Top This: How to Make Cavolo Nero Pizza (à la Pulino's)

Meaty slices of chewy, house-made salami picante share the stage with cavolo nero, similar to common kale in texture and flavor. A drizzle of spicy Calabrian chile oil packs just enough heat to give the pizza an added dimension but doesn't drown out the rest of the toppings. Want to learn how to make this bad boy? Step right this way.

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6 Comments | Posted by Erin Mosbaugh, January 27, 2011 at 8:30 AM
Tagged: black kale, cavolo nero, ingredients, kale, Pulino's Bar and Pizzeria, Tony Liu, Top This, toppings

Have You Tried King Arthur 'Perfect Pizza' Flour Blend?

In browsing the King Arthur Flour site under specialty flours, I came across the company's Perfect Pizza blend. When I've used KA, I've always gone for Sir Lancelot, so I'd never seen this product before. A quick search on Slice and Serious Eats doesn't reveal any mentions of it from anyone. So, has anyone out there used it? If so, results? Thoughts?

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26 Comments | Posted by Adam Kuban, January 13, 2011 at 8:00 AM
Tagged: flour, ingredients, King Arthur Flour, King Arthur Flour Perfect Pizza

Top This: Semi-dried Cherry Tomatoes

Inspired by last week's semi-dried cherry tomato Daily Slice from Di Fara, I made my own slow-roasted, tiny-tomato topping for our weekly "Pizza Night" at home. This really couldn't be more simple, and, like last week's sausage topping, you can do the roasting while you make dough or let it come to room temperature after a cold rise.

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17 Comments | Posted by Adam Kuban, January 6, 2011 at 2:15 PM
Tagged: ingredients, semidried cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, Top This, toppings

Pizza Protips: Salt

Salt isn't absolutely required to make bread or pizza dough, but without it, breads simply taste flat—even sweet breads. That's reason enough to add it. But there's more: salt also strengthens and tightens the gluten and regulates the activity of yeast. Without any salt, some breads can rise unpredictably.

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34 Comments | Posted by dbcurrie, November 16, 2010 at 12:30 PM
Tagged: baking, how-to, ingredients, Pizza Protips, salt

Canned Tomato Taste Test, Round 2

You may remember the preliminary round of canned-tomato sampling that we did in September, in which we asked for input on tomato brands for Round 2. Well, here's Round 2. With a surprising winner....

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29 Comments | Posted by Adam Kuban, November 5, 2010 at 12:25 PM
Tagged: canned tomatoes, ingredients, Pizza a Casa, Scott Wiener, taste tests, tomatoes

A Preliminary Canned-Tomato Taste-Test

In the interest of finding a great-tasting canned tomato for pizza-making, a small group of pizza and tomato enthusiasts taste-tested 16 different canned tomatoes. Though this tasting is not as scientifically rigorous as it might be, there were some interesting observations. High price is not predicative of good flavor. Second, the "DOP" tomatoes we tasted did not score very high at all. And the top two spots weren't even San Marzano tomatoes from Italy; instead, they were grown in California's Central Valley.

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85 Comments | Posted by Adam Kuban, September 16, 2010 at 8:45 AM
Tagged: canned tomatoes, ingredients, Scott Wiener, taste tests, tomatoes

Top This: The Cortes from Roberta's in Brooklyn

The Cortes pizza at Roberta's in Brooklyn is, as its creator Angelo Womack says, an unconventional pizza. Topped as it is — with tomato sauce, crema fresca, Hatch chile–flavored chorizo, shaved fresh radish, pickled onions, jalapeños, and cilantro — it's a natural for this here column. Slice'r TonyCalzone (who you may have met in this Q&A here) used his killer video skills and talked to Mr. Womack about the pizza, capturing it all in a great little movie.

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20 Comments | Posted by Adam Kuban, August 12, 2010 at 2:55 PM
Tagged: Angelo Womack, cilantro, ingredients, jalapeños, pickled onion, radish, Roberta's, The Cortes, tonycalzone, Top This, toppings

Poll: Do Garlic and Mozzarella Belong Together on a Pizza?

Garlic and mozzarella simply don't belong together on a pizza. Or maybe they do. This week's Slice poll: Do you like the garlic-mozzarella combo? »

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58 Comments | Posted by Adam Kuban, August 2, 2010 at 9:55 AM
Tagged: garlic, Gianluca Rottura, ingredients, polls

Top This: Potato and Roasted-Garlic Pizza (à la Pizzeria Picco)

What would you get if you took all the things you loved about a great french fry and put it on a pizza? Pizzeria Picco's "Marin," a white pizza topped with young potato, roasted garlic, mozzarella, and grated Grana Padano. It's as if Pizzeria Picco executive chef Bruce Hill was at the ballpark one day with a plate of garlic fries, tripped and fell, with the fortuitous landing spot being a slice of pizza. (True story? Not so much. But nonetheless, the concept is genius.)

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8 Comments | Posted by lickmyspoon, July 29, 2010 at 11:00 AM
Tagged: Bay Area, Bruce Hill, ingredients, Larkspur CA, Pizzeria Picco, potatoes, roasted garlic, Top This

Flavorful Toppings for a Robust Sourdough Crust

Having had great success with dough recipes from Peter Reinhart's American Pie, I expected his sourdough crust to be as tangy and aromatic as the best examples of this superior variety of bread. My toppings would have to be equally assertive and delicious to create balanced and harmonious pizza. Here's what I used....

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8 Comments | Posted by Aaron Mattis, June 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM
Tagged: cooking, homemade pizza, ingredients, sourdough crust, topping combos, toppings