“Every quest needs a creed and a guidebook,” Peter Reinhart writes in “Pizza Quest.” “Just as the Ten Commandments serve in that capacity for my faith tradition, the following commandments are the key takeaways and nuggets of wisdom I’ve discovered during my pizza journey.
“Unlike the original Ten Commandments, these are not set in stone and are subject to change, but I share them with you in the hope that you might draw up your own quest guidebook.”
1. There are only two kinds of pizza: good and very good. And by very good, I mean great, and by great, I mean memorable — memorableness means you can’t stop thinking about it, can’t wait to go back, can’t wait to take your friends.
2. There is no such thing as the perfect pizza; there are only perfect pizzas.
3. When it comes to toppings, more is not always better; better is better.
4. Great pizza always starts with a great crust. An average crust with great toppings can never be more than interesting, while a great crust with barely any toppings can still be a great pizza.
6. The single most important tools for pizza makers are our hands; “these hands” are the mark of a true artisan.
7. When it comes to bread or pizza dough, understanding fermentation is the key, and time is the most important ingredient.
8. A recipe is a template, a guideline, but it is not a law. Understand the letter, but follow the spirit.
9. The only pizza rule that matters is the “flavor rule;” that is, flavor rules!
10. Tradition should be honored and respected, but as a verb, not a noun. Pizza tradition is constantly expressing itself anew in the ever-present now.
And a bonus commandment: It is more about the quest than it is about the pizza, and the quest never ends.
— Peter Reinhart, from “Pizza Quest: My Never-Ending Search for the Perfect Pizza”
Peter Reinhart teaches bread baking at the prestigious Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina, but in his spare time, he’s a self-proclaimed “pizza freak.”
The Philadelphia native got his start as a serious baker when he and his wife, Susan, opened Brother Juniper’s Cafe in Forestville in the early 1980s, which eventually spawned a full-scale bakery in Santa Rosa and a line of six breads sold to supermarkets throughout the Bay Area.
His fascination with bread eventually led him into the world of artisan pizzas distinguished by their crisp crusts, oozing cheese and deep-flavored toppings. Since the publication of his “American Pie” cookbook in 2003, Reinhart has fallen even more in love with those savory slabs of dough, whether round and baked in a wood-fired oven, square and baked in a deep pan or rolled into a hoagie-shaped stromboli.
Over time, the culinary explorer became the Don Quixote of cutting-edge pizza, and his obsession inspired him to write another pizza cookbook, “Pan Pizza,” which came out in 2020 and chronicled the explosion of the Detroit-style and other square pizzas. Along the way, he launched a website (fornobravo.com/pizzaquest) where other pizza freaks can follow his search for the perfect pie.
“’American Pie’ was supposed to be a one-off book about pizza,” Reinhart said in an interview in early March. “But it got a following and turned into a website and a video podcast called Pizza Quest. We’ve been posting stuff on there for years, showcasing some of the best pizzerias.”
Then the pandemic hit and put an end to Reinhart’s road trips across the country to taste and report back on the tastiest pie trends. Undeterred, he started doing Zoom interviews with some of the nation’s most outstanding pizza luminaries in a web series called “Pizza Talk.”
“All of a sudden we had 70 or 80 of these great interviews,” he said. “And that’s when I got the idea to cherry pick the most interesting.”
After writing 12 cookbooks, including three James Beard Award winners, Reinhart set to work profiling the most exciting pizzaiolos working today, from sourdough crust champions Dan Richer of Razza in Jersey City and Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana in New York City to Will Grant of That’s A’ Some Pizza in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and World Pizza Champion/restaurateur Tony Gemignani of San Francisco.
His new cookbook, “Pizza Quest: My Never-Ending Search for the Perfect Pizza” (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $22), will be released on March 29 but can be preordered on Amazon or at local bookstores. It takes fellow pizza lovers on a delicious journey to meet 30 pizza luminaries who share 35 of their signature recipes. If you’re not already making your own pizza, this book will help you kick start your own pizza quest at home.
Reinhart crowdsourced the photos in the book from each pizza maker, but he had to work overtime to tweak the recipes so as to not reveal each artisan’s secrets.
“My challenge was to create a homemakers’ version of these really spectacular pizzas that the top pizza makers in the country were making,” he said. “I had to do it without asking them to share proprietary tricks of their trade.”
His first task was to create master dough recipes that could be used for the various kinds of pizza in the book, including the classic New York and Neapolitan pizzas, the pan and Sicilian pizzas and the up-and-coming sourdough pizzas.
“I was able to do that by tweaking the hydration,” he said. “There’s not much difference (between them), except for the amount of water, the type of flour and the oil content.”
All contributors had to do was send him a “beauty shot” of their finished pizzas and a brief description. Even without a list of ingredients, Reinhart was able to recreate the recipes so they would be user-friendly for home cooks.
“My job was to create a tribute version of a masterpiece,” he said. “I told the contributors, ‘You guys are like the Beatles of pizza, and I’m the Beatles cover band at the Marriott playing your greatest hits.”
These recipes can at least get home cooks into the ballpark, but whether they can play the game or not is up to them. Like bread baking, Reinhart said, the real craft lies in the touch and feel of working the dough.
“There’s even a movement in the artisan community called These Hands,” he said. “It was started by Rob Denapoli of Denapoli Tomatoes in Los Gatos. … The hands are the most important tool to an artisan.”
“Every quest needs a creed and a guidebook,” Peter Reinhart writes in “Pizza Quest.” “Just as the Ten Commandments serve in that capacity for my faith tradition, the following commandments are the key takeaways and nuggets of wisdom I’ve discovered during my pizza journey.
“Unlike the original Ten Commandments, these are not set in stone and are subject to change, but I share them with you in the hope that you might draw up your own quest guidebook.”
1. There are only two kinds of pizza: good and very good. And by very good, I mean great, and by great, I mean memorable — memorableness means you can’t stop thinking about it, can’t wait to go back, can’t wait to take your friends.
2. There is no such thing as the perfect pizza; there are only perfect pizzas.
3. When it comes to toppings, more is not always better; better is better.
4. Great pizza always starts with a great crust. An average crust with great toppings can never be more than interesting, while a great crust with barely any toppings can still be a great pizza.
6. The single most important tools for pizza makers are our hands; “these hands” are the mark of a true artisan.
7. When it comes to bread or pizza dough, understanding fermentation is the key, and time is the most important ingredient.
8. A recipe is a template, a guideline, but it is not a law. Understand the letter, but follow the spirit.
9. The only pizza rule that matters is the “flavor rule;” that is, flavor rules!
10. Tradition should be honored and respected, but as a verb, not a noun. Pizza tradition is constantly expressing itself anew in the ever-present now.
And a bonus commandment: It is more about the quest than it is about the pizza, and the quest never ends.
— Peter Reinhart, from “Pizza Quest: My Never-Ending Search for the Perfect Pizza”
Reinhart includes a list of essential equipment and some step-by-step, how-to photos to help readers execute key techniques. And, for fun, he included his original list of the Ten Commandments of Pizza (see accompanying sidebar).
In writing “Pizza Quest,” Reinhart stumbled on some of the trends that have emerged in the pizza world in the past few years, most importantly the growing popularity of the sourdough crust.
“The sourdough style of pizza is going to get bigger and bigger,” he said. “One, because sourdough just tastes better, as we know from living in the Bay Area. It’s the best way to make bread from the health standpoint, but mainly it’s the flavor.”
Another trend was that a lot more women were getting into the pizza game and making a name for themselves. Pizzaiola Sarah Minick of Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty in Portland, Oregon, contributed a Summer Peach and Corn Pizza.
“What defines Sarah’s pizzas is her use of local, fresh ingredients,” he said. “She has a new menu every day based on the farm market and a great execution on her sourdough crust.”
From the Bay Area, the book includes Laura Meyer, who has three world pizza titles to date and teaches at Tony Gemignani’s Restaurant Group’s International School of Pizza in San Francisco.
The cookbook also includes Black pizza maker Nicole Russell of Last Dragon Pizza in New York and her “Kiss Mi’ Converse” Jerk Chicken Pizza.
“One of the areas of future opportunity would be more people of color getting into the pizza world,” Reinhart said. “So you’ll see pizzerias opening in the ethnic community, and there are already a lot of Hispanics.”
He also noticed a trend of increasing use of finishing sauce on pizzas, such as Mike’s Hot Honey. Reinhart has not branded his Hoagie Sauce yet, but he does share the recipe in the cookbook.
“If you like spicy, it makes everything taste better,” he said. “It’s got acid, salt, heat — all the checkmarks — but it’s mainly the acid. The vinegar is key. It makes the flavors pop.”
The following recipes are from Peter Reinhart’s “Pizza Quest: My Never-Ending Search for the Perfect Pizza.” The New York Pizza Dough is called for in the pizza recipes for The Hellboy Slice and Zoli Stromboli, below.
21 ounces/595 grams (4 ⅔ cups) unbleached high-gluten flour or unbleached bread flour
0.42 ounces/12 grams (1½ teaspoons) kosher salt
0.11 ounces/3 grams (1 teaspoon) instant yeast
1 ounce/28 grams (2 tablespoons) sugar, brown sugar or honey
13 ounces/369 grams water (room temperature, 68 - 72 degrees)
In a mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, stir together the flour, salt, yeast and sugar. Add the water and stir with a large spoon, or use the paddle attachment and mix on slow speed for 3 minutes to form a coarse, shaggy dough.
Add the oil. Increase the speed to medium (or continue mixing with the spoon or with wet hands) and mix for an additional 2 to 3 minutes to make a coarse, tacky dough. If there is any unabsorbed flour, add more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, during mixing. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes to fully hydrate. You may need to add more water if you are using high-gluten flour.
If using an electric mixer, increase the speed to medium-high (or continue mixing by hand) and mix for another 2 to 3 minutes to make a smooth dough, adding more flour or water if needed. It should be soft, supple and only slightly tacky — or even satiny — to the touch and should offer resistance and a spring-back quality when pressed with a wet finger.
Use 1 teaspoon oil to make a 15-inch diameter oil slick on the work surface. Rub oil on a plastic bowl scraper and on your hands, then use the scraper to transfer the dough to the oil slick. Stretch and fold the dough once.
Lightly oil a bowl or container and place the dough into it, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 12 to 72 hours.
On the day you plan to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator 3 hours before baking, or as described in pizza recipe. Immediately divide it into the desired-size pieces and round them into balls. Line a sheet pan with lightly oiled baking parchment or a silicone baking mat, then place the dough balls on the pan. Mist them with vegetable oil spray and cover the pan with plastic wrap or a plastic can liner. Then follow the recipe according to the type of pizza you’re making.
Notes: You can substitute up to 25% whole-grain or other flour (such as semolina, rye, heirloom, etc.) for an equal amount of white flour, but increase the water by 0.5 ounces (14 grams) for every 2 ounces (57 grams) of whole-grain flour you swap in.
You can use any brand of vegetable or olive oil spray to lightly oil the bowls and dough balls.
With some brands of flour, you may need to increase or decrease the water amount. Always let the dough dictate how much it needs, using the recipe as a general guideline.
Pizza sauce is a crucial aspect of any pizzeria’s repertoire, and many places have built their reputations on their sauces as much as on their crusts. There is plenty of debate regarding the merits of Italian-grown San Marzano tomatoes and California- or even New Jersey-grown versions of the same variety, so if you have a brand or recipe preference, by all means use it. Some pizzerias that make more than one style of pizza, such as Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, even use tomato products from several different distributors to pair with specific pizzas.
Especially for pizzas made at home, many excellent brands in supermarkets will work on the pizzas in the cookbook, Reinhart said. Rather than specify one for each recipe, he gives one recipe that always delivers and leaves the brand of tomatoes up to the cook. Just remember that each brand has its own tomato density and salt content, so it’s up to you to make final tweaks to your taste. Otherwise, the following recipe can be used on any pizza unless otherwise stipulated. You aren’t likely to use the whole batch if making only a few pizzas, but you can keep the remaining sauce in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks, or simply freeze it.
28-ounce (794-gram) can whole, ground, crushed or diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried basil or 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil
¼ teaspoon dried oregano or 1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano
1 teaspoon granulated garlic or 3 to 4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ - 1 teaspoon kosher salt (depending on the brand of tomatoes)
If using crushed or ground tomatoes, place all ingredients except salt in a bowl and mix with a large spoon or whisk. Taste, then add salt as needed.
If using whole, chopped or diced tomatoes, place all ingredients except salt in a food processor with the blade attachment and process for 15 to 20 seconds. Check the consistency. If it’s still too chunky, pulse as many times as it takes to grind the tomatoes to the texture of coarse sand. Taste and add salt or water as needed. The sauce will thicken slightly as it rests.
Keep the finished sauce in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks or freeze it for future use, thawing it slowly at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator.
Notes: Ground or crushed tomatoes are preferred over pureed, because those little bits of tomato solids provide wonderful texture. That said, if all you have is tomato puree, use it. You also can make your own crushed tomatoes from whole or diced tomatoes by pulsing them in a food processor. If you want to make the sauce thicker, add a small amount of tomato paste and adjust the salt to taste. Most of the time this won’t be necessary unless you have a particularly juicy brand of tomatoes.
Pizza sauce rarely needs to be cooked in advance, because the tomatoes are already cooked during the canning process. If you want to use this sauce for pasta or to cook meatballs or sausage, then yes, heat it up. But if it’s going on pizza, whether before or after it’s baked, there’s no need.
Only a couple pizzas in the cookbook call for hoagie spread as an ingredient, but you might use it on many other pizzas, Reinhart said. Hoagie spread is a kind of “secret sauce,” and every good hoagie shop has its own version, whether a simple oil and vinegar splash or something more elaborate, like this one.
Decent supermarket brands are available if you don’t want to make your own (Haddon House, as well as Cento brand), but there’s a lot of joy in making this and having it on hand for all sorts of uses, Reinhart said. The Zoli Stromboli (recipe below), a type of pizza hoagie, in the cookbook calls for it specifically. But with hot honey, this hoagie spread, with its spice, vinegar and garlic acidity, will make flavors pop on almost any pizza.
1 cup pickled cherry peppers, stemmed
1 cup pepperoncini peppers, stemmed (see Note below)
1 red bell pepper, stemmed and seeded and cut into 6 pieces, or 1 or 2 Fresno, Anaheim or red jalapeno or serrano peppers for a spicier version
¼ cup brine from the pepperoncini or cherry peppers
¼ cup red wine vinegar, plus extra for added seasoning
Place all ingredients except the salt in a food processor and process for 20 to 30 seconds to fully break down the peppers and garlic for a relish-like consistency. If still not broken down, pulse as many times as needed to do so. Taste and add salt or more vinegar, if needed. Refrigerated in a covered container, it will keep for at least 3 months.
Note: You also can add pickled jalapeno peppers in addition to or instead of the pepperoncini, if you like it spicier.
Control the spicy heat level by your choice of peppers. If you like it mild, use fresh red bell peppers; for medium, red Fresno or Anaheim peppers; and for spicy, red jalapenos or serrano peppers, or a blend of them all. You always can use hotter peppers if you like, but remember that this is a garnish, so it should enhance the main ingredients, not overwhelm them.
Here’s the history of this pizza from contributor Mike Kurtz himself: “The Hellboy was born out of Paulie Gee’s pizzeria in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I was a pizza hobbyist in 2010, working in the music business, but had been making honey, infused with chili peppers, as a hobby for about 6 years at that point. I met Paulie Gee when he first opened his wood-fired pizzeria in Greenpoint, and he invited me to become a pizza apprentice there. After my day job in Manhattan, I’d go into the pizzeria at night to practice stretching dough. Once I was fast enough, Paulie started scheduling me for dinner shifts.
“One day I brought in a bottle of my hot honey for Paulie to try on his pizza. It was always called Mike’s Hot Honey from Day One, but was unbranded at the time. Paulie liked it on his soppressata pie and asked if I could make enough for the restaurant to add it to the menu. The original pie that featured the hot honey was called ‘Fire Up the Delboy.’ Delboy (a nickname for Paulie’s son Derek) was a pie with, as we say, tomatoes, ‘fresh mootz,’ parm and soppressata picante from Salumeria Biellese. This was Derek’s favorite pie. When the expediters at the pizzeria would call out a pie to be made, they would say, ‘Fire up the Delboy!’ So when we added Mike’s Hot Honey to the Delboy, we initially named the pie ‘Fire Up the Delboy.’ That was a mouthful, and when one of the customers suggested ‘Hellboy’ instead, we ran with it.”
Postscript: Now Mike’s Hot Honey is found all over the world. “The key to its use,” Reinhart said, “as Mike told me when I interviewed him on ‘Pizza Talk,’ is to always drizzle on the hot honey post-oven, after cutting the pie and just before eating.
New York Pizza Dough (recipe above)
Crushed Tomato Pizza Sauce (recipe above)
16 ounces (454 grams) shredded low-moisture mozzarella cheese, full-fat or half low-fat (about 4 cups)
2 cups sliced cup and char pepperoni, or spicy soppressata or other favorite salumi
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
6 ounces (170 grams or 1 cup) Mike’s Hot Honey or substitute
Three hours before making the pizzas, remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it into three (12-ounce/340-gram) pieces. Lightly mist a sheet pan or dough box with vegetable oil spray. Form the pieces into tight balls and place them on the pan or in the dough box. Mist the top of the dough balls with the oil spray and loosely cover the pan with plastic wrap. Set the dough aside at room temperature to proof for about 3 hours.
While the dough is rising, prepare the sauce and assemble the other ingredients.
An hour before making the pizzas, place a baking stone or baking steel on the middle oven rack and preheat to 550 degrees or as hot as the oven will allow. Assemble the first pizza by stretching out a dough ball. Lightly dust a pizza peel with flour, semolina or cornmeal, then transfer the dough to the peel. Cover the surface of the dough with ½ cup of the sauce, leaving a rim of about ½ inch around the edge uncovered. Distribute one-third of the mozzarella (about 1 ⅓ cups) over the sauce, followed by one-third of the pepperoni (about ⅔ cup). Bake for 3 minutes, then rotate 180 degrees and continue baking for an additional 2 to 4 minutes, until the crust is golden-brown around the edge and on the underside, the cheese is golden and the pepperoni is curled and charred.
Transfer the pizza to a cutting board and distribute ⅓ cup of the Parmesan over the surface. Then drizzle about 3 tablespoons of the hot honey, streaking it over the surface of the pizza. Slice and serve.
Stromboli was a villain in “Pinocchio,” and it’s also the name of a volcanic island off the coast of Sicily, but for most Americans, it’s the name of a rolled-up, spiral pizza bread — a kind of pizza hoagie. Its origins arguably lie in Essington, a Philadelphia suburb, at Romano’s Pizzeria and Italian Restaurant, though others have claimed its invention, too.
Some of the best stromboli in the country are found at the Dallas pizzeria Zoli’s, where Lee Hunzinger is executive pizzaiolo for the PILF Restaurant Group, which owns Zoli’s and Cane Rosso, two of the great multi-location pizza restaurants in Texas. Lee grew up in a restaurant family on Long Island and as a teen discovered his passion for all things pizza. Eventually he took his talents to Texas, where he also became one of the many members of the World Pizza Champions Team.
New York Pizza Dough (recipe above, made at least a day ahead)
6 ounces (170 grams) Italian sausage links (sweet or spicy)
6 ounces (170 grams) deli ham or capicola, sliced thin
8 ounces (227 grams) whole milk mozzarella, shredded (about 4 cups)
4 ounces (113 grams) soppressata or other spicy salami, sliced thin
6 ounces (170 grams) Genoa salami, sliced thin
4 ounces (113 grams) pepperoni, sliced thin
Three hours before making the stromboli, remove the pizza dough from the refrigerator and divide it into two (18-ounce, 510-gram) pieces. Mist a sheet pan with oil spray, then form the dough into tight balls and place them on the pan. Mist the dough balls with the oil spray and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Set the pan aside at room temperature to proof for about 3 hours.
While the dough is proofing, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and lay out the sausage links on a sheet pan or in a cast-iron skillet. Bake for 12 to 16 minutes, until they are firm and springy to the touch and turning golden-brown on the outside. Remove the pan and set the links aside to cool. In the meantime, gather the remaining fillings.
An hour before baking the stromboli, preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Rub the work surface with 1 teaspoon of olive oil to make a large oil slick, about 20 inches in diameter. Oil your hands, then place one of the dough balls on the surface and press it with your palms to flatten. Use your fingertips to dimple the dough, from the center to all four corners, into a rectangle. You also can use the flat part of your hands to press it out. If the dough shrinks back, let it rest for 2 to 3 minutes, then continue opening it wider until it forms a rectangle about 14 inches wide and 12 inches long. The dough should be thicker toward the bottom of the rectangle (closest to you) — about ⅓ inch thick, and the rest should be just under ¼ inch thick. Lightly brush the surface of the dough with olive oil.
Begin layering the filling ingredients over the lower third of the dough — the section closest to you (the thicker section) — with a single layer of sliced ham, leaving a border of about 1 inch around the bottom and sides of the dough uncovered. Distribute a layer of mozzarella over the ham, just enough to lightly cover it. Add a layer of soppressata or spicy salami over the cheese, followed by another sprinkling of cheese. Distribute strips of the onion and the 12 basil leaves, as well as a layer of Genoa salami, followed by another sprinkle of cheese. Add a layer of pepperoni or any other sliced meat, a layer of sliced tomatoes and a drizzle of hoagie spread, followed by another sprinkle of cheese.
Begin rolling up the stromboli by pressing out and stretching the uncovered border of dough at the bottom and lifting it over the filling to cover it (if it tears, just patch it up and continue), pressing it into the border of uncovered dough around the filling. Gently place your fingers under the bottom of the filled section and, with a gentle pull to stretch the dough slightly, lift it up and over the folded section. Pinch the dough on both ends of the roll-up to seal it. Gently pull the folded section toward you to slightly stretch out the remaining dough and fold it over again, rolling it up. Continue stretching and rolling until the dough is fully rolled, with the seam side facing down on the work surface to seal it. Use a knife to trim any unfilled dough on either side.
Cover a sheet pan with baking parchment or a silicone baking mat and carefully lift the stromboli onto and along one side of the length of the pan, giving it a slight crescent-like curve. Repeat this process with the other piece of dough (or save it for later by returning it to the refrigerator). Before baking, brush the surface of the strombolis with olive oil and generously sprinkle sesame seeds over the top. Use a serrated knife to cut three parallel diagonal slits across the top of the dough, cutting only as deep as the first layer of filling. Garnish with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until the dough is golden-brown and very firm and springy to the touch. Transfer the baked stromboli to a cutting board and let cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing it into 1- to 2-inch sections and serving.
Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56
I’m interested in the home kitchen, from sheet-pan suppers to the latest food trends. Food encompasses the world, its many cultures, languages and history. It is both essential and sensual. I also have my fingers on the pulse of classical music in Sonoma County, from student mariachi bands to jazz crossover and symphonic sounds. It’s all a rich gumbo, redolent of the many cultures that make up our country and the world.
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