Customer Reviews

James McNair's New Pizza: Foolproof Techniques and Fabulous Recipes

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed McNair's first pizza book. It had clear instructions, interesting descriptions, wonderful photographs, and recipes that both worked well and expanded my pizza-making repertoire. I bought the new version expecting more of the same, but it has been a little disappointing. The techniques section is all text, several of the recipes don't have pictures, and the small print is hard to read against the colored background of some pages. He advocates using a pizza screen to facilitate getting pies in and out of the oven, but I get great results using just parchment paper. The recipes themselves are excellent. The ones carried over from the first book have subtle but noticeable improvements. His Neapolitan-style pies are closer to the real thing. You use the unappetizingly named "seasoned tomato pulp" instead of tomato sauce, but it really is better. My crusts even got big blisters I had only seen before in good pizzerias! Some of his innovative pizzas are over the top. I would never spend hours roasting pork shoulder just for a pizza or turn my pies into pinwheels, but they are interesting ideas. Overall, this is a fun and reliable pizza book. I just wish it didn't have the few small but inconvenient shortcomings.

Pizza is really what you make of it. It's one of the easiest foods to make. I was skeptical of this book... once you have a crust, who needs a pizza "recipe?" After trying a few of the exotic pizzas, the answer was clear: I do. I've tried stuffed pizzas, dessert pizzas, goat cheese & artichoke pizzas, traditional tomato, basil & mozzerella pizzas and a few of the un-pizza like pizza wraps/sandwiches. While I had to modify quantities to accomodate the pans I already have, it's not hard to adjust because pizza making is very forgiving. (The quantities of are just fine if you use the right tools/pans.) I've even taken to throwing the dough in the air, but I look more like a kid learning to juggle than a pizza chef.

One complaint I had was the obvious West-Coast bias of the author. Growing up in New Jersey and having lived on the East Coast my entire life, I was eager to try what different areas call "pizza," but Mr. McNair spends an unjustified amount of the book raving about California pizzas, ingredients and doughs. Nearly every pizza in his book is based on the "California Pizza Crust" dough. However, this isn't all bad, because it's really a great dough, with a great listing of variations. I've made every base dough in the book (there are only 3 or 4, but with many good variations on each) and each has its own distinctive qualities, but all were well crafted thanks to the recipe. The humidity in Miami, FL makes dough making very difficult, but using a bread machine and the authors recipes helped overcome any difficulties.

The physical quality of this paperback book is superb. The pages are very colorful, and made from thick, semi-glossy paper. All images are crisp and attractive, and there are quite a number of them. There are no step-by-step pictures, but the written directions are clear and thorough.

All in all, I recommend this book highly to anyone that enjoys pizza in its many varieties. However, if you're not crazy about less traditional pizzas or are only willing to enjoy pizzas that are replicas of what you grew up with, you probably don't need an entire cookbook dedicated to pizzas. Making pizza is a gratifying, but time-consuming project - as are all things involving rising doughs. It's still easier to call the locally owned pizzeria and get a pie, but you'll probably have a tough time finding these delicious gourmet pizzas there!

This book is an excellent reference that teaches pizza-making beginning with the fundamentals. Instructions are given for preparing various kinds of dough by hand, food processor, mixer, and bread machine. A separate section covers common ingredients such as seasoned tomato pulp and roasted garlic. Mr. McNair's style of writing is thorough and entertaining.

The first recipes are simple (tomato and garlic, garlic and olive oil). These let you concentrate on making great crust. Later recipes begin to include some unusual ingredients. You won't find "Artichoke and Goat Cheese Pizza" at Domino's! It was delicious. Another of my favorites now is the Corn Pizza. I have yet to work up to stuffed pizzas. Some of the sweet pizzas (dessert and otherwise) will probably remain untried.

The full-page photos are well-done, and the book itself is colorful. My one complaint would be that, with my poor eyesight, some pages are difficult to read: white print on sky-blue, black print on dark red.

I would recommend "New Pizza" to anyone (beginner or experienced chef) who wants to have fun experimenting with pizza.

No fresh novice to pizza making, I attempted the art two times before I consulted Mr. McNair's New Pizza. Both times I failed! My crusts were hard and flavourless, torture to bite through.

That was until I found New Pizza.

My first go with the recipes in this book, I made an Easy, deliciously wonderful, chewy, flavorful pizza.

Chronicle Books cookbooks are a strange lot -- the whole line has an air of inessentiality to it, a step above the shovelware books on the bargain shelf, but with the exception of a few gems such as Mini-Mart A La Carte or some of its ethnic books like Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen, there doesn't seem to be much in their catalog to get excited about.

And so we come to James McNair's New Pizza. McNair is one of Chronicle Books' more prolific writers, a man who has turned out an impressive number of short- to mid- subject books on many different foods. I've seen his original Pizza book recommended in a few places as a good book for starting pizzaioli, and I'm pretty completely mystified as to why. There's quite a few unusual toppings in there, some of which require quite a bit of work and produce interesting and tasty results, but as I mentioned in another review, pizza-making is very technique-heavy. All the exotic and avant-garde toppings in the world won't make up for a doughy or mangled crust or a burnt pie.

Well, New Pizza does make up for it, somewhat. While it isn't as heavy as I'd like on technique, it does go into some detail on the issue, and there's a selection of crusts ("Neapolitan" without oil, "California" with) and a decent discussion on handling and shaping the dough. It could use a lot more technique pictures (the photography budget was spent almost entirely on beauty shots of the finished pizzas), but it's... adequate.

The real strength of the book is the same as its predecessor -- the toppings. McNair's inspiration comes as much from the traditional (a Neapolitan Margherita, a Chicago deep-dish sausage) as from many cuisines around the world, with unusual pizzas inspired not only by Italy, New York, and California, but by Thailand, India, South America, and the Caribbean, among other places. A lot of imagination went into the work, and McNair does put quite a lot of personal touches, with shouts out to friends and family who inspired many of the recipes. There's nothing wrong with any of this.

But it's still not the great pizza bible it wants to be. A pizza purist won't find much in here that can't be found anywhere else in greater detail; the many, many varied toppings are, for the most part, window dressing, though on their own many of them do rate as culinary tours de force. If you can find it at a bargain price, by all means go for it, but it probably shouldn't be your first book on the subject.

...always inspire me to try recipes rather than just let the book sit on the shelf. This book also gives good basic info for the novice who has never made pizza from scratch. There is a diverse range of pizzas to try in this book but some of them are a bit to ornate or experimental for me. Caviar or dessert pizza sound gross to me but I'll make the basic tomato pizza over and over.

I bought his first book and I bought book this because it
said 'foolproof' techniques. Well the first book was bad and
this is worse. The techniques are not foolproof because
I tried the recipes over and over again and the pizza was aweful
tasting. After buying 2 of his books and turning out aweful
tasting pizza I have come to the conclusion that
McNair can't make a pizza. Don't waste your money.