Tomato sliced whole or sauced on Pizza? Pizza Discuss Tomato sliced whole or sauced on Pizza? in the Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart forums; Does anyone use whole, thinly sliced tomatoes or mostly sauce made from cans of San Marzano's? I've mostly used the ...

[Dino_Pizza]

Does anyone use whole, thinly sliced tomatoes or mostly sauce made from cans of San Marzano's? I've mostly used the cans and made a barely cooked sauce.

I've got a nice crop of end of season tomatoes to use tonight and I plan on no sauce, just the sliced tomatoes.

Do they work better above the cheese or below, on the dough?

Is whole tomatoes DOP allowed or is Pizza Margarita always crushed tomato?

Just curious, maybe I'll do it both ways tonight and see how it goes. -Dino

[RTflorida]

I have had both good and bad experiences with fresh tomatoes. It really depends on the type of tomato. Some have a lot of water/seed pulp, I guess you would call them 'juicy'.
If you don't remove the pulp they will really make things soggy, even sliced very thin.
In general, plum tomatoes are considered more meaty with less water/pulp. A true 'sauce' tomato. San Marzanos seem to be the most flavorful, less acidic, and meaty of all.

Regardless of the type, you must slice fresh tomatoes VERY thin for pizza - you have the water/pulp issue as well as the skin, again depending on the type, you could have stringy, rubbery skins after going through the oven.
I guess the ideal way (they may not look very pretty or artsy) would be to blanch the tomatoes and remove the skins, then slice them thin and carefully pick out the seeds and pulp. Call me lazy, I just have not gone to that much trouble.

RT

[waitingtocook]

I haven't tried whole sliced tomatoes, I generally go the sauce route, however i have used very very finely chopped, deseeded tomatoes. Just cut them into quarters, scoop out the seeds, and dice them super fine, almost salsa type, but finer. It seems to eliminate the skin factor, and allows the tomato to break down easier during cooking. Not something I always do, but seems to work ok the couple of times I have tried it.

[Dino_Pizza]

Thanks RT and Waitingtocook, great suggestions. I took RT's advice and removed the seeds from the tomatoes and sliced them thinly.
We made Margaritas with the tomatoes on the dough. Came out fine. The other pizzas with a thin layer of cheese on the base 1st (then more later) came out even better. The sliced tomatoes do get very HOT for some reason and hold the heat causing burnt tongue if not careful. Just shows how delicious the smell was so it's hard to wait for it to cool.
I like your idea of chopping them finely. It would give the fresh tomato taste and spreadability too. Will try that next time. Thanks Dino

[papavino]

The sliced tomatoes do get very HOT for some reason and hold the heat causing burnt tongue if not careful.

So true. Our neighbor brought over some tomatoes last weekend and I think we all burnt the tops of our mouths on them. But they tasted fantastic.

[tgm]

We have been using chopped marinated fresh romas all summer long and everyone just raves about them. We also use DOP San Marzanos, lightly broken up by hand for the purists in our group.
For that marinated tomatoes we chop the tomatoes into a classic dice. We then add fresh chopped garlic, chopped basil, sea salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper. Then we add EVO and 18 year old basalmic vinegar and let marinade for at least one hour.
Just before we are ready to make pizza we drain the marinated tomatoes of all the juices. We save the juice as it becomes a delicious tomato vinegarette with all the juices mixed in.
We then use a shmear of EVO on the crust and then start with the chopped tomatoes and build from there. Everyone we feed this to raves about it.
We have done the exact the same scenaio with thinly sliced tomatoes. The key is to drain away the marinade to eliminate the soggy aspect with excess juice as RT explains above. The above tomatoe vinegarette goes wonderful with spring greens to eat along with the pizza. We just made some for lunch today and the pizza was awesome.
Try it, you'll like it....

Good Luck,

Tom in PA

[Dino_Pizza]

Tom, that's like a great fresh marinara type sauce. I'll definitely try it and the drained vinaigrette sounds like a keeper too Thanks for sharing, Dino

[Dino_Pizza]

Here's 2 pics of my pizzas with sliced tomatoes from my garden. I did seed them, sliced thin, tossed with fresh grated garlic and let them drain 2 hours in a colander. The pizza are with crumbled Italian sausage that I lightly fried up 1st. The cheese is Johns (jrparks) recommended mix of 2 parts Fontina to 1 parts pecorino and Greek Kasseri cheeses. AMAZING cheese mix !

The closer pizza was with 1 month old, frozen dough and the farther is with fresh made the day before. It rose much better, the crust edge taller although taste was similar.

Everyone asks me if/when I'll try Trader Joes pre-made dough or ordinary flour. Someday...but while I'm still in Caputo Heaven, you can't me -Dino

[dsgreco]

The pizzas look great. Fresh sliced cherry tomatoes work very well also.

[tgm]

Dino,

I like that cheese mix and I am going to try it this weekend, Thanx
Yes you could use pre-made dough, yes you could use other flour but if you have access to Caputo and have tasted the end results.....why would you!!!
I have been in Caputo heaven for the last 4 years. Am I going to try any of the above....no way Jose'!! You don't fix what ain't broke.......as they say.

Nice pizzas by the way......

Tom in PA