Sorry, another not quite so relevant post, but hey, being a techie media guy in my day job I couldn’t resist this clever use of the much loved pizza to drive interest in, why yes of course how obvious? Nano-motor technology. Note the pizza toss technique. Most impressive. At the moment, I still use a rolling pin, at least to get the damn thing started anyway.
Not strictly your portable wood-fired oven this one, but it’s a winner in so many other ways!
Love your work guys. Check out the article on this amazing contraption here.
I noticed that there’s a new episode of Better Homes and Gardens (Ep 32) which features Jason doing the business again - this time with an even easier approach. Looks like a kitset - retailing at AU$900. The whole approach looked pretty no-fuss and quick, but then with other materials: Hebel and adhesive etc etc I bet you’re talking $1,200+ Will keep and eye open on whether more details appear. The original show was definitely inspiration for my oven…
Trying a butterfly lamb roast in the oven tonight.
Just like the perfect storm, perfect home-made pizza requires just the right set of variables to align. I haven’t got there yet - but one day I will… maybe the answer’s simple: a trip to Italy is needed.
Anyway, I’ve been playing with a list and plan to refine this over the next few weeks.
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My mate Mike from Perth has made the ultimate portable pizza oven. This one on a steel frame - that much even I can tell… I’m waiting for the full story.
Kitset or from scratch build? Who made the frame? How much did it cost? How does it cook? How long does it take to get to temp? What’s your favourite recipe? - Watch this space - Michael under duress to spill all! I feel Mark II is coming soon from me. Anyone else seen any portable pizza ovens out there?
Fascinating multi-faceted video from Aussie manufacturers DoughPro - would have any wannabee pizza restauranteur salivating…and really worth a watch for us mere amachewers.
There are some really interesting bits, and totally cringemaking stuff - sorry guys I’m a complete thin crust fan - this family pan pizza with a kilo of cheese doesn’t work for me.
Thanks for the video though.
Fresh, light, tasty - the attributes of a good tomato base. I’ve tried lots of recipes amongst them those from Jamie Oliver and Rick Stein.
Some use tinned tomatoes that are strained after preparation, others call for bottled strained tomatoes or passata.
I think fresh tomatoes are simply the best. And preparing them is really quite easy. Do this in bulk and it’s very cost effective. I buy fresh tomatoes when they are on special (last weekend they were $1.99 a kilo at My local Harris Farm) then prepare a batch of sauce. It’s delicious for pizza base, or pasta sauce and it freezes well.
So for about 6 portions of sauce (each of which does 2 or 3 pizzas, or a nice bolognaise or pasta sauce)…
5 kilos of fresh tomatoes
olive oil - 10 tablespoons - or a fullsone few glugs
a large bulb of garlic (yes about a dozen cloves), finely chopped
a large bunch of fresh oregano
6-8 fresh basil leaves (I love basil but find it very strong - it will overpower the oregano imho)
Lots of salt and pepper
(drop quantities proportionally for smaller quantities)
Method:
The first step is to bring a big pan of salted hot water to boil.
Blanch the tommys for a few minutes until you see the skins splitting then drop into a sink of cold water.
The skins will be easy to remove when cool.
Then hold the tommy inside your hand and poke your fingertips into the seed cells. Squeeze out the juice and seeds as best you can. This is basically seeds and water - you just want the flesh.
Start the oil and drop in garlic for a minute. Once this has started to brown, drop in the tommy flesh and bring to the boil.
This mix will soften up after a while. I use a potato masher to pulp it up.
Season with salt and pepper and finely chop and add the oregano.
Reduce the whole mix down and intensify the flavour.
I tend to lightly zizz the mix using a soup liquidiser to break up the lumpy bits (you can leave them but they tend to get super hot and hard to deal with when you’re scarfing down a piping hot pizza slice - causing major cheese slides or burnt lips!)
Allow to cool slightly, then use immediately or freeze (it will keep for a few days in the fridge too).
Next, the base!
OK, a few weeks in and I have had three or four attempts and starting to get the hang of it of my not so new wood-fired pizza oven. No question that each result has been better than the last (and the kids assure me that it’s “MUCH better than before, dad”).
Lighting the fire
Kindling is best, nothing thicker than an inch or so. I criss-cross the timber with space underneath into which I sequentially loosely jam lit newspaper until the timber has caught. It smokes like buggery for about 15 minutes and then calms down. Takes about an hour to get to the right temp. About half a bag does the trick for a few pizzas.
A few watch-outs as you learn to judge the heat of the oven:
- undercook the base by not waiting long enough for the oven to warm-up. Result: Burnt topping
- overcook the base by not allowing the heat to calm down enough: Result: Burnt dough
- get patchy burns by allowing the pizza too close to embers or live flame (most common).
All pretty obvious stuff really!
Fully fired the oven this weekend, producing some awesome pizza. Also managed to blacken the bases of a few too! The oven seems to need a bit of calming down once the fire is moved back. Using trays is a good way of backing off the contact heat from brick for a while. It’s the opposite problem to cooking in an oven where you end up overcooking the topping in order to get a crispy base. Here the base can literally cook in 30 seconds leaving the topping undercooked.
Also had a wonderfully constructed Thai Chicken number ready to take out, when a big clod of clay detached itself from the oven roof and dropped in unannounced, rendering the pizza into a sizzling mess. This was part of the clay I used to patch up the roof around the flue. Going to need to rethink the flue I think. Also need to fill up some additional cracks that appeared through the Vermiculite layer.
Recipes to follow.
Tags: portable pizza oven
Here’s the project in a minute - say no more.
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