BigMike's Pizza

[bigmike&nan]

Ya know it's horrbile hot almost everywhere in the U.S. this month. Investing in a ceramic tile at Home Depot or a pizza stone and putting that on your charcoal or propane grill and baking a pizza using my dough and sauce recipe is really easy. It's cool to have an al fresco (outside) cooking and dining experience. Buy a pizza peal at a restaurant supply place and shape and build the pie on the peal, spread a small amount of flour and corn meal on the peal, then push out your dough and build your pie. Super easy. Let the kids decorate their own pies with what they want... Give it a try !!


Mike

 

[firstthechicken]

hey Big Mike,

Have any good recipies for Spaghetti and Meatballs? I seem to make the same OLD BORING meatballs.

 

[bigmikeinnj]

Spaghetto and Meatballs ?? LOL
I tend to follow two different trains of thought, the Lidia Bastianich and the Pete Clemenza.
No fooling, what Lidia does is make a quick and fresh sauce. She uses the same basic steps for a number of variations.

3 Tbls EVO
1 pound of mild italian sausage cut up in chunks
1 medium onion, small dice
1 stalk celery, small dice
1 carrot grated or small dice
large pinch of red pepper flakes
5 cloves garlic (about 1 1/2 Tbls) chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine (use my wife's chardonnay, please)
1 32 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup diced oil cured olives (optional but OOOOH so good)

1 cup chopped parsley
1 cup freshly grated parmesan or romano (poor mans parmesan)

Start your pan of water to boil, salt the water with 1 Tbls salt

Meanwhile in a dutch oven heat the EVO and when it shimmers add the sausages and brown about 4 minutes, then add the vegetables and saute until clear, now add the garlic and white wine and simmer until the white wine reduces and the pan is almost dry. Then add the can of diced tomatoes and add about 1/2 cup water into the can to rinse it out, add that to the pan. Reduce to low and let simmer about 20 minutes. Your water should be boiling now, add your pasta and cook until el dente, take 1/2 cup of the pasta water and add to your sauce, drain the pasta, add to the sauce pan and stir frequently for 90 seconds. Remove from the heat, add the chopped parsley and grated cheese and garnish the pasta with a couple glugs of EVO to give it a little shine.
That's the Lidia method and it's my favorite. I like a fresh red sauce.


Now the Pete Clemenza recipe pretty quick and straightforward. But what do you want from a made guy ??

 

[firstthechicken]

Thanks Mike..Sounds delish! I love Lidia and anything she makes is absolute the best! I went to one of her restaurants in NYC and had he Spaghetti and Meatballs but could never replicate it...Thanks for taking time time to post the recipe......

 

[bigmike&nan]

You should try the suppli telephono that I purposely topped for you yesterday.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/166177/suppli-telephono

Some stock, some arobrio rice, some grated cheese, heck a little cubed proscuittio and parsley and the fresh mozzarella and they'll be eating out of your hand.
CHECK IT OUT.

I'll try to get my wife to help me find that master copy, it's pretty rough by now as it was in a computer paper box and all dog eared. If I can find it you can have it. Otherwise try my suggestion, copy and paste the text from the recipes here into Word files on your computer and save them. That will cost you a small amount of your time. When I created the cookbook I had to do the same thing since all the recipes were online and in my head. I had to Copy and Paste them into files. Being I use a Mac I used Pages not Word to make the recipes into paper friendly versions. The photos I had either on my phone or on my Mac... give it a shot.

But speaking of giving something a shot MAKE THE SUPPLI, jazz up some jar pasta sauce and serve THAT at the pot luck. Nobody is gonna be serving that there right ???

I worked for IBM a lot of my life, the old inside joke was IBM means I've Been Moved, as in transferred here and there to build the career. So I moved from Chicago to Malibu (not bad except no deep dish pizza), to San Francisco (again not bad but still no deep dish pizza, LOL) and so on. So one of the things that MADE me learn to cook was I wanted to eat the stuff I missed having. A lot of trial and error, a lot of experimenting, a lot of last minute runs to McDonalds when my experiment flopped. LOL... True story though, it was a Mexican dish that made me learn to cook. Chicken en Mole... and deep dish pizza. I learned that pizza is all about the water in the dough and the cheese. The rest is easy...


OK anyway try the Suppli... make a marinara for one side of the plate and a bechamel for the other. The contrast is sauces that you put UNDER the suppli is what makes it really stand out. Of course folks might just want to eat them with NO sauce too. They're really very good.