Pizza

I have owned this book since 1988. James' recipe for basic pizza dough is my "go to recipe". This book has very easy to follow instructions whether using a food processor, stand mixer, or the old fashioned way...kneeding by hand!

Pizza is one of my favorite foods and this book helps me make really good pizza. Even though this book is old, it's my favorite pizza cookbook. It has enough details for me though over all it's pretty simple. I mainly use it for the tools and dough information. The pictures are enjoyable to look at though I haven't really made many of the recipes. The best part of making pizza according to this book is obtaining the crispy crust via pizza stones in a hot oven (I've probably made 100 pizzas using the simple New York style dough recipe). Here's a hint, if you are on a budget and don't want to buy an expensive pizza stone, you can buy a bunch of six inch square quarry tiles from home depot really cheap. I have 9 in my oven forming a 18 inch square baking surface. I also prepare my pizza on parchment (baking) paper and slide it into the oven on a round tray (so I don't need a pizza peel). This way is cleaner than baking the pizza directly on the stones with cornmeal.

Here's the book for you if you want to impress your friends with your gourmet pizza. There's smoked pheasant pizza, wild mushrooms pizza and some more traditional ones like deep dish stuffed pizza and New York style pizza. The glorious full-page color photos make you want to eat the page. I recommend cooking the recipes and keep your book intact.

I had to write this review to refute the "pretty pizza, no substance" one, written by the angry reader who accused McNair of writing the book to pay off his mortgage. Don't believe a word of that negative commentary. I've been making pizza for years using a brick oven stone and have had lots of success with McNair's ideas. And his ingredients don't seem particularly exotic to me-- what's so mysterious about freshly ground Parmesan cheese? McNair himself recommends substitution if you don't have a particular ingredient on hand, or if you prefer an alternative ingredient taste-wise. I especially like the whole-wheat pizza crust recipe-- I just throw the ingredients into a bread machine and use it for two thin pizzas. I add some mozzarella & cheddar, the New York Neopolitan pizza sauce (very simple) and some garlic and add steamed spinach, basil & Italian flat-leaf parsley and oregano & Parmesan on top, & it's easy & delicious. And according to the kids, "Mommy makes the best pizza in the whole wide world." Thanks, James McNair. I hope you pay off your mortgage and that I pay mine off too someday.

I own several James McNair books, and I find them consistently reliable. Yes, some of the recipes do call for specialized ingredients (Parmigiano Reggiano cheese instead of Kraft Parmesan, for example), but that's just one detail that makes McNair's recipes so much better than many others. I recently made pizza for lunch for some houseguests who were astounded that I could do so from scratch without an awful lot of effort--they had NEVER seen it done at home before. It's not at all difficult, and the results are far superior to anything out of the freezer or thrown at the doorstep by a fast-moving delivery driver. Many of McNair's books are old reliables around my house!