Originally Posted by
3irty1
I had a friend who worked at pizzaria uno in platteville, I sent him an email for you. He sent me back the following recipe:
1 c Warm tap water (110−115 F)
1 t Active dry yeast
3 1/2 c Flour
1/2 c Coarse ground cornmeal
1 t Salt
1/4 c shortening
I assume that makes two pies.
When I see a pizza recipe the first thing I do is estimate how wet it is. That is the ratio of four (or in this case flour+cornmeal) to water (or in this case water+fat). This is about 100:54-57 flour:water or a baker's percentage of 54-57%. For reference the pizza dough I routinely make is 65%. This is a relatively dry dough but that is acceptable for a thicker crust. For a place like Uno's that employs mostly kids, its common to see fat of some kind in the dough whether veg, olive, or shortening. This idiot-proofs it somewhat as the dough will never be too sticky and even over kneaded dough spiked with shortening will come out tender. The cornmeal is to add some artificial crunch to the dough that could come off as doughy or heavy with that shortening in it.
You are best off forming this dough into a pizza-hut type crust rather than one that is really thin. This kind of crust is well suited for a home kitchen oven as it will turn out at lower temperatures in the 450F degree range.
The trick to making top sauce though is the tomatoes not surprisingly. For 10 months out of the year, canned > fresh. Really. Those canned tomatoes were lovingly picked at their peak, briefly steamed and peeled and packed away for you. Those fresh tomatoes that taste like nothing were picked green and colored with ethylene gas. Also the type of tomato matters. By far the most popular among top pizza chefs is the san marzano plum tomato. Its similar to a roma with a distinct pear shape and considered the best sauce tomato in the world. Find them canned. Once you have those your sauce is merely a puree of raw tomato flesh, evoo, salt, seasonings including oregano, and maybe some sweetener like honey or sugar. Why do you leave the tomatoes raw? Because its going to cook on the pie.
I want to eat pizza all the time so I need the process to be convenient. Unless I make a big batch of sauce a can it, I rarely make my own. I find most canned sauces acceptable. I personally deviate from the pizza purists in that I simply can't eat pizza anymore without siriacha. I add it right to the sauce. When you consider that its a chili garlic condiment, its not out of place here or in much Italian cuisine. Another thing I like to do is blend parmesan into my sauce. It turns it a beautiful orange, allows me to get cheese in every bite when using slices of fresh buffalo mozz. You can't just blend cheese into tomatoes or the cheese will form tiny rubbery balls from the tomatoes acid so the cheese must first be blended into cream. Do I do all of this? No I add a couple of spoonfuls of Alfredo sauce.