There’s a reason Greek Pizza, mainly found in the “Pizza Houses” and “Houses of Pizza” in New England, is not more loved. The reason is that it’s not the best.
Okay, let me change the statement. It’s typically not a great choice. Look, most pizzas, including Neapolitan and NY-style or deep dish pizzas, are still delicious and excellent even if they’re not at their peak shape. There’s a reason why the old phrase”pizza’s like wine “pizza is like sex–even when it’s bad, it’s good,”* is genuine; however, it doesn’t include Greek Pizza that’s only great when it’s not awful. There’s no middle to this.
For those who are more scientific, If we could graph the overall quality and taste of Pizza based on its dedication to its shape instead of the bite, we’d end up with curves similar to this.
A 6-quality Neapolitan pizza might be rated around five on the taste scale, but a six-quality Greek pizza is the same as a one-quality Greek pizza.
If your Greek Pizza isn’t spectacular isn’t worth the calories. We’re seeking.
Greek Pizza: Typical vs. Archetype
The idea behind the Greek-style pie is easy. Start with the standard pizza dough that has been enriched with olive oil. Make the dough into an aluminum or steel pie pan coated with a second coat of oil. Serve with a chunky, cooked tomato sauce heavily flavored with oregano. Finally, add a plethora of cheese. Bake in a moderately hot oven (around 500degF or 250degC) until the cheese is cooked.
To be victorious, it is essential to be aware of and comprehend your foes and friends.
Let’s begin by looking at what is commonly called Greek-style pizza.
Although it’s not tasted, its flaws are evident. The first thing we notice is the crust, which is so uniformly golden brown and fluffy that it’s unnecessary to visualize its dense-crumbed Wonderbread texture. Then we go to a light orange sauce that screams, “Spaghetti-O’s!” We then see the vast, congealed layer of cheese. It’s rubbery, bland, and not cooked at all.
Gross, right? I drank way too many nights in college ordering these kinds of things.
This is, however, ho,w a great Greek pizza ought to appear:
This pie is what George’s serves on the Cape, And up to now, it’s the most delicious Greek Pizza I’ve ever had.
It starts with a shatteringly crisp crust on its top, with an almost deep-fried texture. It makes sense since it’s essentially. Next, there’s a thick-but-not-as-thick-as-Sicilian layer of chewy, bready crust that gives way to a tomato sauce cooked and heavy on the oregano but with enough brightness to shine.
We then get to the cheese that, while highly thick, melts perfectly and pulls away from the slices into thin strands, with a substantial amount of browning on the surface. The cheese has barely begun to break apart, leaving just a tiny slick of orange oil on the top of each slice. Most of the time, this kind of cheese is referred to as heavy. In this case, I’d consider it generous.
Crisp, gooey, fresh, and salty, I’d recommend a delicious piece of Greek Pizza against the Neapolitan and New York any day of the week.
To perfect the look at home, I’d need to look through each ingredient–sauce, cheese, and crust one step at a time. Here’s what I discovered.
Dialing in the Sauce
Pizza sauce isn’t just pizza sauce. Similar to deciding whether you should ford the stream or walk around it as you make your way through the Oregon Trail, you must be aware of the surroundings. * For a New York pizza, you’d use a mildly cooked and lightly spiced sauce, while for a Neapolitan one, you’d probably choose straight-up San Marzano tomatoes blended with salt.
Additional wagon wheels, time? Do you know how to go about it? Little Katie’s got dysentery? You can shore up the Prairie Schooner and let it float across!
You want a deeper, richer, cooked tomato flavor for Greek pizza. The most efficient method to achieve this is Tomato paste. A tomato paste is cooked by slowly reducing the tomato juice. It has a distinct richness and a slightly metallic flavor.
The first time, I cooked some minced garlic and a substantial quantity of dried oregano, and a few red peppers into olive oils before adding tomato paste and then the can of tomatoes that had been crushed. After letting it all simmer for about an hour, I tasted it and was…unimpressed.
The way it’s cooked is one thing. However, this one was just bland. The shorter time resulted in a dish that was not quite as rich. I experimented with the proportion of crushed tomatoes to paste, which did a little better; however, the key resulted from keeping a third of the crushed tomatoes before simmering the sauce, then adding them back into the pot towards the end.
As in the movie Prince from Bel-Air, my dish suddenly became freshly made and flavorful!
Tangy Mozzarella?
There aren’t many sseverepizzas worldwide that do not use mozzarella as their base. As a kid, I thought it was the most popular cheese used in Greek Pizza. However, something didn’t seem right. Like a Greek pizza, the cheese in pizzas isn’t melting in the same spongy ribbons that regular mozzarella melts. It’s more prone to break, but it’s more greasier and a bit more tangy.
