Customer Reviews

Pizza Primer (Cole's Cooking Companion Series)

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This book offers numerous excellent recipes in a very clear, concise manner. It has a lot of pictures, and the descriptions are pretty accurate. It has one of the few authentic Chicago style crust and pizza recipes I've seen in a cookbook. The book has several recipes for different types of dough, ranging from thin crust to thick, rustic focaccia-like doughs, to the afore-mentioned Chicago-style. There are a variety of very good recipes for sauces, and there are additional recipes in the book that forego tomato sauces. You will find a number of Italian style pizzas (Margherita, Neapolitan, etc), some that blur the line between overdressed focaccia and rustic pizza, New York thin crust pizzas, Chicago and other deep dish styles, a couple of interesting dessert pizzas (not nasty things like 'make the bottom out of cookie dough, pour chocolate on it and add jelly beans and mint patties', but real pizzas made with risen dough crusts, etc.)

This is for the cook who is an experienced bread-maker, or who is willing to invest a little time to learn to make dough for your pizza. If you've successfully made any kind of yeast bread, you should be fine. I worked my way through college as a cook and chef, including some time at a restaurant with a wood-fired oven (and a high school job at a local pizzeria) and this is an excellent book. I've looked at many books that were much pricier and much bigger books but lacked the focus, explanations, and recipes that this little book delivers. It also has several of my all-time favorite recipes. It is not for you if you just want quick and easy recipes for your Boboli crust...