How to Elevate a Shop Bought Pizza
My easy tips for improving pizza at home…
There are a few food items that if I don’t permanently store in my fridge/freezer I start to get a quiet, buzzy low level anxiety. Two of those things are butternut squash ravioli and shop bought pizza - perfect for those days that I am stretched for time, inspiration, or sometimes frankly, life force.
I will say right here that I LOVE pizza. I will go out of my way to find a great pizza and I’ve made wood fired pizza working in restaurants, though never to the same standard as some other chefs I’ve been lucky to work with. I’ve been to Naples, the home of pizza, and yes I had a margherita at the Eat, Pray, Love tourist favourite Da Michele (more on that later) and deep fried pizza which I wasn’t excited about but I absolutely loved.
Few people have a pizza oven installed at home and not everyone has the time or schedule that’s conducive to making their own dough (though if you do, my go-to is Pizza Pilgrims recipe from their debut book - it’s foolproof but takes 24 hours so plan ahead) and it’s no surprise that a circa £5 shop bought pizza can’t compete with a slow rise pillowy base, stretched-to-order, with a sauce made from fresh tomatoes and torn oregano leaves, soft and light buffalo mozzarella, cooked for a mere moment at 500°C in a wood fired oven but there are ways in which to make your sad, emergency supermarket pizza worth more than the sum of its parts and I’m here to show you how.
Temperature.
There is no way that you can get a conventional oven to the ferocious temperatures of a wood fired oven but crank that dial up beyond 200°C to at least 210°C, ideally 220°C regardless what the box says.
Time.
Using a hotter temperature means less time but that’s a good thing - a short hot blast will get the most out of your pizza. The exact time depends on the pizza itself but set yourself a timer for somewhere between 6-8 minutes and use your judgement. You’re looking for a golden brown crust, bubbling mozzarella and piping hot toppings.
Use a pizza stone:
Pizza stones don’t just make superior pizza; they help keep the oven temperature steady and even, whatever you’re cooking but they will always give any dough based food (pizza, sourdough, bagels etc) a well cooked base and nice spring. Put the stone in the oven when you turn it on so it’s piping hot when you transfer your pizza to it. TK Maxx are a great place to find thriftily priced pizza stones.
Toppings:
More often than not I buy the best supermarket margherita I can find and put my own toppings on it. One of my favourite toppings is to add lots of basil, basil oil or pesto. Always add basil leaves and oils when the pizza comes out of the oven (see tip below on ‘finishing’). You can readily buy good quality mozzarella, scamorza (smoked mozzarella, which is dry and vacuum packed) and mozzarella pearls if you want to strengthen the cheese load. Another topping I often opt for, which I discovered at Yard Sale Pizza (God I miss them) when I lived in Highbury and became my go-to order delivered either to home or to north London’s best pub The Bank of Friendship, is courgette ribbons and prosciutto. Other toppings could be peppers, chorizo, artichoke hearts, pulled pork, roast chicken, caramelised onions - the options are endless but the real question is, does pineapple belong on a pizza and the answer is yes. Yes it absolutely does.
Sizing:
If you’re dining alone and, like me, a full pizza is too much then cut the pizza in half before you put it in the oven and save the other half refrigerated or frozen in the box for next time. Crosta Mollica do THE BEST pizzettas in the freezer section of most supermarkets - they come in packs of two and each is a perfect size for lunch, a snack, or if, like me, you don’t want to/can’t eat a whole 12” pizza.
Improvise:
There are some fantastic stone baked garlic breads around these days; heap your own toppings on one and bake as per above, or, Waitrose sell a high quality pizza base that you can buy and create your own toppings. For this, all you need to do is decant a can of plum tomatoes into a bowl and crush with your hands with a pinch of salt and an optional sprinkling of oregano.
Finishing.
How do you finish a pizza? “Quickly!”. I’ve yet to see a pizza come out of a professional kitchen without being finished with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a delicate sprinkling of sea salt crystals and a dusting of freshly grated parmesan - I wouldn’t dream of serving or eating a supermarket bought pizza without doing the same, even if it’s just me on a Monday night. This is also a really good chance to experiment with flavoured oils: basil, chilli and chorizo are all good flavour options but again the list is endless.
Serving:
Use a pizza wheel to get clean, even slices and serve speedily on a board. I tend to serve pizza with paper napkins and no cutlery; after all, Italians eat their pizza with their hands so who am I to question that. Always serve with some form of liquid refreshment: a negroni, red wine or a chilled IPA are all perfect bed fellows for a hot, cheesy pizza, as is prosecco, if a little clichéd.