Cookery lessons for Abitrary...

[Chuffy]

There's a paperback called (?) The Curry Secret Cookbook which we've got at home. It contains the Indian restaurant recipes and it produces spot on results.

Does every recipe start with 'Heat 5 tbsps of ghee'?

I can heartily recommend naan bread pizza. Proper fusion food!

1 x garlic naan
Toppings and sauce
Couple of minutes in hot oven
Charge £11.98 if serving to Abitrary

 

[Pete]

Actually you are wrong, Pete - most Italian pizza is produced from ovens that are at least 400°C in use, but for very short periods.

All right then, you caught me out there - just looked at the Wiki article and indeed there is a mention of 485C which is way beyond any domestic oven ... begs two questions: at what temperature do Dominos (or any other large pizza outfit) cook theirs? Secondly, how harmful is cooking at this sort of temperature - will food begin to carbonize or caramelize, which is a known health risk?

Maybe the home-cooker, whilst still being able to prepare a perfectly acceptable and palatable product, just isn't able to achieve the 'genuine Neapolitan' after all... But he's still saving money and is able to select ingredients for healthy eating...

 

[Arch]

Arch hastens out to ancient wood with axe and a determined expression.

I like this. For some reason I am reminded of Piglet, battling against the wind with his ears streaming behind like banners.

I love Piglet. I am mostly Eeyore, but I'd like to be more Piglet.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

This makes a fairly thick, moist pizza, best eaten off a plate with knife and fork. .

How do you normally eat?

 

[Arch]

How do you normally eat?

oh, come on. Pizza is normally eaten out of the box with fingers. Half the hastle of making it at home is constructing the box out of leftover cardboard...

I am reminded though, I walked past Pizza Hut on Saturday and there was a small child at a table by the window, and I thought, there's a very pink cheeked little 'un, and then realised it's entire face was covered in tomato sauce off the piece of pizza it was waving about...

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

oh, come on. Pizza is normally eaten out of the box with fingers. ...

Not at Chateau Stevens!

 

[Aperitif]

Makes a change from the servants feeding you grapes then...

 

[barq]

I jest - well actually I don't... Pizza, like curry is one of the few meals that I've found impossible to recreate at home. No matter how hard I try I cannot replicate the taste of my local Indian's Chicken Madras (mmm guilty pleasure). It's the same with Pizza, the homemade ones are nice but they're just not the same!

I absolutely agree with what you say, pizza needs heat. Dominos and the other takeaways do cook very hot because it helps them deliver on time.

One thing I struggle to produce in a domestic kitchen is a really good stir-fry. I've switched from halogen to gas and I still can't get enough heat to fry perfectly because I don't have a wok burner. At the moment the vegetables give up a load of water after a couple of minutes and it stews briefly before drying up again - at the proper heat that shouldn't happen. Don't get me wrong the end product is good, just like all these home-made pizzas cooked too cool, but it could be better. Oh well I'm happy cooking from scratch so one has to accept certain limitations.

 

[Abitrary]

...just that I feel it ain't right, it's heart-wrenching and all that, this poor lad having to shell out £11.98 a throw,

Come on then Ab, tell us: what you like eating, what you want to spend, what's in your kitchen, how much time you want to spend, etc. etc...

er, I can pretty much cook anything. The reason I have a dominos *thin crust* pizza once, or at most twice a week, is for the same reason as people eat caviar or rollmops.

 

[Pete]

er, I can pretty much cook anything.

Sorry I mis-read the contents of your cupboard then - must be all the goodies behind the teabags - or is it all in the fridge? Anyway, cook away my dear chap, if you can do a passable pizza so much the better! This thread has at least brought some useful tips about pizza-cooking to light, even if it transpires that my favourite home-made pizza is not a real pizza!

The reason I have a dominos *thin crust* pizza once, or at most twice a week, is for the same reason as people eat caviar or rollmops.

Caviar or rollmops? I do have the odd rollmop now and then - with something else. Not what I'd call a delicacy. Caviar? No thanks! Dominos thin crust pizza? Don't know whether I've sampled one. But surely not in the same class as these self-flagellation foods...?!

 

[Chuffy]

One thing I struggle to produce in a domestic kitchen is a really good stir-fry. I've switched from halogen to gas and I still can't get enough heat to fry perfectly because I don't have a wok burner. At the moment the vegetables give up a load of water after a couple of minutes and it stews briefly before drying up again - at the proper heat that shouldn't happen.

Ah. Small amounts in the wok and heat it to as hot as you can before dropping in the first lot of veg. Allow to heat up briefly in between bits of veg. That sort of works, but not if you are cooking for more than one.

 

[Abitrary]

Sorry I mis-read the contents of your cupboard then - must be all the goodies behind the teabags - or is it all in the fridge? Anyway, cook away my dear chap, if you can do a passable pizza so much the better! This thread has at least brought some useful tips about pizza-cooking to light, even if it transpires that my favourite home-made pizza is not a real pizza!

No of course, don't get me wrong, it's much appreciated. I actually make a mean pizza myself... it's just it can never be as good as dominos. Even the one I had in Rome once doesn't come close.

It's just greater than the sum of its ingredients.