[Photographs and video: J. Kenji López-Alt]. [Photographs: J. Kenji López-Alt, unless otherwise noted]. Nothing beats a big ol' square pie (often referred to as a Sicilian) to feed a party with minimal effort and maximum deliciousness. While large, industrial-scale stand mixers may reign supreme in pizzerias, the food processor is the best tool for making pizza dough at home. Fired up with coal and wood, the kit can achieve bake times of just a couple of minutes per pie for the ultimate in crisp and tender crusts. Most types of pizzas require special equipment to cook properly, whether it's devices to provide the intensely high heat necessary for Neapolitan or New York–style pizzas, or special pans and baking dishes for pan pizzas. Broccoli and Brussels sprouts will take on a gorgeous, smoky char, while miso-marinated black cod comes out caramelized and moist. The Crowd-Pleaser: Square (Sicilian-Style) Pan Pizza 4. If you're in the market for a new food processor, you should check out our latest review on the subject. You can use your fingers to squeeze them (messy) or a potato masher, but I recently started using a pastry cutter and haven't looked back. I know how you all feel about uni-taskers—products that are designed for one specific use and aren't great at much else—but pizza is one of those dishes that simply beg for specialty tools. You’ll need a pair of heavy-duty oven gloves that will protect your hands and forearms when taking pizzas in or out or adding more wood to the fire. These are the crispiest, most flavorful roast potatoes you'll ever make. When oven temperatures reach 800 F, cute little oven mitts aren’t going to cut it. If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment. Pros: It's the most similar to working with an actual wood-fired pizza oven. At least, not if you don't want to drag cheese and toppings all over the place. We recommend our users to update the browser. After rigorous tests, we found that the Magimix produces the best 14-cup food processor. We like the simplicity and one-piece design of this inexpensive model, which can also be used at clean-up time. This is a mistake. We like this sturdy cast-iron model because it withstands high heat and delivers a perfect sear on steaks and roasts. We like this model for its detachable handle and steel scraper on the back of the brush. But it's simply impossible to make some types of great pizza without certain other tools, like peels and some sort of baking surface. Ten percent of all sales are donated to Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger-relief charity. You can find my recipe for square pizza here. Cons: The oven takes practice to get used to. Best part is, you don't even need a pizza stone or steel. Before we jump into the tools, here's a quick recap of some basic dough recipes to get you started. When it comes to portioning pizza, a knife simply won't cut it. I know that many of you wonder how to make a pizza oven using the pizza oven kit. I keep a Baking Steel griddle on my stovetop at all times (when it's not baking pizza, that is) for frying eggs, searing steak, smashing burgers, and crisping potatoes and vegetables. Learn more on our Terms of Use page. The biggest is consistency. I keep mine hanging up against the side of my cabinet using a guitar hanger. The same crisp skin and juicy meat as our classic recipe, but with a flavor-packed herb butter to coat it. Use it as a surface for grilling meats or setting a skillet, Dutch oven or any cooking vessel. The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science (based on his Serious Eats column of the same name) is a New York Times best-seller, recipient of a James Beard Award, and was named Cookbook of the Year in 2015 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. This long, adjustable apron protects clothing from any flying embers and features handy pockets. We have a great selection of pizza oven accessories, tools & equipment. You’ll need tools and accessories to protect you from the oven’s intense heat when sliding pizzas in and out; cutting and serving utensils for enjoying your fresh-baked pizzas; and a few simple items for clean-up. If economy is your goal, the New Star Foodservice pizza peel will work fine, though I personally love my Perfect Peel Baker's Board, handcrafted to last a lifetime from gorgeous solid cherrywood. When The Original Baking Steel came out four years ago, it completely changed how I cook pizza indoors. We like the extra-long handle on this model to protect hands and forearms from the oven’s high temperatures. It took a partnership between the makers of the KettlePizza and the Baking Steel (along with a little cajoling on my part) to come up with the Serious Eats–Edition KettlePizza/Baking Steel Combo Kit, but for my money (around $400 at the time of this writing), it's the most effective and versatile way to get wood-fired oven temperatures in your own backyard. I typically recommend a cast iron skillet. Bubble poppers like this one also double as pizza turners — handy if your oven isn’t heating evenly. You’ll... Pizza Peel. Not only does it make clean-up easier, but the lime- and potassium-rich wood ash is also powdered gold for your garden plants and compost heap. Elizabeth Heath is a travel, culinary and lifestyle writer based in rural Umbria, Italy. For a single-use tool that'll do the job better at the cost of less versatility, go with a dedicated pizza pan. You will definitely scorch the bottoms of your first few pies as you figure out the optimal coal and wood arrangement and hone the craft of rotating and "doming" pies (that is, lifting the pizzas up toward the roof of the oven as they cook in order to char their tops evenly). J. Kenji López-Alt is a stay-at-home dad who moonlights as the Chief Culinary Consultant of Serious Eats and the Chef/Partner of Wursthall, a German-inspired California beer hall near his home in San Mateo. It allows you to re-create crisp-edged, flavor-packed pizzeria-style pan pizza at home with no kneading, no stretching, and no real experience required. It doesn't have quite the romance of actual pieces of hardwood, but pellets are cheap (about 50 cents a pound at your local home goods store), they burn reliably, and they're easy to get going. Mine has been through a half decade of intense use and shows no signs of slowing down. A wheel pizza cutter makes cutting through hot pizzas a snap. An oversized cutting board provides a handy place to set hot-from-the-oven pizzas and slice them for serving. A drizzle of olive oil before and after baking gives your pie a great boost of flavor, and little plastic squeeze bottles are the easiest, most inexpensive way to store and dispense it. A bench scraper will help you scrape up random bits of dough stuck to your counter and clean up dustings of flour with ease. We are no longer supporting IE (Internet Explorer) as we strive to provide site experiences for browsers that support new web standards and security practices. Outdoor pizza ovens are generally easy to use and maintain — with the right gear, that is. I can't seem to find the particular model I have anywhere, but there are plenty of options on Amazon. Just make sure you don't get distracted in the middle of measuring. You light up a pile of wood pellets in a little tray in the back of the unit, then load more wood pellets into a metal hopper, which continuously feeds them into the fire via gravity.