This tip will make your delivery pizza even better

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands of online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: the tastiest recipe to make your delivery pizza even tastier.

I've ordered more home delivered pizzas in the past few weeks than in the whole year before, because I lovingly support local pizza bakers and I want them all to stay, post-corona. And you know what's an incredibly good tip to spice up that pizza delivered neatly to your doorstep during these times? The kiss of life for your delivery/pick-up pizza as it were? I'm going to tell you.

A little pain is nice
I'm in awe of being on fire when eating a pizza. Because a pizza has to have heat, both in terms of temperature and peppery spiciness, and I will order a pizza with ‘nduja and/or pepperoni wherever it's on the menu. At Poppy's the Lucifera, at Il Pecorino the ‘Nduja Calabrese, and then I'll go in for chilli oil. But that indispensable heat of a pizza arriving on your table straight from the oven, that steamy glowing melted cheese, of course you miss it once that pizza arrives home, however soon.

Well, going forward
And while Italians don't like to see you messing with their dishes, I know from a reliable source that some pizza restaurants are now a takeaway with pain in their hearts as they fear that quality cannot be guaranteed if there is ten or more minutes between making and eating (reassurance: those pizzas are heartily delicious at home too). So what do you do to get a takeaway/delivery pizza back to restaurant level (as much as possible)? The following:

Two Margheritas, a Napoletana and a Pepperoni please (or a Hawaii after all?)
You place your order. As soon as the order is out the door and you click out your phone or close your laptop, you coat the oven with a baking tray in it. Preferably a very flat one with no raised edge, one of those biscuit sheets.

But really loud
Just at its very highest. Not a dicky 150 degrees or something, really just touch it. My oven can go up to 250 degrees, we do it for.

Ding-dong
Your pizza is here! You only have room in the oven for two and the Margherita's were for the kids anyway so you immediately put those (kids) somewhere happy with each other. The remaining one or two pizza boxes you put on the counter next to the oven.

Oven mitts on
With your hands protected, you take the now glowing hot plate out of the oven and place it on the cooker. Pizza box open, edge down, and you slide the pizza right onto the plate. Put the plate back in the oven. Better not try to slide the pizza directly into the oven, because oven doors clear of caked cheese and tomato sauce is a crap job. Trust me: I speak from experience.

Netflix, vino, pizza, done
This heat boost only needs to take max five minutes, if you had that oven nice and hot. In those five minutes, you will have poured a glass of wine or whatever you like, cranked up the TV and pulled a really well jacked-up pizza out of the oven. Hospitality industry happy, pizza happy, you happy.

The morning after
And should you (huh, no way?) not finish your pizza, I also have an instant reheating tip for the next day. Normally, pizza you reheat is the microwave is sticky (bleh), but if you add a glass of water to your leftover slice of pizza in the microwave, this problem is solved.

Text: FavorFlav