Your pizza crust preference

[Jenise]

I was the world's worst pizza eater when I was a kid. First I'd pick off and eat the toppings, then I'd peel off and throw away the cheese which was always thick enough to remove in one pinch, then eat the bread/tomato sauce part. I loved crusty pizzas with really thick, inch-plus high outer rims that were sour, chewy and full of air bubbles. The worst pizza I knew was a chain common in Southern California called Shakey's, who produced a thin crust pizza that was crisp "like a cracker", I remember thinking.

My how I've changed: the cheese part no longer ends up in the trash, and my preference is for crisp, thin-crust pizzas which have a nice blend of sauce, minimal cheese and toppings in every bite. If a pizza's going to have a thick crust, then please put cornmeal under it to keep it from getting too soggy.

How do you like yours?

Thin but not too crisp, with extra tomato sauce.

Voted "Other", mostly because I like almost any decent pizza. My favorites are at the extremes, though. I love a true Chicago-style crust that's flaky and almost pastry-like. I also love a good Neapolitan-style thin crust, with a micro-layer of crispiness over a chewy middle and spots of char on the bottom. We have excellent renditions of both here in Sacramento with Zelda's covering the 10,000 calorie gut-bomb of Chicago and Masullo making the elegant DOC-compliant version in their wood-fired oven.

I would hate to have to pick one over the other!

Thin and extra thin and crispy.

My preference (as previously stated here IIRC) is for NY/New Haven style pizza. It's a fairly thin, but not cracker-thin crust, and ideally comes from a wood-fired oven. To me, good crust is like good bread: hard and crusty exterior, soft and chewy interior. Getting a crust like this in a home oven is a bit of a trick. Dale W recently mentioned elsewhere Jeffrey Steingarten's book wherein he attempts to trick his oven thermostat by wrapping it with frozen towels. Since I've got a self-cleaning oven, I can attempt to run a 5 minute cleaning cycle with my (now ill-sized) pizza stone inside.

Mark Lipton

Mark -

Saw this article in the LA Times recently. Don't know if it would work or not and it does involve more of an expense than running the oven on "Clean", but it sounds interesting.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-homepizza25-2009mar25,0,255374.story

[Robin Garr]

Thin, very thin ... New York City style, big wedges thin enough to fold over lengthwise and eat from the point back ... or better yet, the Italian style (even DOC Napolitano) from which it originated, paper-thin with a nice crusty edge, ideally cooked on the stone floor of a wood-burning oven.

Thick crust/Chicago-style is not pizza, it is casserole.

Voted thin. I'm happy to try a deep dish now and again, but thin holds my heart
Mark, I think the problem is you have to game the lock, as a safety feature the lock won't typically disengage till temps are in normal oven range.

Thick crust/Chicago-style is not pizza

Thank you!

Can't stand eating the huge Chicago style pizzas. Don't mind thick crusts, but those things are obscenely massive and heavy.

Ideally though I prefer New Haven or Neapolitan styled pizzas. Thin crusts, wood or coal fired and not too heavy with a bit of char.

Voted thin. I'm happy to try a deep dish now and again, but thin holds my heart
Mark, I think the problem is you have to game the lock, as a safety feature the lock won't typically disengage till temps are in normal oven range.

That makes sense. Not perhaps the greatest idea with a 4-year-old running amok. On a related note, I think that the toppings are as important as the crust.

Sauce -- savory, not sweet, please, and not too heavy on tomato paste (related issue) or herbs (I can only chew on so many rosemary sticks) and lightly applied

Cheese -- quality is essential, and actual cheese flavor is useful, and again lightly applied (memorable quote from my undergraduate research advisor, a former Yale faculty member who'd relocated to SoCal, about the local pizza in his adopted home town: "I want a pizza, not a f*&^*&^&ing cheese sandwich")

Other toppings -- veggies preferred to meats, by and large: onion, garlic, eggplant, peppers, olives all to the good

Frou-frou variants: white pizza can be good if the toppings complement (white clam pizza in New Haven is a must); pesto can be good; duck meat for an occasional fling and that all-time classic Pizza Margherita.

Mark "Pizza Snob" Lipton

p.s. Where's the Montana contingent to weigh in on this issue? I'd think that there'd be a few tightly-held views up there...

I like thin crust, but not wafer thin and a bit crispy, and definitely not floppy. I like to be able to eat it without having to fold it over.

As long as it isn't sprayed with extra grease (Pizza Hut - blecchhh!) or so thick/soggy I have to use a fork, I'm happy. Well, I'm not so wild about the super-thin crusts, as part of the pizza experience is a bit of chewy bread, not crackers.

It needs to be thin, it needs to be slightly burned, it needs to be topped simply and delicately. It needs to have the best quality canned tomatoes on it, excessive garlic, and a moderately high protein flour.

There. Montana Contingent heard from.

Thin crust, but still able to hold up the ingredients...I hate eating pizza with a fork, does not taste right! Minimal ingredients but expertly put together. When I rarely make pizza, I break my rules. I love it on focaccia bread or ciabatta, roasted red bells, two cheeses, artichoke hearts, lots of garlic, roasted tomatoes, and a green salad on the side is a must.
Fresh tomatoes must be on my pizza when I have them in the garden, even Papa Murphy's!

Stuart is right—thin crust is best but silly if there are too many ingredients. San Marzano tomatoes are optional, though. Asparagus is delightful at this time of year, with meat, of course!

We make pizza on a 4-burner gas grill with a couple of Villaware™ units that bake 2 12” pizzas at a time, which is great for entertaining. They cook fast, too—we have a low-end conventional oven that reaches 550 degrees Fahrenheit, but the gas grill gets to 650 easily even when there’s snow on the ground. That’s just a curiosity at this time of year, but in summer, cooking outside means big energy savings and on the grill, crispy crusts

Thin-ish, but it has to be chewy. If it's dry and crisp all through, no thanks.

What's "Chicago style" ?

[Robin Garr]

What's "Chicago style" ?

A casserole encased in a deep-dish pie crust. It is not pizza.

Thin, definitely, but it has to have "flex" so that it can fold without cracking. Yet it must be crisp at the same time.
It's a fine line to walk, no doubt about it.

Clearly, more research is needed.

It needs to be thin, it needs to be slightly burned, it needs to be topped simply and delicately. It needs to have the best quality canned tomatoes on it, excessive garlic, and a moderately high protein flour.

There. Montana Contingent heard from.

Thanks, Stuart. Can't you update your photo for your avatar? That one of you is years old.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

Voted "Other", mostly because I like almost any decent pizza. My favorites are at the extremes, though. I love a true Chicago-style crust that's flaky and almost pastry-like.

Pastry like? The crust on the Chicago pizza I had in Chicago, at the place reccomended to give me the best and most authentic Chicago pizza experience by virtually everyone on the old Compuserve forum, was anything but pastry like. It was dense, hard and thick. I have presumed that to be the standard--flaky and pastry-like would have been much better!

[Jenise]

It needs to be thin, it needs to be slightly burned

Amen. I live for a bit of singe on my pizza.

I like two extremes - I love a thick, focaccia-like pan pizza crust, where the bottom is crisped from the olive oil in the pan. Our local Pizza Hut actually makes a good crust, although their toppings aren't that great. If not that, then I like a thin, but not crisp crust.

[Jenise]

TEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! You're back, and it's good to see you.

TEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! You're back, and it's good to see you.

Yeah, I've been really busy for quite a while now. I hope to visit more often. I've got a backlog of recipes to post, too!

Thanks for the welcome. It's nice to see you again.