This is a Newman's Own Thin and Crispy Uncured Pepperoni pizza. Paul Newman has now shuffled off to that great Sundance Festival in the sky, but his company still keeps chugging along.
So I preheated the oven to 425 as directed, and then placed the pizza on the center rack for 11 minutes as directed. The pizza came out perfectly baked the way a thin crust pizza should be baked. One thing that is apparent, however, is that this is a quite small pizza -- that's a normal sized pizza pan that it's sitting on, and it is dwarfed by the pizza pan. Still, if it was suitably tasty I could live with that...
Now, thin crust pizzas are devilishly hard to get right. The crust is thin, so has to work hard to contribute flavor to the pizza. You must make sure that the toppings do not entirely overpower the crust so that all parts of the pizza present themselves in a well balanced way. So how does the Newman's Own pizza do?
In a word: Not well. Oddly enough, the problem isn't that the sauce or pepperoni overpower the crust, which is a common problem with thin-crust pizzas. No. The problem is garlic. Pretty much the only thing you can taste while eating this pizza is garlic. Not sauce. Not pepperoni. Not cheese. Not crust. Just an overpowering and ever-present taste of garlic, with a slight hint of olive oil taste being the only thing that makes it better than just chomping down on a garlic clove.
So: If you love the taste of garlic, get this pizza. If you love the taste of a well balanced pizza that presents the full spectrum of pizza flavors to your taste buds, on the other hand, this pizza is utter fail. Sorry, Paul, wherever you are -- your company just isn't doing you right here :-(.
-- Badtux the Pizza Penguin
Click on the 'pizza' label below for *more* pizza reviews!
Sounds like a vampire-proof pizza.
ReplyDeleteI make my own.
ReplyDeleteWhile walking uphill. Both ways. In the rain. With no tools other than a rusty chain saw and a pocket knife, undoubtedly.
ReplyDeleteNo he makes his own stone tools.
ReplyDeleteWith stone taken directly from his skull.
ReplyDeleteNo I think he has a steel plate in his head.
ReplyDeleteBukko you really need to write on your blog you funny.
you crack me up with your frozen pizza reviews :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Demeur but I'm lazy at heart. Writing on my own damn blog is too much work. I'd have to think of intelligent things to say. I'd rather comment on other peoples' blogs, like a witty guest who rocks up at a lot of house parties and delivers bon mots after getting a snootfull of the house wine...
ReplyDelete