The Everything Pizza Cookbook: 300 Crowd-Pleasing Slices of Heaven

Pizza Basics

Pizza has come full circle. The dish originated as peasant food, a simple life-sustaining recipe meant to fill stomachs without emptying purses. It evolved into a world-recognized ethnic treat, then graduated to a gourmet wonder topped with luxury ingredients like duck confit and caviar. Now — although fancy pizzas and purist Italian pizzerias still exist — the dish has returned to its origins. Pizza is an everyday family favorite, sometimes ordered in, sometimes meticulously crafted from scratch, and sometimes thrown together from leftovers. However it arrives at the table, it's always a hunger-abating, soul-satisfying pleasure.

The Origins of Pizza

The first bread baked was a pizza crust. The Neolithic-era cooks who prepared grain paste and baked it into flat rounds over burning coals probably didn't call it that, but a hot, crispy, chewy pizza crust by any other name is still a pizza crust. Leavened flatbreads — made lighter by the introduction of wild yeast spores — appeared in Egypt around 4000 B.C. It's a good bet that condiments of the day — honey, onion, garlic, goose fat, herbs, and plant extracts — found their way onto and into doughs made from wheat, barley, and other grains. After that, it was just a matter of time, improved culinary technology, and the discovery of new ingredients before the now-classic pizza was born.

European Traditions

Ancient Greeks can claim credit for the first pizza-like dishes, which included flat breads — some no doubt similar to modern pita — topped with herbs and spices. But similar thrifty meals were being eaten by workers and their families in countries around the Mediterranean. Food historians say that in the sixth century B. C.,Persian soldiers baked flatbread on their shields and topped it with dates and cheeses. In his third-century B.C. history of Rome, Cato the Elder speaks of flat rounds of dough baked on hot stones and dressed with olive oil, herbs, and honey. Meanwhile, Etruscans in Central Italy baked focaccia-like bread with toppings.

The first Italian cookbook author, Marcus Gavius Apicius, included in his first-century A.D. book a recipe for a hearth-baked bread topped with chicken, pine nuts, cheeses, herbs, peppers, and oil — a precursor to chicken pesto pizza. And, in the ruins of Pompeii, which was frozen at a.d. 79 by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, archaeologists found evidence of shops bearing a striking resemblance to modern pizzerias.

A step toward the familiar bread-tomato-cheese pie formula came in the sixteenth century when Columbus's voyages brought Peruvian tomatoes to Europe. Most Europeans eschewed the fruit, fearing them poisonous. The poor men and women of Naples, however, decided to risk a little in order to add variety to their monotonous diets. They added tomatoes to their hearth-baked dough rounds. By the seventeenth century, diners from all over Italy were venturing into Neapolitan bakeries and trattorias in search of the country's best pizzas.

Naples, the Italian birthplace of the modern pizza, was once a Greek settlement known as Neopolis, further cementing the connection between pizza and ancient Greek culinary arts.

Pizza as most people know it first appeared in 1889 with baker Raffaele Esposito of Naples. In honor of a visit by Queen Margherita of Savoy, he prepared a patriotic pizza in the colors of the Italian flag: green basil, white mozzarella cheese made from water buffalo milk, and red tomatoes. He named it Pizza Margherita, a variety of pie still served today. In fact, the descendants of Esposito and his wife Maria Brandi still operate Brandi Pizzeria in Naples.

Pizza in America

In 1897, Gennaro Lombardi, an Italian immigrant in New York, opened a store in Little Italy where one of his employees made pizza. It became so popular that by 1905 Lombardi had opened New York's first pizzeria. Lombardi's on Spring Street in Little Italy eventually spawned more Lombardi's pizza outlets in the city. By 1924, Lombardi's original pizzaiolo (the Italian word for pizzamaker), Antonio Totonno Pero, opened his own shop on Coney Island. Descendants of Pero and other Lombardi employees eventually launched pizza enterprises up the East Coast in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and, eventually, Boston. In 1929, Italian immigrants in South Philadelphia opened Marra's on Passyunk Avenue, which served thin-crust pizzas baked in brick ovens built with stone bricks imported from Italy. It remains the oldest surviving restaurant in the neighborhood.

Until World War II, pizza in the United States was largely an ethnic affair, served by Italians to Italians. During the war, soldiers and sailors — sick of rations — sought out local dishes and discovered the Italian food of the masses, pizza. They came home with a taste for the stuff and began making pilgrimages to Italian restaurants in their own cities. By the 1950s, a boom in pizza consumption had begun that has not abated to this day.

Roman Pizza Mix, a pizza kit in a box, was introduced in 1948 as the first home pizza convenience product. The first frozen pizza was marketed in 1957 by the Celentano Brothers. Eventually, pizza became the top-selling frozen entrée in the United States.

The first truly American pizza was born in 1943 when Chicagoan Ike Sewell introduced deep-dish pizza to the Windy City. Pizzeria Uno offered pies worthy of oversized appetites, with a thin crust lining a cake pan filled with many layers of cheese, meats, veggies, and sauce. Shortly thereafter, the development of gas-fired pizza ovens made pizza entrepreneurship easier and more affordable, resulting in mom-and-pop pizza shops springing up around the U.S.

The next major change in American pizza-dom was the advent of fast-food and delivery-focused pizza chains. Shakey's Pizza opened in California in 1954, Pizza Hut opened in Kansas in 1958, Little Caesar's launched in Michigan in 1959, and Domino's began in Michigan in 1960. The major chains have served billions of pizzas around the world since that time, making pizza more accessible but less of an artisan product. Perhaps as a backlash, gourmet, or California-style, pizzas emerged in the 1980s. Spago founder Wolfgang Puck created a small, thin-crust pie with toppings as varied as caviar, artichokes, crème fraiche, and Gorgonzola cheese. In 1985, Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield, two Beverly Hills attorneys, traded the courtroom for the dining room. They founded the California Pizza Kitchen chain, most notably the creator of the Barbecue Chicken Pizza.

Global Pizza

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italians migrated to countries throughout South America, Australia, Central Europe, and Northern Africa, as well as North America. Those families brought their pizza recipes with them, and eventually pizza vendors raised their shingles, attracting neighborhood folk as well as adventurous visitors.

Those Italian neighborhood shops got a boost after World War II. American GIs weren't the only world citizens who acquired a taste for pizza during their time abroad. Many Australians, Canadians, and Northern Europeans sampled pizza for the first time as well. When they returned home, they sought out their own countries' pizzerias. Their appetites fueled pizza booms and reinforced the pizza traditions of Italian immigrant families in far corners.

Pizza-loving soldiers and their families also created a market that attracted global food purveyors. American corporate pizza giants like Pizza Hut and Domino's spread across North America and onto other continents, which in turn helped build an even wider interest in pizza. As pizza became more entrenched in local cultures, the toppings and styles became more varied.

Today, one can order pizza topped with kimchee (fermented vegetables) in Korea, with potatoes and mayonnaise in Japan, with Russian or Thousand Island dressing in Hong Kong, with bananas and nuts in Brazil, with tandoori chicken in India, with corn in China, and with Gouda cheese in the Netherlands. In Canada, Punjabi- style pizza refers to pies topped with hot peppers, with Ranch dressing as a popular dip. In Ireland, some pizza toppings are piled onto soda bread, and in Scotland, deep-fried pizzas are served with fries, while in Iran pizzas come with a side of ketchup.

Classic Pizza Styles

Although pizza toppings can range from pickled cabbage in Asia to crab and crème fraiche in California, there are some commonly accepted pizza styles with regional variations. Some of these include Neapolitan, Sicilian, Chicago style, and California style.

Neapolitan

Many pizzas are variations on the original pie of Naples — a flat, hearth-baked, chewy crust topped with tomatoes or tomato sauce and mild cheese. A few of the most common variations are New York — style pizza, which is bigger and flatter than the original pizza of Napoli, designed to be cut into large, flexible wedges that can be folded and eaten while walking or working. New Haven — style pizza often refers to white pizza with clams. Philadelphia pizzas can be classic Neapolitan or a variation with slightly sweet canned peppers and onions as a topping. There's also the eastern Pennsylvania tomato pie, which is square; it's topped with thick tomato sauce and eaten cold.

Long Island, New York claims to be the home of the pizza bagel, an individual-size pizza that substitutes a bagel half for the pizza crust. Beyond that, the toppings can include any of the usual meats, veggies, and cheeses.

Sicilian

True Sicilian pizza is a rectangular slab of bread with toppings — which typically do not include cheese — pushed into the dough before baking. The American version is radically different, usually with a thick layer of cheese encasing all the toppings. Sicilian pizza can be found in major metro areas with large Italian-American populations, and homogenized versions occasionally turn up on the menu of pizza chain restaurants. Scranton-style pizza, served at pubs and bakeries in Northeastern Pennsylvania, is a thick, pillowy rectangular crust with a crisp bottom, topped with thick tomato sauce and a thin layer of grated hard cheeses. One can argue that pizza variations like French-bread crust pizza and focaccia pizza pay homage to the original Sicilian pizzas.

Chicago Style

Around the world, Chicago-style pizza usually refers to the deep-dish, multilayered pizzas first created by Ike Sewell in the mid-twentieth century. That pie, almost a casserole, offers a unique pizza experience. It has also spawned some lesser pizzas, generally called pan pizzas. Pan pizzas are round with a thick, well-oiled crust — somewhat similar to a Sicilian crust — with an indentation to hold more toppings.

There is also a Chicago-style thin crust pizza. The crust tends to be flat and crisp, topped with a sweet, oregano-heavy tomato sauce and plenty of meats and cheese. Although it's a round pie, this Chicago-style pizza is cut into squares, not wedges, making it easy to munch without the toppings sliding off. St. Louis — style pizza is similar to Chicago thin crust, with the addition of Provel cheese — a processed cheese flavored with Cheddar, Swiss, and provolone cheeses.

Chicago is known for its meat industry and love of thick steaks and chops. But the most popular topping for Chicago-style pizza? Spinach and lots of cheese. It seems Midwesterners love their veggie pies.

California Style

Although San Franciscans have long adored their hearty sourdough-crust pizzas topped with the freshest ingredients, those Neapolitan-style pies aren't what most of the world knows as California style. Instead California-style pizza is characterized by a plate-sized, very thin crust and a range of unusual toppings. Barbecue, pineapple, Thai shrimp, curry chicken, fiddlehead ferns, roast duck, and all manner of herbs and cheeses turn up on California-style pizzas. Some gourmet pizza devotees assume Californians invented the grilled pizza, but that distinction actually goes to chefs in Rhode Island.

Ingredients

Pizza purists may argue, but in the twenty-first century there's wide latitude regarding acceptable ingredients for pizza. The only thing everybody agrees upon is quality. To make good pizza, you must start with fresh, good-quality ingredients. Beyond that, the choice is yours.

Crust

Bread flour, which is an unbleached, hard wheat flour with a high protein content, generally makes the best pizza crust. It rises easily and bakes up crusty and chewy. Whole-wheat flour and flours with a variety of whole grains mixed in also make a substantial crust, and have the added benefit of being good, high-fiber carbohydrates. Semolina flour, the granular flour that gives the best dried pasta its bite, makes a firming addition to pizza crust. Rye flour adds substance and flavor, making it a great addition to crust being prepared for the grill.

A special Italian flour known as OO or Caputo flour is often used to make a soft dough for authentic Neapolitan crust. It can sometimes be found in specialty stores and from mail-order sources.

Wild yeast spores exist on the surface of plants and often travel in the wind, causing organic compounds to ferment. Long before packaged yeast existed, bakers maintained a supply of live yeast by keeping a crock of fermenting dough starter. Adding the starter to fresh dough allows the yeast to multiply.

Sauce

Anything that can add moisture and flavor to your pizza crust can be used as a sauce. Thick tomato sauce or olive oil with garlic are the two classic toppings, but substitutions can range from chopped tomatoes or herb pesto to ground olive or pepper pastes to barbecue sauce or teriyaki glaze. Creamy salad dressings, nut butters, cream sauces, and vegetable purèes can work as well. Experiment with your own sauce combinations. The important thing to remember is proportion. Too much of a good thing can make your pizza a soggy mess.

Cheese

Water-buffalo milk mozzarella cheese — a fresh, dense, creamy-tasting mozzarella — is the preferred topping for Neapolitan-style pizza. Cow's milk mozzarella is the most common substitute. Provolone is a smoke-flavored version. But most modern pizzamakers use a combination of cheeses. Try pairing strong-flavored cheeses like sharp Cheddar, aged Romano and Parmesan, Asiago, or aged Manchego with a mild buttery cheese like mozzarella, Butterkase, Gouda, or Monterey jack. Intensely flavored blue or green-veined cheeses should be used as accents, rather than full layers.

Depending on the effect you want, cheeses can be added in dollops, cubes, slices, or shreds. Just remember that thinly shredded cheeses melt, and sometimes burn, more quickly than larger shreds or cubes.

Toppings

The sky's the limit on pizza toppings. Virtually any meat, cheese, vegetable, fruit, herb, nut, or seed can become the star of your homemade pizza. However, it's important to remember that raw ingredients release moisture and possibly fats during cooking, which can turn your pizza and your oven into a nightmare. Always fully cook raw sausage, meats, fish, and seafood before adding to pizzas. Spinach and other greens should be well-drained, and oily ingredients used in moderation.

Equipment

You don't need a $10,000 brick oven to make great pizza at home. A regular oven and a few baking sheets will suffice. But if you really want to make great pizza, there are a few pieces of equipment that will make your pies better and the pizzamaking experience easier.

Bread Machines and Mixers

Some people love the tactile experience of mixing and kneading dough, punching it down and kneading it again before rolling it into a flat crust. For others it's a necessary evil. If you love making pizza but hate making yeast-risen dough, invest in a bread machine. Bread machines with pizza dough cycles make short work of pizza crust. Just spoon or pour ingredients into the bread machine pan, set the cycle, and hit the start button. The machine will mix the ingredients, knead the dough, and hold it at the right temperature for rising, while you peruse the fridge for toppings. Within an hour or so, you'll be ready to stretch or roll your dough into a crust.

Even if you don't have a bread machine, you can use a mixer fitted with a dough hook to do a lot of the ingredient mixing and kneading. Then just throw a clean towel or plate over the bowl and set it in a draft-free place to rise.

Pizza Stones, Tiles, and Peels

Pizza stones are porous slabs — either circles or squares — that mimic the surface and floor of a brick or stone pizza oven. The stones absorb heat, then release it evenly, resulting in a crisp-bottomed pizza. Ovens equipped with pizza stones can produce crusts with an amazing hearth-baked taste and texture. Tiles work similarly, with small squares that can be lined up inside a baking sheet for convenience.

Stones should be allowed to heat up and cool down with the oven to keep from cracking. And both stones and tiles should be cleaned with a damp cloth or brush, never detergent. The porous surface can absorb soaps and cleansers, resulting in off-flavored crusts. Pizza peels — giant wooden paddles — are the best way to transfer pizzas to and from hot stones or tiles. Just coat the peel with coarse corn meal to keep the dough from sticking, then build your pizza. Slide the uncooked pie onto the hot stone using the peel. Once the pizza is cooked, the pie can be removed using the peel as a giant spatula.

Pizza Screens and Pans

Every household should have a pizza screen. These perforated metal pans allow heat to get to the bottom of crusts, resulting in a crispy, chewy pizza. Whether you're baking a from-scratch Neapolitan or California-style pizza or just reheating a ready-made crust, a pizza screen can give a much better result than a solid pan.

That said, Chicago-style and generously topped Sicilian pizzas require a solid, deep-sided pan to keep oils and wet ingredients contained. The best deep-dish pizza pans are heavy metal pans with a nonstick surface. Just remember that dark pans hold more heat, so pizzas should be baked at a lower temperature or watched carefully while baking.

Pizza wheels allow you to cut through cheesy pizzas without dragging toppings off the pie. Invest in a heavy, stable pizza wheel or use a long sharp knife with a rocking motion to cut slices.

Keep a good supply of nonstick foil for baking dessert pizza crusts and small cocktail pizzas. Just line a baking sheet or flat round baking pan with foil and bake away.

Pizza Safety

Anyone who's ever bitten into a delicious-looking hot pizza — only to get her mouth seared with hot cheese — knows it's important to be careful when dealing with pizza. Keep heavy-duty oven mitts at the ready for pulling pizza in and out of the oven. When baking, always keep a place on the stove or a portion of counter space cleared and ready to accept a hot pizza pan as it is removed from the oven. Allow pizzas to settle and cool slightly before cutting, and never try to remove a hot pizza stone from the oven.

Never leave perishable foods at room temperature for more than two hours. That's the point at which ingredients become vulnerable to bacteria that can cause food poisoning. Remember that most bacterial infestations cannot be seen or smelled, so a quick sniff won't tell you if something's gone bad.

To reduce the chance of contaminating your pizzas with bacteria, make sure countertops and work surfaces have been cleaned with antibacterial soap. Never handle raw animal products without washing your hands thoroughly, and never allow raw ingredients to come in contact with cooked ingredients. Leftover pizza should be wrapped and refrigerated promptly after meals.

Tips for Entertaining

Pizza is comfort food, and even if you're topping yours with filet mignon and lobster, the sight of pizza on the table will make guests feel at home. Pizza makes a great entrée to pair with simple salads and soups because it's a hardy dish that can be prepared with a range of complementary toppings.

Armchair tailgating is always a good excuse for a pizza party, but other televised events — the Academy Awards, the Grammys, even the season finale of your favorite TV series — can offer great opportunities for making and sharing a homemade pie.

Consider inviting guests over for a before-theatre pizza tart and champagne party, or a pizza holiday brunch, or a book-club pizza dessert party. Grilled pizza makes a great alternative to burgers and hot dogs at a backyard barbecue. And anyone who has children knows that pizza is at the top of the food chain for kids 3 to 11. You can't go wrong offering pizza at any birthday party or after-school event.

Just remember to allow for two slices of pizza per child and at least three for each adult invited. Unless you know your guests' preferences very well, always offer at least one cheese-only pizza for those with an aversion to particular toppings. If you're having a large party, one cheese-only and one pizza featuring a single meat — beef or chicken preferably — is a good idea. Then go wild with the remaining pies on your buffet.

Pizza Hut and Domino's combined deliver more than 3 million pizzas during the Super Bowl, with most orders coming in just before and in the first hour after kick-off. Pepperoni is the most requested topping.

Most home ovens can accommodate two pizzas at the most. Don't worry. Once the crust is rolled out and the toppings chopped or sliced, a pizza takes very little time to prepare. By the time your first pie is out of the oven, slightly cooled, and sliced, your next round of pizzas will be ready to pull from the fire. And do prepare to bake several pies. Once your guests learn you're making homemade pizza, you won't have many regrets.

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Good Foundations: Pizza Crusts

Classic Crust

Bread Machine Crust

Sicilian Crust

Chicago Deep-Dish Crust

Pan Pizza Crust

California thin Crust

Whole-Wheat Crust

Honey-Wheat Crust

Multigrain Crust

Cornmeal Crust

Oatmeal Crust

No-Yeast Crust

Herb-Laced Crust

Spinach Crust

Pepper Crust

Stuffed Crust

Focaccia Crust

Asiago Cheese Crust

Speed-Scratch Crust

Pizza Crust for the Grill

Sweet Crust

Chocolate Crust

Cookie pizza Crust

Classic Crust

This recipe makes dough that's moist, but still manageable. For dough that's not as sticky, add a little more flour to the mix, or work in more flour during kneading.

In a large measuring cup, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 5 minutes or until bubbly. Combine sugar, salt, and bread flour in the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook. Or, to mix by hand, place in a large bowl. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the water, followed by 1 tablespoon of oil.

Turn the mixer on low to blend, or begin stirring the flour into the liquid with a wooden spoon, a little at a time. When ingredients are well combined, turn the mixer on medium-low to knead for 5 minutes. If working dough by hand, turn the dough onto a well-floured work surface. Use a pressing motion with the heels of your hands. Work dough until the mixture is slightly shiny and not too sticky to the touch.

The kneaded dough should be divided into four equal pieces. Store any dough not being used in a resealable bag in the refrigerator. Oil remaining dough and place in a bowl, covered, to rise for 1 hour. Punch the dough down, shape into 2 disks, and let rest for 30 minutes.

Grab dough by the edges, turning the disk a few inches at a time, allowing gravity to stretch the dough without tearing. Roll the dough into a crust shape or press into a pizza pan. Top as directed in recipe.

Dough for Tomorrow

Pizza dough will rise, albeit slowly, in the refrigerator. To use dough that's been refrigerated overnight, place in a covered bowl on the counter. Punch dough down, then let stand until dough reaches room temperature. Use as directed.

Makes crust for four 12-inch pizzas

2 packages active dry yeast

1½ cups warm water, about 100°

1 teaspoon sugar

1½ teaspoons salt

6½ cups bread flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

Bread Machine Crust

Be sure to read your bread machine instruction manual before making pizza dough. Feel free to experiment with flavors, but never put in more ingredients in than your machine can hold.

Place ingredients in bread machine pan in the order listed. Turn machine on pizza dough cycle. Dough should be ready in slightly more than an hour, depending on your machine.

Remove dough from machine and place on a lightly floured work surface. Divide dough in half, placing half in a resealable plastic bag if you won't be using all the dough at once. Refrigerate plastic bag. Divide remaining dough in half, pat into two thick disks, and let rest for a few minutes.

Shape dough into free-form crusts or press into pizza pans as desired.

Great Gadgets

Bread machines with pizza dough cycles can be the pizza lover's best friend. The machines mix and knead crust ingredients and provide a temperature-controlled environment for rising. Since pizzas aren't actually baked in bread machines, you'll have to handle the dough a bit, but the convenience is still significant.

Makes crust for four 12-inch pizzas

1½ cups warm water, about 100°

2 tablespoons olive