A Social Pizza Experiment

Pizza Cheese – What Is The Best?

01 05 11'

Written by MickReade

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As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, there are four main elements that make up any great pizza:- the pizza dough, the pizza sauce, the pizza cheese, and of course, the toppings.

Today I’m going to share with you what I think is the best pizza cheese, and why I like to use it.  There are of course many kinds of pizza cheese you can use, and mozzarella is traditionally the most common type of cheese on a pizza, but there are other alternatives.

There Are Many Varieties Of Pizza Cheese…

I’m not just talking about the kinds of cheese that can be added as a topping in this case either, because really, any type of cheese that you can think of can be used to top a pizza, so long as it also works with the other toppings you’re using.  For example, goats cheese works really well on pizza with pieces of roasted pumpkin, caramelised onion, and spinach leaves, however spreading goats cheese over the entire pizza would overpower everything else (plus it’s quite expensive!).

Shredded Mozzarella Pizza Cheese

Shredded Mozzarella Pizza Cheese

No, what I’m referring to is the kinds of pizza cheese that can be spread all over the base, and melt together with all your other beautifully fresh ingredients to create that creamy, gooey texture that just slides easily down your throat.

Some people like to make a blend of pizza cheese, combining mozzarella with tasty cheese.  This gives you a combination of the gooeyness of mozzarella, mixed in with a bit of tang and extra bite from the tasty cheese.

This can work really well, however the best pizza cheese in my humble opinion (and the only one I use these days), is called Caboolture cheese.  This is actually a kind of mozzarella, which goes through a process of stretching.  Technically speaking, it’s called a stretched mozzarella curd (just in case you can’t find Caboolture anywhere locally, now you know how to find a similar equivalent).

So Why Is It The Best Pizza Cheese?

Cheesy Cheese Pizza

Cheesy Cheese Pizza

It has a delicious flavour, and the small shredded balls of cheese actually spread quite widely across your pizza as it’s cooked, so you don’t really need to add a lot.  Of course, if you like cheesy pizzas, you can be as generous as you like and get more bang for your buck!

The best part about this cheese though, is that it doesn’t leave little pools of oil all over your pizza as it melts.  This is one of the things that your average pizza cheese will quite often do, and although it might help the pizza slide down your throat, what are the after-effects on your gut?

This is probably one of the biggest reasons that pizza from fast food joints have such a bad reputation.  Now you know that making your own pizza at home is not only a fun exercise, but it can also be a lot better for you by topping it with Caboolture, the best pizza cheese!

Mick Reade

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Toppings

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Christmas Turkey Pizza

12 27 10'

Written by MickReade

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Christmas Day 2010 has fallen on a Saturday, so the Christmas Day public holiday here at Melbourne Pizza Delivery is today, Monday.  It’s almost like having Christmas Day all over again!

So because of this strange circumstance, I thought I could take the traditional roast turkey Christmas dinner and try putting it on a pizza, just for something a bit different.

Here’s what I came up with…

Turkey On A Pizza

Christmas Turkey Pizza

Christmas Turkey Pizza

There’s nothing like some cranberry sauce combined with turkey at any time, so that’s the obvious choice to go on the base of the pizza.

Here are all the ingredients you will need for my Christmas Turkey Pizza:-

  • 200g Dough ball, rolled and ready
  • 2 tablespoons Cranberry sauce
  • 75g Mozzarella cheese, grated
  • 100g Turkey breast, cooked and thinly sliced
  • 40g Spanish onion, thinly sliced
  • 40g Brie cheese, sliced

How To Make The Christmas Turkey Pizza

1. Preheat the oven to 250C for 30 minutes.
2. Spread the cranberry sauce quite thinly over the pizza base
(too much sauce will overpower the taste and make it more
like jam on toast).
3. Cover with the grated mozzarella cheese.
4. Arrange the slices of turkey around the pizza, then the slices
of onion over the top.
5. Lastly, place the slices of brie randomly around the pizza.
6. Put it in the oven and cook at 250C for 7-10 minutes.
7. Remove when cooked, cut into slices and serve.

Have a Merry Christmas, and a safe and Happy New Year!

Mick Reade

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Big Breakfast Pizza Challenge – Competition Day

12 20 10'

Written by MickReade

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Finally, the day of my first ever pizza cooking competition has arrived, and I was very excited!  Because this competition was all about finding the best breakfast pizza, naturally the pizza contest was to be held early in the morning, so I had to prepare myself for this in advance.  I often work late into the night, so getting up early is not always that easy.  I set my alarm for 5am, as I had to be there by 6:15am, and it was a good 30-40 minute drive to get to the location.

I got up bright and early just as the sun was rising, and began to ready myself.  I didn’t really know what to expect, had no idea what my competition was going to be like, or how many people would turn up to try our pizzas!  I was mostly excited, but there were a few butterflies floating around in the gut as well.

Arriving At The Breakfast Pizza Challenge

Making Breakfast Pizza

Making Breakfast Pizza For The People

I was the first competitor to arrive and the radio team were still setting up our work stations and equipment.  All the ingredients were already supplied, so thankfully that was something that I didn’t have to worry too much about, all I had to do was show up and cook :)

Only a few minutes later my first competitor arrived, Emma, so we introduced ourselves and started having a look around the work area that was set up for us.  Emma was making a breakfast pizza with the lot, basically every big breakfast type ingredient that you could think of all on the one pizza, so she had a quick look around to discover that unfortunately a couple of her ingredients were missing.

A quick dash to the shops, and a call out on the radio by the DJ solved the ingredient issue, however a bit of stress had set in to start off the day.

In the meantime, Chris, our other competitor had also arrived, so we met and had a quick chat about the upcoming pizza challenge as well.  Chris was making a dessert pizza, with strawberries, chocolate, marshmallows and ice cream.  The whole day was quite friendly and relaxed, aside from Emma’s issues missing out on some of her ingredients, so we all had a ball together cooking up some pizzas…

The Breakfast Pizza Challenge Begins…

We were asked to begin prepping our pizzas, and straight away Emma and Chris began furiously chopping up their ingredients.  For me, I had made the Eggs Florentine Breakfast Pizza so simple and easy that I really didn’t have a lot to do, so I basically started putting some of the toppings on my pizza base and waited for some people to start arriving so I could cook the pizza and make sure it was hot and fresh for the first trials.

Eggs Florentine Breakfast Pizza – The First Trial

Cooking Breakfast Pizza In The Pizza OvenMy first two pizzas were a bit of a disaster, as the pizza oven was a bit different to what I’m normally used to, and getting used to the pizza stone which was in the oven took a couple of attempts to get right.  I burnt half of the bottom of each base, but luckily half was still good to use, so I kept one side and sneakily threw out the rest so that no one ever knew ;)

Just as I pulled the first pizza out (I was way ahead of the other two, they still hadn’t put anything in their oven yet), the DJ asked me to come up to the booth and speak on air.  So luckily for me I had my first piece to take with me and let him try, while I had a quick chat on the radio about my eggs florentine breakfast pizza creation.

He seemed quite impressed with my pizza, which made me happy, and then I went back to busily making more pizzas.  In all, we each made 10 pizzas, and throughout the course of the morning all but only a few slices of mine were left.  (Of course, I had a couple of slices of my breakfast pizza, as I hadn’t had any breakfast at this stage either… the DJ noticed this and pointed it out on air lol).

We all tried each others breakfast pizza creations as well, just so we knew what each one tasted like.

Breakfast Pizza Challenge – The Final Result

A couple of hours passed while we were making pizzas for anyone who wanted to come down and try them.  It was put to a public vote, so everyone who showed up was able to vote on their favourite breakfast pizza.

DJ Booth At Big Breakfast Pizza Challenge

The time to announce the winner had arrived, and again we were all called up to the booth so that we could speak on air as the winner was announced.  I was quietly confident, however both Emma and Justin had made some great breakfast pizzas, and of course I had no idea how the public were going to vote.

And then the announcement was made… “And the winner, with 6 votes more than anyone else, was…. Mick!”

I had won my first ever pizza competition!

Mick Reade With His New Pizza Oven

I was pretty stoked as you can imagine, but contained my excitement as best I could while I thanked Emma and Chris for their efforts, and the enjoyable day I had experienced.  As runners up, Emma and Chris both received the pizza oven that they had cooked in during the morning.  I also took home my pizza oven, while the good people at 96fm are also giving me a $1000 bbq package!

I’d like to thank 96fm for putting on such a great competition, as well as Kleenheat Gashouse for supplying such fantastic prizes.  And I’d also like to thank all my friends and loyal readers for supporting and encouraging me (and this includes you!).

All in all it was a brilliant day, and I couldn’t be happier to win the big breakfast pizza challenge :) Now I have some ideas for a new breakfast pizza chapter for my pizza cookbook… ;)

Mick Reade

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The Big Breakfast Pizza Challenge

12 16 10'

Written by MickReade

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At times, Melbourne Pizza Delivery goes to extraordinary lengths to deliver fresh, crispy pizza to you, and tomorrow will be no different.  All the way on the other side of the country, in sunny Perth, local radio station 96fm is putting on a breakfast pizza challenge.  This will be a no-holds barred, battle to the death for the ultimate pizza glory!  (Ok, well maybe not, but it will be a lot of fun!)

I know in my last post I promised to share the next element that makes up part of every great pizza, but as you can probably tell I got slightly distracted in the past week with preparations for the upcoming pizza challenge.  I will get back on track soon, however I thought this might be more interesting and exciting news to share with you for the moment :)

The Breakfast Pizza Challenge Laid Down

One cruisy afternoon, rolling out pizza dough in the kitchen and listening to the radio as I often do, I heard them talking about this new concept for pizza, and naturally my ears pricked up.  The DJ spoke about how good cold pizza in the morning can be, and imagined what a pizza designed specifically for breakfast would be like.  So he put the call out for anyone and everyone to design their ultimate breakfast pizza and submit their ideas for consideration.

Straight away I was thinking up all sorts of crazy ideas, and later that night when I got home, I entered four kinds of pizza toppings that I had thought of, and waited to see if I would get a call.  There was a breakfast pizza with Vegemite, Cheese, Eggs and Bacon, a full works breakfast pizza, as well as Eggs Florentine and an Eggs Benedict Pizza.  At this point, I hadn’t even tested them out, they were just ideas in my head!

The Phone Call…

Over the course of next week I did test them out, and the results I will share in the next few posts…

Eggs Florentine Breakfast Pizza

Eggs Florentine Breakfast Pizza

A few days later I did get an early morning call from the radio station, and they invited me to compete against two other people to find the ultimate breakfast pizza!  So tomorrow morning, bright and early, the battle will be on, and my weapon of choice?  The Eggs Florentine Pizza!

For now, I can give you a sneak peek look at my Eggs Florentine Pizza, and next time I will share how the competition went down, and probably even show you some of my other breakfast pizza ideas.  Until then, wish me luck!

Mick Reade

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Easy Pizza Sauce For Beginners

12 04 10'

Written by MickReade

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There are four very important elements to any great pizza, whether it’s from Melbourne, Chicago, Rome, or wherever – the pizza dough, the pizza sauce, the cheese, and the toppings.  I’ve covered how to make pizza dough in a previous post, so today I thought I would share how to make easy pizza sauce for beginners!

Easy Pizza Sauce

Easy Pizza Sauce For Beginners

Easy Pizza Sauce For Beginners

Making pizza sauce can be much easier than you might think. You can always buy a jar of prepared tomato sauce from the grocery store and use that as a pizza topping but why would you? A fresh, homemade pizza sauce has lots more flavor than any of those leading brands that are sitting on the shelves of your local supermarket.

Just imagine the tang and savory goodness that you and your family will taste when they sample that pizza sauce that you prepared right in your own kitchen. Homemade foods beat getting takeaway or delivery any day of the week and creating the right balance of flavors is easy to do.

The perfect pizza sauce means different things to different people. Some people want a smooth, meaty flavoured sauce and others prefer a sauce that is chunky or sweet. You should keep your own palate in mind when you are creating one of these savory, rich sauces. Hot and spicy? Heavy on the herbs? Sweetened with sugar?  The final choice of ingredients will be up to you, but for a delicious pizza sauce there are a few simple tips to keep in mind.

Simple Tips For Making Pizza Sauce

Fresh ingredients are a must.

Use unbruised, ripe tomatoes and avoid those that are too firm to the touch. Roma tomatoes are often one of the best varieties to use in a pizza sauce (they’re my favourite for any sort of cooking, such as oven roasting for breakfast with eggs on toast, delicious!).

Fresh Basil Leaves

Fresh Basil Leaves

Herbs add an extra depth of flavor to any pizza sauce. Dried herbs are acceptable but fresh herbs are the best way to go.

Be wary of adding too many flavors at once. You have to sample the sauce as you prepare it to make sure that the taste is to your liking.

Don’t be afraid to experiment when you are trying to make the perfect pizza sauce. It is always a good idea to follow the directions of a recipe if you are making sauce for the first time, but in most cases you can always improve on the original recipe when you individualize some of the ingredients to suit your own personal taste.

Overcooking or undercooking is something that you should avoid because even a great recipe can be ruined if the ingredients are not cooked properly. Most sauces will need to simmer to extract all of the flavours from the ingredients so be careful of both the time involved and the stove setting.

Here is one example of an easy pizza sauce recipe that you may want to try at home. This recipe allows you to use canned ingredients but feel free to substitute fresh Roma tomatoes if you prefer.

Easy Pizza Sauce For Beginners

1 can of (any brand) crushed tomatoes (400g)

3 cloves of freshly minced garlic

1/3 cup of tomato paste

1 ½ teaspoons of onion powder

2 tablespoons of fresh oregano leaves

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon white pepper

Dash of cayenne

1 tablespoon of freshly chopped basil leaves

½ teaspoon of sugar

¾ teaspoon dried marjoram spice

2 teaspoons of a red wine

How To Make Pizza Sauce

Add all of these ingredients to a small saucepan and cook on medium heat until you see bubbles forming on the surface of the liquid.

Now you should reduce the heat to low and allow the pan of ingredients to simmer for 20 minutes and your perfect pizza sauce will be ready to use in the recipe of your choice.  Now you know how to make pizza sauce, and the great thing about this recipe is that it’s so versatile, it’s a great addition to pizza and chicken parmas, pastas, wet dishes such as stews, and a ton of other sorts of easy food recipes, so have fun experimenting and cooking great food!

Mick Reade

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Hello To All You Pizza Lovers!

11 27 10'

Written by MickReade

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A big hello to all the loyal readers of Melbourne Pizza Delivery, and thank you for the wonderfully warm welcome!  My name is Mick Reade, the Aussie Pizza Chef, and I thought I should start by telling you a bit about who I am, and what you can expect from me in the coming posts.

I’m originally from Melbourne, and I’ve been cooking in commercial kitchens for over 13 years now.  In 2001 I was fortunate enough to win the title of best steak cooker in Australia.  After mastering the art of cooking steaks, I then wanted to master the art of making pizza.

Apprenticeship Under The World Pizza Champion

I moved to Perth, and learnt how to make pizzas from Theo Kalogeracos, who has now had the distinction of winning the World Pizza Championships twice (2004 and 2010).  If you’re going to learn something, learn from the best, right?!

Theo helped me to perfect my pizza dough making technique, and you may remember an earlier post where I shared a short video showing you exactly how to make pizza dough.

The Four Important Elements Of Making Pizza

In the next few posts I will share some more information about the four main elements to making pizza.  Obviously the pizza dough, the base of the pizza, is one of them.  Next time, I will teach you how to make pizza sauce, which is the second important part of any pizza.

Beyond that, I plan to share some of my favourite pizza toppings, as well as tips for cooking them just right, pictures, and anything else that I happen to come up with at the time!

In the meantime, here is a shot of the wood-fired pizza oven I get to play with in my current kitchen…

Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

So until next time, enjoy another pizza and I’ll talk to you again soon!

Mick Reade

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The Melbourne Pizza Delivery Master Chef

11 16 10'

Written by Aussie Pizza Connoisseur

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Melbourne Pizza Delivery officially has a Master Pizza Chef: Mick Reade

Mick is a professional Pizza Chef in Perth and has written his own Pizza and Parma book. Melbourne Pizza Delivery have approached Mick Reade to write for our blog and he has agreed to fit this into his busy schedule between baking gourmet pizzas and fighting off the hordes of pizza groupies (it is an in demand profession: Pizza Chef Extraordinaire)

Gourmet Pizza Chef Extraordinaire: Mick Reade

Melbourne Pizza Delivery thanks Master Chef, Mick Reade for his tireless approach to baking tastebud tantralising Pizzas and his commitment to supply our loyal readers with new content in this great Pizza Blog. ;)

Aussie Pizza Connoisseur
Melbourne Pizza Delivery © 2009-2010

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Pizza Delivery On The Big Screen

05 29 10'

Written by Aussie Pizza Connoisseur

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Pizza delivery has been pretty much the norm since the sixties when Tom Monaghan, the founder of Dominos Pizza, started bringing pizza pies right to the doorsteps of Americans.

Today, home pizza delivery is still an integral part of the pizza culture, and there are other areas of our modern culture where pizza delivery fits in just as well. The big screen is one of those places.

Pizza Delivery at the Movies

The Movie Industry’s Rising Star

Pizza delivery has been making a presence in the movie industry for years.

In the movie “Blue Streak”, Martin Lawrence dresses up as a pizza delivery guy to try and get into the office of the police commissioner. He’s got to be the most stylish (or not!) pizza delivery guy in history.

Kevin McAllister ordered pizza for his jaunt in a white stretch limo around New York City in “Home Alone 2″.

There are even movies that have a pizza delivery guy as the main character. The 1984 comedy, Delivery Boys and Spike Lee’s 1989, “Do the Right Thing” are two examples.

Beyond The Movies

There are pizza delivery guys in novels like Tom Wolfe’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons” and Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. Pizza delivery has even made its way in the mainstream television racket with the Australian comedy series, Pizza. Pizza even has its own month. October has been National Pizza Month since 1987.

Fat Pizza - Aussie TV Series

Pizza isn’t just a food anymore. It’s has been integrated into our society over time. It’s just a part of who we are. It doesn’t matter if you live in Melbourne, Paris or San Francisco, you’ll find pizza somewhere in today’s culture.

Aussie Pizza Connoisseur
Melbourne Pizza Delivery © 2009-2010

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Pizza Smashes Auto Theft Ring!

05 08 10'

Written by Aussie Pizza Connoisseur

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What do 9 teenagers, and a bunch of half eaten slices of pizza have in common? Well, nothing really except that the slices of pizza helped to capture the teenagers in a string of auto thefts.

Pizza Smashes Car Theft Ring

A Taste For Hondas And Pizza!

It’s true. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicles, the teenagers allegedly stole more than twenty Honda Accords in and around the Oakland, California, USA area. Seems they had a taste for Hondas and pizza.

The gang would steal a car, drive it around for a few days, all the while indulging themselves with pizza. When they’d had all the fun they wanted to have, they’d strip the car of all of its valuable parts, and then leave it abandoned. So how were these pizza loving bandits discovered?

Pizza Box Leads To Arrest

Pizza PoliceThe mystery was solved when investigators noticed that the pizza boxes had the name of the pizza joint on them, but none of them had the tags that come with them when you buy a pizza. They put two and two together, and deduced that the car-theft bandit must work at a pizza place. At this point in their investigation they had no idea they were looking for more than one suspect. Their hunch paid off.

A 17 year-old suspected car thief was working at the counter of the pizza establishment. The trail eventually led to the arrest of the other 8 pizza-munching bandits, all of whom were underage.

Not many people would look at a pizza as a device that helps solve crime, but here at Melbourne pizza delivery, we know that pizza makes anything possible!

Aussie Pizza Connoisseur
Melbourne Pizza Delivery © 2009-2010

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Weird

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The Worlds First Pizza Delivery

04 16 10'

Written by Aussie Pizza Connoisseur

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Most of us take pizza delivery for granted, and why not? For decades pizzas have been showing up at our doorsteps.

We call for pizza takeaway, and within 30 minutes or so, there’s a knock at the door, and our pizza is delivered right to our homes, piping hot. It may even seem as if pizza delivery always existed, but it didn’t. So when was the worlds first pizza delivery, and who ordered it?

Worlds First Pizza Delivery

The Worlds First Pizza Delivery

It is speculated that the worlds first pizza delivery took place in 1889. Naples pizzeria owner, Raffaele Esposito, was believed to have delivered a pizza to the king and queen of Italy while they were visiting the city. It is said that the queen wanted to try this new style food called pizza pie, but couldn’t bring herself to actually visit a pizza establishment.

When American service men came home from overseas after World War II, they brought with them a palate for pizza, which was already quite popular in Europe. It wasn’t until after World War II, when the automobile started to become a more accessible commodity, that home pizza delivery started to come onto the scene.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Domino’s Pizza founder, Tom Monaghan, however, was the person most credited with the new age of pizza delivery.

“Delivery at the time was pretty minimal, so I decided to focus on that, and it was the best thing I’ve done. Nobody thought you could make money on delivery. Most places just delivered to get some volume before they could afford to cut out the delivery. But I thought I could do it,” said Monaghan in an interview with Fortune Magazine in the late sixties.

Although he was not responsible for the worlds first pizza delivery, Melbourne and the rest of the world continue to benefit from Tom Monaghan’s insight, determination, and perseverance.

Aussie Pizza Connoisseur
Melbourne Pizza Delivery © 2009-2010

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History

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