Last night I made pizza and salad for dinner. It was a notable event in that I probably only make pizza twice a year, and yet yesterday after all this time and all the pizzas consumed in over 30 years of marriage we arrived at the conclusion that our favorite of all is the simplest despite all the combinations possible: tomato, cheese, oregano. I am, at heart, a minimalist.
But not just any tomato because I'm fussy in my minimalism. Diced chunks spooned straight from the can (Muir Glen preferred). Mozzarella AND parmesan. Mexican oregano and chile flakes, not as after-thoughts but there in the build. And these go on a crust that's very thin and rigidly crisp when done: 22 minutes at 400F yields perfection.
I remember the first time I had canned tomatoes on a pizza. I was, to be honest, horrified. Nothing in life had prepared me for that, but the friend who did it had had an Italian exchange student staying with them, and this was how he made pizza for them one night so it's what they accepted as authentic-Italian ever after. It didn't taste bad at all, but 1) I was used to the sweeter paste typical of American pizza making. And 2) this friend, who was not much of a cook, indiscriminately scooped out all the juice too, and then added lots of other meat and olives and stuff which kind of swam in the tomato juice, as did the cheese. The result was texturally pretty awful. You had to eat it with a fork because everything slid off when you picked up a piece.
The idea stayed with me though, as somewhere in the last ten years I decided one day to make a pizza and canned diced tomatoes were all I had for the tomato element. I felt it might work if I drained the tomatoes. That was actually a bit too dry but we otherwise loved the simple chunks of tomato, especially for a plain cheese pizza, so now I drain off some of the juice but consider some desirable (especially with Muir Glen whose juice is thicker than, say, Hunts might be) so I leave them messy. But trial and error has led to lightly spraying the raw crust with Spectrum brand olive oil spray before adding the tomatoes. 1 14 ounce can is the perfect quantity for one Trader Joe's pizza dough (the raw bag stuff, which you roll out yourself).
Then on go the cheeses and stuff. But the point of this pizza is that the tomato element isn't just a base, it's the star. Whatever else I do I will always come back to the plain tomato and cheese, which really isn't so plain: it's just that there's no meat, and that's a good thing.
We were over at my brothers for the Oscars two weeks ago and he made pizza. His crusts are softer than mine. His are round, mine are rectangles, about which I have no choice due to the shape of my oven. And his pizzas, like his taste in interior decoration, reflect a more maximalist approach. His belief: everything you can put on there, you should. Sky's the limit! That the center never quite cooks all the way through isn't, for him, the issue it is for me.
Now I do sometimes go back to the wine-y, herby, sweet tomato paste style. For that, as combinations go I also sometimes splurge on pepperoni and pepperoncini. Love the interplay between the greasy sausage and the tart peppers. I also love a light sprinkling of rosemary, black pepper and red onion topped with proscuitto at the end of cooking. And of course--the classic margerita with fresh mozz and basil is never not wonderful.
Really, almost all pizza's good. But I'll never be like my brother. I'll never load my pizza 1" high and to the point where the tomato element becomes inconsequential.
So back to the title: what's on your pizza?
So, there. Pfft!