Author Topic: Ken's Pizza (Read 8359 times)

norma427 · « **Reply #20 on:** April 13, 2011, 04:16:15 PM »

Quote from: Jet_deck on April 13, 2011, 01:08:14 PM

I tried the Pace Picante puree added to some tomatos, but that wasn't what I was looking for.

Questions: Do any of you put parm in your sauce? Would it be considered overly expensive by a chain restaurant to use it? and here is a stupid question: Would there be any reason to think that parm added to a non cooked sauce (but cooked on the pizza) would taste any different than shaking parm on a slice after it is cooked? Thanks.

Jet_deck

I do add Parmesan to my uncooked sauce and let it sit a day before using. In my opinion it does give a different flavor to the cooked pizza, rather than adding Parmesan after the pie is baked.

Norma

Jet_deck · « **Reply #21 on:** April 13, 2011, 11:45:22 PM »

Thanks Norma, I will try to add some myself to see if it points me toward some answer.

Jet_deck · « **Reply #22 on:** April 15, 2011, 08:30:45 PM »

I recieved some good news today from a guy in Oklahoma that remembered some stuff. This is what he said :

Well, they use Angela Mia crushed tomatoes. Here is the exact one: http://www.amazon.com/Angela-Mia-Crushed-Tomatoes-102oz/dp/B001YJBL72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302849261&sr=8-1.
I was a driver so I didn't spend too much time making food but sometimes I'd help out if they were busy enough.
I believe they use 2 pounds of hot water for each of those cans (they measure in pounds for their recipes). You mix the spice bag with the water, then add to the tomatoes and then chill in the fridge for a little while. I'm sorry but I have no idea what specifically is in the spice packet or what quantities of what. I know it contained salt, pepper, dehydrated onions, celery, green and red pepper and then it just generically listed "spices" whatever that is, lol.
They could probably bottle the Ken's sauce and sell it. If I still worked there, I'd suggest that.

After some short research, Angela Mia is a Con Agri Foodservice product. Interesting that it says that these crushed tomatoes are unpeeled. Then I remembered the little pieces of tomato skin that was in the sauce. I hadn't remembered that for 30 years. WOO Freakin' HOO. I've got some research to do.

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #23 on:** April 15, 2011, 09:26:08 PM »

Quote from: BTB on April 12, 2011, 07:13:04 PM

I don't know if this is an "Emperor has no clothes" moment or not. But I thought that citric acid was to be avoided if possible. It is not always possible, but to many, those products without citric acid seem to be preferable or at least one step up from those with citric acid. I'm at a loss to figure out why someone would want to add it to their sauce, but maybe there's a good reason.

In tyring to clone aurelios's sauce i used oj instead of sugar and it was the closest to date...although still a ways away....so then i thought like tang or gatorade or orange candy citric acid is the main ingredient that gives candy that tang, or zing. i tried it in some sauce and i added too much, it tasted like orange candy. i need to try again with much less. i knew aurelios didnt use orange juice from a former cook, but he said the spice bags for the sauce had a ton of sugar, now ive tried sugar but its not close, so then i thought maybe what he thought was sugar was citric acid....because it looks like sugar.....and the process continues for me.....

Jet_deck · « **Reply #24 on:** April 22, 2011, 02:33:13 PM »

I learned today that Ken Selby worked at Shotgun Sam's pizza in Tulsa before he started his own.

"Although Shotgun Sam's didn't become a franchise licensor, it did produce the next best thing: someone who became hugely successful in the pizza/restaurant franchising business: Ken Selby. Ken worked at Shotgun Sam's before going out on his own. What started out as The Pizza Parlor in 1961 soon became Ken's Pizza, and later Mazzio's. There are around 200 of them, half of which are franchised."

http://www.tulsagal.net/2010/05/tulsa-pizza.html

Zing · « **Reply #25 on:** April 22, 2011, 07:37:13 PM »

There may been quite a few threads about the Angela Mia line of food service products. I have found it easy to procure at foodservice Cash & Carry outlets. They sell for about $7.00 a can.

EEnotPizzaE · « **Reply #26 on:** August 04, 2011, 06:04:56 PM »

Have you tried the "Ken's pizza" from Mazzios? I spent many years by 15th and Sheridan (Ken's)....my dad always said it was a bitter divorce...he got Mazzios, she got Ken's....guess he has reacquired the right to Ken's again and they are selling it at Mazzios.

Jet_deck · « **Reply #27 on:** May 08, 2012, 11:22:38 AM »

On a recent trip back to the Tulsa area, I stopped into a Mazzio's to see if the Ken's sauce was still around. Sure enough they had a "Ken's Pizza" on the menu. Special thin crust with the special sauce. I ordered one, sausage and mushroom, and waited.... I had already prepared myself that there was virtually no way that it would be as I remembered....

But it was. And more. After about 3 slices I started dragging the toppings off, and licked the sauce off of the remaining crust. The sauce is the bomb. Lots of smaller than pepper flakey stuff in it, tiny dehydrated onion bits, and little pieces of tomatoe peels about a third the size of your pinkey fingernail. After nearly 40 years, I was in pizza heaven. What a great find.

I know, no pictures, it didn't happen; but it did and I loved it.

Zing · « **Reply #28 on:** May 08, 2012, 01:44:29 PM »

That sauce sounds like one we made when trying to clone Shakey's sauce. We used a 28 ounce can of Escalon-produced Classico Crushed Tomatoes (available at Super WalMart) which includes the tomato peel. We either used red pepper flakes or ground cayenne. The tiny flakes sound like special cut, ground, or flaked oregano, basil, parsely and other herbs processed by folks like Mincing:
http://www.mincing.com/services.htm
Minced onion was supermarket house brand made by McCormick, chosen because of their small size. We did not cook the sauce, but made a tea of the seasonings, then added it to the crushed tomatoes and left it in the refrigerator overnight. We did add dextrose for Shakey's sweetness.

A post above gives some additional seasonings. Unless they put some industrial flavoring in there (the infamous "natural flavor" on the labels not available at retail), you should be able to recreate that sauce. I posted our current sauce recipe (can't taste cayenne in current Shakey's sauce samples, it leaches in from pepperoni) in the Shakey's sauce thread:
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,518.msg168307.html#msg168307
Leave out the wine.

Jet_deck · « **Reply #29 on:** May 08, 2012, 08:18:41 PM »

Thanks Zing.

lawman · « **Reply #30 on:** May 10, 2012, 02:01:56 PM »

Ahhh... Ken's was the pizza I grew up on. Lucky for me I have the last remaining Mazzio's in Georgia not too far away and was my preferred pizza place until I found this forum and started making my own.

After reading Jets post Tuesday I couldn't get Ken's outta my head so... I went there today and picked up a Ken's Supreme (was always my favorite) and a Mazzio's Thin Crust Works just to have something to compare the crust.

I remembered the crust to be crispy, instead it was soft. You can see how soft from the picture below. The sauce was like I remember! I a little tangy (not sure if that's the right word), kinda spicy but not spicy in a heat sense. I pulled back the toppings and noticed that there wasn't much sauce, just a thin layer, but did see the flecks of spices throughout (see pic).

I don't think it is a hot sauce or a cayenne that I taste... could be just plain pepper. I think it is a combination of pepper, onion, red/green bell peppers, oregano, garlic, and perhaps some thyme and/or marjoram.

Regardless of what's in the sauce I ate too much for lunch and am quite miserable... in that good "ate too much pizza" sorta way.

Edit: Oh yeah... forgot to say that it wasn't that different from the regular crust on the "works" pizza. A little more of a crunch on the bottom but otherwise not that different.

2rowdy · « **Reply #31 on:** August 03, 2012, 04:14:37 PM »

We used to go Ken's Pizza in Shawnee, OK after baseball games when i was a kid. I do remember it being very good.

Jet_deck · « **Reply #32 on:** August 04, 2012, 12:12:10 AM »

Neither my dad, nor my mom remember Ken's as being anything special. Just me. It is freeklishly good. The sauce makes it...

ThatsAmore · « **Reply #33 on:** August 04, 2012, 01:14:36 AM »

Quote from: Jet_deck on August 04, 2012, 12:12:10 AM

Neither my dad, nor my mom remember Ken's as being anything special. Just me. It is freeklishly good. The sauce makes it...

The next time the owner of Mazzio's comes through where I work, I'll see about getting you a quart.

Jet_deck · « **Reply #34 on:** August 04, 2012, 07:39:02 AM »

Quote from: ThatsAmore on August 04, 2012, 01:14:36 AM

The next time the owner of Mazzio's comes through where I work, I'll see about getting you a quart.

If that doesn't work then at least ask these questions:

1) Do they use the same tomato base for both the Mazzio and Ken's sauce.
2) Is the base the Alto Cucino brand tomato
3) Is the sauce anything more than the base and the spice packet.
4) Ask him if he has any idea what is in the spice packet, that gives the sauce the "zing"

Thanks Amore.

ThatsAmore · « **Reply #35 on:** August 04, 2012, 03:33:23 PM »

Quote from: Jet_deck on August 04, 2012, 07:39:02 AM

If that doesn't work then at least ask these questions:

1) Do they use the same tomato base for both the Mazzio and Ken's sauce.
2) Is the base the Alto Cucino brand tomato
3) Is the sauce anything more than the base and the spice packet.
4) Ask him if he has any idea what is in the spice packet, that gives the sauce the "zing"

Thanks Amore.

Will do, but I must tell you, it's been a few years since he's been through. It's an auto shop, and at some point we'll see him again.

mykall · « **Reply #36 on:** August 06, 2012, 10:02:55 PM »

Ya' gotta' love these nostalgia things. I'd love to have a bite of 70's Pizza Hut thin...just for the hell of it. I know it sorta' sucked but it's the same as Village Inn who was so into Birthday Parties and everyone remembers being there. They were always called "Pizza parlors" in the day and visiting any of them as a kid was "Wondemous" ! I'll never discount nostalgia on this site. NEVER!

MB

ThatsAmore · « **Reply #37 on:** August 06, 2012, 11:05:59 PM »

Quote from: mykall on August 06, 2012, 10:02:55 PM

Ya' gotta' love these nostalgia things. I'd love to have a bite of 70's Pizza Hut thin...just for the hell of it. I know it sorta' sucked but it's the same as Village Inn who was so into Birthday Parties and everyone remembers being there. They were always called "Pizza parlors" in the day and visiting any of them as a kid was "Wondemous" ! I'll never discount nostalgia on this site. NEVER!

MB

So right you are.

From another forum I hang at now and then .... Regarding Shakey's Pizza ....

"Shakey's Pizza . . . yes, I'm old enough to remember that Tulsa icon! I loved going there, pressing my nose against the window, watching the cooks toss the dough in the air, waiting for your playing card (which was your order "number") to be called, listening to that lady playing the piano, sitting on the long bench seats at the picnic style tables with parents drinking pitchers of beer . . . Yes, those WERE the days!! Between those memories and that picture my mouth is watering right now!"

ThatsAmore · « **Reply #38 on:** August 18, 2012, 09:46:58 PM »

Well Jet_Deck, I tried ordering (Internet) a Ken's Italian Sausage, Mushroom & Green Olive to be delivered tonight. And 14 minutes before the estimated 50 minute delivery time was up, they called to say Green Olives were only available for Dine-In only. Funny thing when we had both Ken's and Mazzio's here together only Ken's had Green Olives. I told them to stuff the order.

Jet_deck · « **Reply #39 on:** August 18, 2012, 11:53:44 PM »

Good call. The people working there have no idea what the heck they are serving. They are messing with stuff I loved. Shame on them. Thanks Amore.