Alex Rushmer shares secrets for creating the ultimate DIY pizza
If there is a better, more versatile fast food than pizza then I have yet to find it. Its near-universal appeal makes it an easy crowd pleaser and its inherent versatility makes it endlessly adaptable. Cooking for friends of a carnivorous nature? Load up the base with plenty of charcuterie and cooked meats. Catering for vegetarians? Go big on the grilled vegetables and piles of leafy greens (think spinach and kale), which cook down into the most delicious pile of lightly charred goodness. I love the convivial nature of pizza, both in its creation and consumption, not to mention how well it pairs with some gutsy Tuscan red wines and enormous fresh salads.
Pizza has been something of an obsession for me for as long as I can remember. My mother always made it from scratch and I have fond memories of helping to prepare the ingredients and toppings, particularly grating large blocks of cheddar on an old orange cheese grater and cutting button mushrooms into thin slices.
Since then I’ve eaten hundreds all over the world, from late-night $2 slices of greasy satisfaction at a New York slice bar to ethereally thin offerings at a Luccan pizzeria with a menu running to just two items (with or without finocchio, the regional variation of salami, highly aromatic with fennel seeds).
I’ve also developed something of an obsession over the years with trying to perfect the process at home. The dough I managed to get right a few years ago (finely milled Italian 00 flour is the key to getting the necessary gluten to develop and enable you to roll a pizza base of extraordinary thinness); the tomato sauce I learned from a Michelin-starred chef during my time as a contestant on Masterchef; and the toppings are easy to come by. What was holding me back, like many domestic cooks, was the heat available to me – or rather the lack of it.
“Consequently the pizza cooks fast, real fast”
A wood-fired pizza oven will typically run at temperatures of close to 400 degrees. Consequently, the pizza cooks fast. Really fast. The base blisters and catches ever so slightly, the cheese melts quickly and the toppings stay fresh and vibrant. There are some little hacks that enthusiastic home cooks have developed over the years to try to recreate the effects of a genuine pizza oven but, good as they are, they just don’t quite cut it and I was resigned to the conclusion that I’d just have to get my pizza fix from somewhere other than my own kitchen.
That was until two years ago when, as a wedding gift, we were given a small stainless steel Uuni oven that looks like a tiny steampunk train and runs on biomass wood pellets. It is a genius piece of simple engineering that reaches incredible temperatures in just ten minutes and cooks a pizza to blistered perfection in fewer than two. To say it has changed my life might be overstating it slightly but by golly, it’s definitely changed my pizzas.
