Hi, I have been looking for the original Shakeys sauce recipe and came across this thread. I worked at the Shakey's in St. Louis Park Minnesota from Sept 1975 to sept 1976. I cooked pizzas in the kitchen, plus I was a prep cook in "Ye Old Skullery" I loved the pizza, and I really would like to be able to make it at home.
I'll try to fill you all in on some details that I remember. For the sauce, I opened one gallon cans of Hunts tomato paste, and dumped them into the Hobart mixer, along with an equal amout of water. Then I added a bag of spice mix. The spice mix was labeled shakey's, they came 4 bags, about 2 pounds each in a big brown cardboard box. Fter mixing, it was dumped into a big plastic garbage can and had to sit in the cooler at least a day or 2 before using. We had 2 garbage cans and rotated. Only a few times that I can remember did we ever completely empty the cans and wash them out.
On the dough, flour, water, and a bag of Shakey's dough mix went into the hobart with a dough hook. Maybe there was oil or shortening too, but I don't remember. If I recal corectly, we made the dough in the morning, put it into bus tubs on racks in the skin room. They raised all day, then got rolled out on the skin machine with lots of flour, cut with a cookie cuter into the 3 sizes (single, double, and family), stacked up with wax paper in between, and sat overnight in the cooler and used the next day.
For the cheese, I took big bricks of fresh mozzerella that was very moist and stickey. I sliced them into long strips with a peice of piano wire. Then ground it in the grinder into a bus tub, and let it sit in the cooler uncovered for a day or two untill it was dry enough to use. Then I ground up fresh cheddar and also provalone which was hard and pretty dry and somewhat crumbly. The cheddar and provalone were ground into much smaller pieces than the mazzarrela, only about 1/16" holes on the grinder plate. The two were mixed together in a bus tub and put in the cooler, we called the mixture C&P. We got ground parmezan ready to use from Kraft.
We got the pepperoni and salami in sticks and I sliced them round in the slicer, it went into bus tubs in the cooler to dry. The canadian bacon came in big sticks that I sliced in half the long way before slicing the stick into the half round slices. We got johnsonville polish sausage and another sausage I think was called linguistica or something like that. It was orange, course and greasy. Both of those got laid sideways in the slicer and cut into long thing strips. The pork came in fresh, and I ground it, put it in a bus tub, mixed in a bag of spices labeled Shakeys sausage spice, and put it in the cooler to dry. The beef was received already ground, basically it was lean hamburger. I had to mix in a bag of shakeys beef seasoning and put it in a bus tub in the cooler. It was covered because it did not need to dry. I remember that it was very difficult to thoroughly mix the spices in, it took alot of work tearing and kneeding and rolling to get it all blended, and it was COLD on the hands.
The peppers and onions came in fresh and whole and I sliced them in the slicer. Olives where canned and I drained them and sliced them. Mushrooms were received canned and sliced, just needed draining. Pimento's, anchovies, shrimp, and oysters came in small cans that were opened only when some one ordered that kind of pizza.
To build the pizza, we took a board and sprinkled corn meal on it, then a skin. Next we spread sauce ont the skin with a paintbrush. The sauce was pretty thick, not runny at all, and was spread to the edge of the skin. Then the mozzarella was spread to within 1/2" of the edge of the skin, and C&P was sprinkled over it. Then the meat went on, in this order: salami, canadian bacon, polish, linguistica, pepperoni, sausage and beef. Then peppers and onions, mushrooms, olives, then pimentoe's, shrimp, oyster, anchovies, then sprinkled with parmeian cheese. If pinnaple was used, it was last and no parmesian was used. Of course not all these topping went on any one pizza, but whatever was going on, this was the order. then it was slid into the oven, onto the big rotating trays.
So you can see that there were alot of proprietary shakey's mixes. Each bag had an ingredients list on it, and I often thought about copying them down. But I had to sign a form when I started working there that said that I would not copy or take or divulge any recipes.
Sure wish I had some Shakey's pizza to eat tonight, typing all this has really made me hungry for it. One of my favorites was canadian bacon, polish sausage and beef. Man, that was GOOD!
SOme of the popular combo's were the Shakey's special, the lefthanders special, pepperoni and green pepper, beef and onion, the hawian special, and sausage and mushroom.
I hope this helps, now if someone could only tell us what was in the mix bags!
