Pizza

[marcusarelus]

2 hours ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

From Lazada

 

I bought it from Toshiba.  

[marcusarelus]

1 hour ago, moogradod said:

I never did succeed at least at two things in life so far: 1. Glueing something together properly 2. Making a pizza (because of the dough). Please help me to overcome the second obstacle.

 

I read the receipe posted above by @Gecko123 but for my capabilities I need a more foolproof version. Its the ingredients and the measurements that would make me fail, apart from the cooking instructions. I only have a standard oven which goes up to some 250 degrees celcius or so.

 

Then the ingredients: Somewhere a "00 - Type flour" was mentinoned here (to be obtained at Macro), but I am not sure which flour exactly to buy (need a picture) and where (I live in Pattaya). Same for yeast (if needed). I have even used a special flour for pizza obtained at Macro before and failed miserably 3 times with that one.

 

The aim is to obtain a pizza with a softer, yet crispy rim (should at least be brown or very dark). The main problem is that my dough gets far too hard. It should be soft in order to be palatable yet still be crispy a bit on the outside. I have been living in Switzerland and have visited Italy for decades, eaten hundreds of authentic and phantiastic Pizzas so I know how it should be but my versions do not come even close.

 

Can somebody please please post a receipe for the dough (toppings I can handle) and its preparation- and cooking instructions indicating

 

1. Ingredients (which flour exactly and yeast (if used) incl. the source near Pattaya to be sure, best with a picture)

2. Measurements in ml, grams or at the max tbs, tsp (metric system, no "cups" or anything unspecific)

3. Preparation instructions (like kneading time, time to let it go at which temerature etc.)

4. Cooking instructions (temperature, time)

 

I thank you really very much to help me solve this pizza dough challenge. I will post a picture here once I have been successful (or even if I was not a picture of my failed attempt).

To start with you need a stone and an oven that gets hotter.  Those pizzas you ate in Italy were cooked in 4 to 500 c oven.  Not F but C.  And a Pizza peel.  If buying the flour at Makro check for bugs at Foodland no problem.  

 

[SteveK]

To make pizza dough you need flour, yeast, salt, oil and warm water.

 

Chuck an amount of flour into a bowl, I use one of those steel bowls, we have dozens of them knocking around the house. It's hard to describe the amount because I don't weigh it, but I usually get 6-8 pizza out of a 1Kg bag of flour so maybe 150g-ish.

 

Add a small pinch of salt, and a tablespoon of dried yeast.

 

I use this flour:

 

 

Yes I have tried using 00 flour but it's several times the price and the difference in taste and texture is negligible. Make sure you avoid anything which says "cake flour", I have used lots of different Thai flours and they all seem to be just as good to be honest.

 

I also use this yeast:

 

 

I can get this yeast at a tiny mum and dad shop in the village, I bought my pack over a year ago and still have over half left, kept in tupperware in the fridge. Very economical.

 

So, once you've mixed your flour, pinch of salt and tablespoon of yeast thoroughly, slowly add a small amount of warm water. The water needs to be warm enough to awaken the yeast but not enough to kill it, if you can keep your finger in it without being in pain that's just right, but don't panic too much, anything over room temperature will work. Add slowly and mix with a fork or other implement until the dough starts to come together, should take just a few minutes. Once the dough starts to form, you can get rid of the fork and start using your hands. Push, pull and knead the dough, adding flour if it is too wet, keep going for about 5 minutes until you have an elastic ball of dough. Really work it with your palms and fingers. Now here is the key: the dough should be tacky but not sticky, and certainly not wet. If the dough is too floury and dry, it won't work out right. When you touch it with your finger, it should adhere to your finger, but when you pull your finger away it should detach, so tacky but not sticky.

 

Once your ball of dough gets to this state, use a teaspoon of oil to cover the ball of dough and place it in the bowl. This ensures that as the dough rises it does not adhere to the sides of the bowl and create a weird consistency. Cover with a tea towel, t-shirt or dirty underpants and leave for 2-3 hours at room temperature.

 

Then, using your hands, press the dough outwards from the middle to create a crust, very lightly dust your metal dish with flour to prevent sticking, then place your dough into the pan, pressing out the edges and making the right shape. You can roll it with a rolling pin if you find that easier, then use your fingers to create the edges.

[Andrew Dwyer]

I bought it from Toshiba.  

And how did your price compare ?

Posters on here might be interested in buying .

[SteveK]

Then add your pizza sauce, toppings and cheese. Always get mozzarella cheese, resist the temptation to buy pizza topping at Makro as this is artificially produced mozzarella substitute made from palm oils and although it tastes ok it's just not the same. I cook my own pizza sauce beforehand with tomatoes, onions, garlic, chilli and brown sugar, you could use tomato paste from a can, sliced fresh tomatoes, or even prego pasta sauce. A pinch of oregano goes on top.

 

It might sound criminal but the red Prego pasta sauce actually works reasonably well as pizza sauce, and you don't have to do what I do, which is make up a huge batch with an industrial sized can of tomatoes, which takes a few hours at least. Your sauce should be the consistency of a paste, if it's too watery you'll end up with wet dough and possibly pools of water on the cheese. The Mica tomato paste is a good consistency, and easy to find even in the sticks.

 

Then it goes into my oven, which is cheap as chips:

 

 

At maximum temperature for five minutes or until cooked - make sure to preheat the oven! Easy peasy. For a more authentic tasting pizza, a very light dusting of parmesan goes onto the pizza sauce before applying the mozzarella, this is what the famous New York slice shops do. But I'm keeniow and parmesan is too expensive for me so I do without it.

[marcusarelus]

27 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

And how did your price compare ?

Posters on here might be interested in buying .

Almost 3 years ago.  I forgot.  Toshiba service was good as I had a dead gecko in the timer and the oven light went out (special bulb difficult to replace.  You need a flash light to work the oven as the standard light is not bright enough to see anything and the tech people really don't know much about the oven over the phone. 

 

I guess I could write a manual.  Once the oven is heated to 300C it will not re heat if turned off without cooling completely.  A lot of quirks like that.  I have found no source but trial and error among the thousands of references online.  No cook books that are accurate.  Toshiba has a terrible one written by a Japanese speaker who must have studied English in Thailand.  

 

Funny short maximum cooking temps and the steamer uses water very fast.  Big potential for slow cooking like an industrial Alto Shaam but nothing done to try it and no interior thermometer which is really necessary.  

 

It is a really great idea that was implemented by people who know less than nothing about cooking.  

 

Any fool could sell a million of them in 12 months if he would but go to American kitchens and look at slow cooking systems.  Funny how cultures operate in a vacuum.  Every Prime rib house in America and the UK uses a slow cook 12 to 18 hours and there is no slow cook setting on the Toshiba.  On and on missed marketing opportunities.  

 

And Pizza! No pizza stone included with the oven.  It's a professional grade pizza oven with no stone.  A stone from Lazada fits like it was made for the thing.  Same with baking french bread.  They have steam but no way to shoot it in when starting to bake as is necessary for French bread.  

 

Not that it will change as Toshiba ovens were sold to some Chinese company that I'm sure know even less about cooking with ovens than the Japanese.

 

My daughter the professional Hollywood food movie producer says the oven is too complicated for Americans.  They can't handle more than one button on any appliance.  I did mention Bill Gates and computers - she walked out of the room - like her mom - never wrong.  

[Jane Dough]

I clicked on this thread and now I have to phone Pizza Hut for home delivery.

 

I blame you.

 

Rooster

[wgdanson]

18 hours ago, steven100 said:

Steve, I used to make the pizzas in my small otto oven in Bangkok, they turned out just fine , only the oven was so small I had to cut the pre-base dough in half and cook two halves. crab stick and pepperoni ...

 

Looks OK, but why f... it up with crab sticks.

[steven100]

1 hour ago, SteveK said:

dirty underpants

hmmmm, steve …. not sure anyone would eat my pizza if they seen this 

[moogradod]

3 hours ago, SteveK said:

To make pizza dough you need flour, yeast, salt, oil and warm water.

 

Chuck an amount of flour into a bowl, I use one of those steel bowls, we have dozens of them knocking around the house. It's hard to describe the amount because I don't weigh it, but I usually get 6-8 pizza out of a 1Kg bag of flour so maybe 150g-ish.

 

Add a small pinch of salt, and a tablespoon of dried yeast.

 

I use this flour:

 

 

Yes I have tried using 00 flour but it's several times the price and the difference in taste and texture is negligible. Make sure you avoid anything which says "cake flour", I have used lots of different Thai flours and they all seem to be just as good to be honest.

 

I also use this yeast:

 

 

I can get this yeast at a tiny mum and dad shop in the village, I bought my pack over a year ago and still have over half left, kept in tupperware in the fridge. Very economical.

 

So, once you've mixed your flour, pinch of salt and tablespoon of yeast thoroughly, slowly add a small amount of warm water. The water needs to be warm enough to awaken the yeast but not enough to kill it, if you can keep your finger in it without being in pain that's just right, but don't panic too much, anything over room temperature will work. Add slowly and mix with a fork or other implement until the dough starts to come together, should take just a few minutes. Once the dough starts to form, you can get rid of the fork and start using your hands. Push, pull and knead the dough, adding flour if it is too wet, keep going for about 5 minutes until you have an elastic ball of dough. Really work it with your palms and fingers. Now here is the key: the dough should be tacky but not sticky, and certainly not wet. If the dough is too floury and dry, it won't work out right. When you touch it with your finger, it should adhere to your finger, but when you pull your finger away it should detach, so tacky but not sticky.

 

Once your ball of dough gets to this state, use a teaspoon of oil to cover the ball of dough and place it in the bowl. This ensures that as the dough rises it does not adhere to the sides of the bowl and create a weird consistency. Cover with a tea towel, t-shirt or dirty underpants and leave for 2-3 hours at room temperature.

 

Then, using your hands, press the dough outwards from the middle to create a crust, very lightly dust your metal dish with flour to prevent sticking, then place your dough into the pan, pressing out the edges and making the right shape. You can roll it with a rolling pin if you find that easier, then use your fingers to create the edges.

Thanks indeed. But here we have it again: I may not reproduce your receipe - I never saw that kind of yeast nor your flour. And I do not know how long to bake it in the oven at what temperature as you did not tell. Long at low temperature or a short while like in the pizzerias (but at 500 C - see marcularelus below - which I cannot produce). Tried many combinations, less hot seems to work better for my problem is a very hard (stone like consistency) dough when finished. Or soft but not fully cooked. Finally it is a combination I believe. Everything must just be right.

3 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

To start with you need a stone and an oven that gets hotter.  Those pizzas you ate in Italy were cooked in 4 to 500 c oven.  Not F but C.  And a Pizza peel.  If buying the flour at Makro check for bugs at Foodland no problem.  

 

Thanks - but this looks like I would have to stick to restaurants although I did not yet find a single good pizzeria in and around Pattaya. I tried about 5 so far. Well - a stone - what kind of stone would that be and if it can only be used in a 500 C oven I can forget it anyway, we do not have any more place in the kitchen for another oven - it is packed with all kinds of appliances you can think of but no pizza oven.

 

I just feel that making some kind of compromise a quite reasonable pizza may be produced - as the post of @SteveK seems to suggest. I am not giving up after all those years. And I am still researching the pizzeria landscape, too.

 

 

[SteveK]

14 minutes ago, moogradod said:

I did not yet find a single good pizzeria in and around Pattaya.

 

 

Try Bronx pizza, if you don't like that then you don't like pizza. 317 soi lengkee.

 

If you follow my recipe, 5 minutes at 250 degrees is enough. I previously cooked in a BBQ drum which took 25+ minutes, making the base very crispy. Just try with what you have, and make slow improvements on your technique.

[moogradod]

2 minutes ago, SteveK said:

Try Bronx pizza, if you don't like that then you don't like pizza. 317 soi lengkee.

Thank you ! I hope you are not from NYC ???? but setting any prejudices aside I will try Bronx for sure. Maybe they serve that "American Pizza" that many talk about and like. I never had one so far. I am ready for the experience.

[SteveK]

1 minute ago, moogradod said:

Thank you ! I hope you are not from NYC ???? but setting any prejudices aside I will try Bronx for sure. Maybe they serve that "American Pizza" that many talk about and like. I never had one so far. I am ready for the experience.

They serve better quality pizza than many US pizza joints - post up a photo when you go.

[cornishcarlos]

Stopped yesterday enroute from Hat Yai to Suratthani.. Big place on the AH2, always packed..

Saw a pizza oven so thought we should give it a go..

Pretty good pizza to be fair...

[SteveK]

That looks sensational, Carlos!

[cornishcarlos]

3 hours ago, SteveK said:

That looks sensational, Carlos!

It was pretty damn tasty

[Rhys]

What type of oven from Home Pro would you recommend?

[marcusarelus]

3 hours ago, Rhys said:

What type of oven from Home Pro would you recommend?

Built in or counter top  gas or electric what is your budget?

[Rhys]

Counter top about 3-5k?

 

[marcusarelus]

On 7/29/2019 at 4:11 PM, Rhys said:

Counter top about 3-5k?

 

Nothing in that price range

[Michaelaway]

SMALL OVEN MAUAL TEFAL OF4848 39L | TEFAL | OF4848

4,990 now 3,990

 

[james.d]

On 7/29/2019 at 4:11 PM, Rhys said:

Counter top about 3-5k?

 

Have a look in Verasu, they often have deals on. And good quality products.

[SteveK]

If you're just going to do the odd pizza, you don't need to spend over a thousand baht.

[marcusarelus]

5 minutes ago, SteveK said:

If you're just going to do the odd pizza, you don't need to spend over a thousand baht.

If the odd pizza is a decent pizza  you do.  

[SteveK]

1 minute ago, marcusarelus said:

If the odd pizza is a decent pizza  you do.  

That looks like it was cooked in a proper wood-fired pizza oven, if you did that in an electric oven, you're well ahead of the game. 

[sfokevin]

2 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

If the odd pizza is a decent pizza  you do.  

Looks great!... What oven did you Use?

[marcusarelus]

3 minutes ago, SteveK said:

That looks like it was cooked in a proper wood-fired pizza oven, if you did that in an electric oven, you're well ahead of the game. 

40,000 baht Toshiba and a pizza stone heated to 350 and a blow torch.  Not really my photo though although mine look exactly like that.  Mainly I use the blow torch for creme caramel.   

[SteveK]

1 minute ago, marcusarelus said:

pizza stone heated to 350 and a blow torch.

Ingenious!

[marcusarelus]

3 minutes ago, SteveK said:

Ingenious!

 

[SteveK]

Is that your video? Are you a YouTube monkey? Only time I ever used my blow torch was when I was tying to free a seized caliper bolt from a Suzuki drz 400 and it worked wonders.