and a lot turned out to be too good to not share 😋
@bentossell We've been working on the recipe for this dough for years now. We have eaten and heard about a lot of home made pizza and the common complaint is that its "just not that good" or "it's just easier and better at the local parlor". After working on this we KNOW that you can actually make amazingly good pizza at home or in your apartment kitchen. So we're vocal, we like sharing our opinions and things we've learned, so we wanted to figure out how to share that knowledge. We also both love reading and "working through" cookbooks and have always dreamed of our own. Once we hooked up with @thoughtmerchant and realized that we could actually produce a beautiful print cookbook that we would be proud to put on our shelves.
We've had the core dough recipe written and tested (by ourselves and friends) for a long time now and we've been flushing out the details and all the other recipes. We're still working on the pie recipes and a bunch of essays (using dropbox+markdown as a collaboration platform) and @thoughtmerchant has been working on these beautiful layouts that you see above.
Truly we're not doing this to make $$$, we're doing this because this is the most fun we've had in a long time and we want to spread that joy to our friends and anyone who comes in our path.
@aq it sounds like awesome fun!
Isn't a common issue that your pizza will only be as good as the quality of ingredients you can get hold of.... understandably we have lots of choice these days and are spoilt with the quality in most places... but maybe an East-Coast version will be the complete opposite to a West-Coast and even more-so a European version.
Part of the experimenting I guess :)
Excluding cooking your own, where was the BEST pizza you have ever had and why?
I'm about to visit NYC for the first time and have been told pizza is a must - any recommendations? ($1 pizza places haha 😜 )
I am not much of a pizza lover/enthusiast/whatever you want to call it... but am in no way against it... Great pizza is great for everyone :)
@bentossell yeah, thats true re:ingredients, but these days with THE INTERNET and good food most places, its not hard to get great ingredients. Our book mainly focuses on things you can find between a normal supermarket and your local farmers market.
I have favorite pizza everywhere, but the best I've ever had was probably a perfect pie from Grimaldi's in Downtown Brooklyn near where I grew up, that I ate outside under the Brooklyn Bridge with some of my best friends.
There are MANY great places in NYC (Mostly Brooklyn) but our favorites:
Old School:
- L&B Spumoni Gardens
- Grimaldis
- Totonnos
- Difara
New School:
- Frannys
- Barbocino
- Marta
@aq@bentossell I'm obviously not as experienced as @aq, but given I've already pimped out the recipe once here...
I'm a pretty classic pizza guy and like the simple toppings. Here's what I've discovered in my own limited experimentation now that I know I can actually make a good pizza:
- The particular brand of flour doesn't seem to matter that much. Or I've just got lucky and everything my supermarket stocks is amazing. They only stock 1 brand of yeast so that's all I've ever used.
- Tinned tomatoes are fine for making a base. Some of the cheaper ones seem a bit watery, I just try to strain some excess water off if so.
- Fresh basil is fresh basil.
- Same with salt (though I'm sure you can go fancy if you want to and get some smoked salt)
The only ingredients left for a simple pizza are olive oil and cheese. I think that's part of what makes it so easy. I'd guess most of the US these days has access to pretty good cheese, and a half decent olive oil.
You're set :)
I was lucky enough to have @aq send me an early recipe out of this, and it's been my go-to pizza dough recipe ever since. Friends have been thoroughly impressed by the pizzas when they come around. And I'm just pulling them out of a Primo XL bbq/smoker with a pizza stone, no custom wood-fired oven (yet).
Can't wait to get my hands on the rest of the book now.
Makerpad
The Pizza Book
Makerpad
The Pizza Book
Makerpad
The Pizza Book