How to become a pizza maestro
Tips and recipes to get your outdoor oven skills down to a fine art
BECOME YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD’S master pizza maker, and get the most enjoyment and use from your outdoor pizza oven, with this truly epic cookbook.
Outdoor pizza ovens cook up a crispy crust and deeply flavourful toppings in a matter of just a few minutes. But if you are going to cook something that quickly, you need to have the perfect recipe before you cook: the super-fast cooking time leaves no room for error.
Enter pizza-obsessed outdoor-oven wizard Jonathon Schuhrke, aka the Santa Barbara Baker.
With a background in the sciences, Schuhrke is famous in the pizza-oven community for troubleshooting-and solving-common pizza-making challenges for outdoor-oven users. Along with guidance that will show you how to get flawless results no matter what model of oven you have, you’ll find perfect-everytime recipes for the best pizzas and calzones in the world.
ZUCCHINI, CHERRY TOMATO and GOAT CHEESE PIZZA
Bright summer produces shines on this pizza topped with a garden’s jackpot of fresh zucchini coins and cherry tomatoes. Salting and draining the sliced zucchini intensifies the flavour of the ubiquitous summer squash, draws out excess moisture, and helps prevent a soggybottomed pizza. Finished with a drizzle of sweet balsamic vinegar the earthy tartness of the goat cheese and bountiful fresh produce come together in an elegant celebration of the summer harvest.
Ingredients
1 pizza dough ball
1 medium-size zucchini (or other summer squash), sliced into thin coins
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup (148 g) cherry tomatoes, sliced crosswise
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp (15 ml) extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
60g fresh goat cheese, crumbled 5 or 6 basil leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
225g fresh mozzarella cheese
1 or 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
Method
Heat your outdoor pizza oven to 400-425C.
Toss the zucchini in a medium-size bowl with the salt and toss well. Set a strainer over a large bowl or sink and add the zucchini. Let drain for about 30 minutes. Gently squeeze and toss to drain further before moving the zucchini to a paper towel–lined sheet pan. Pat dry as much as possible. Set aside.
In a medium-size bowl, gently toss the cherry tomatoes, garlic, and shallot with the olive oil. Set aside.
Once the outdoor pizza oven is fully heated, stretch the pizza dough. Leaving room for the crust to rise, top the stretched pizza dough with the mozzarella cheese, pulling large marble-size chunks off with your hands as you go. Top with the goat cheese, filling in some of the gaps between the mozzarella, followed by the zucchini slices. Using your hands, tear about half the basil leaves directly onto the pizza. Top with the tomato mixture and season the pizza with a pinch of salt and a few cranks of black pepper.
Put your pizza in the oven and watch for the crust to puff up and brown with some leopard spotting before the first turn, about 1 minute. Rotate the pizza and continue turning, until the crust before the crust begins to brown before turning the heat setting down to as low as possible to finish baking and crisp the bottom. Watch for the pieces of fresh mozzarella to melt and the zucchini to curl up slightly. The crust should be golden brown with a few spots of char. When the pizza is fully baked, carefully remove it and let rest on a wire rack for about 1 minute. Top the pizza with the remaining basil leaves, tearing as you go, and drizzle with a few glugs of olive oil and a swirl of balsamic vinegar. Slice on a parchment paper–lined baking sheet or pizza peel. Serve immediately.
TIP: This showcase of summer vegetables also makes for a delicious vegan pizza. Omit the cheese, double up on the zucchini, and enjoy the garden bounty. The texture of the stacks of zucchini coins and bursts of juicy, sweet, cherry tomatoes topping the pizza is really satisfying.
— Makes one 36cm to 41cm pizza