- 1 year ago
The Food Truck NZ - S01E04 - Pizza
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TVTranscript
00:00The New Zealand fast food industry is worth over $1.3 billion a year,
00:06but there's a huge social cost.
00:08Two out of every five deaths have some link to diet-related factors.
00:12Without putting you off your dinner,
00:14us Kiwis need to change what we eat.
00:19Michael van der Elzen is the owner and head chef
00:22of the award-winning molten restaurant and liquid molten bar
00:25in Mount Eden, Auckland.
00:27Let's get a show on the road.
00:28He set up a mobile kitchen
00:30to find out if fast food can be healthy food.
00:33All right, open for business.
00:35Yummy.
00:36That's good.
00:37It's tasteless.
00:38Fast food can be exciting, it can be healthy,
00:40it can be food that we serve in our restaurant.
00:43The bit I'm worried about is are Kiwis willing to go for it?
00:46Last week, Michael attempted to sell his take on hot dogs,
00:49going up against a traditional American hot dog cart
00:52at a baseball game.
00:54Despite approval from a real New York Yankee...
00:58..not all of Michael's dogs were a success.
01:00I did get the school dog wrong. It was too out there for kids.
01:03They recognise American hot dogs. That's what they wanted.
01:06Tonight, can Michael create fresh, healthy pizza
01:09with the price, speed and taste that people want with fast food?
01:13Find out in the food truck.
01:20The first pizza chain to open in New Zealand was Pizza Hut,
01:23back in 1974.
01:25Since then, pizza has become a mainstay
01:27of the New Zealand fast food industry.
01:29It's worth over $150 million a year
01:32and there's a shop within eight minutes of 90% of us.
01:36You can have any kind of pizza.
01:38You can have a breakfast pizza with baked beans and bacon legs.
01:41You can even have a hangover pizza
01:43with a little Panadol and a shot of Jagermeister on the side.
01:47While homemade pizzas can be reasonably wholesome,
01:50takeaway pizzas are often swamped with saturated fats and sodium.
01:54All thanks to whopping toppings of cheese and processed meat.
01:58What put pizza in New Zealand? Pizza Hut.
02:00And where did Pizza Hut come from?
02:02America. The land of the meat.
02:04So our first experience of pizza was all about the meat.
02:07You know, the pepperoni, the ham, the salami.
02:10So when we think of pizza, we think it's got to have a lot of meat on it.
02:14In a few days, Michael will be selling food truck pizzas
02:18to thousands of people at the George FM Party in the Park in Auckland.
02:22The first step in the pizza process is a look at the competition.
02:26Michael is buying similar pizzas from each location.
02:30Can I order a Supreme, please?
02:32That's the Supreme from Domino's,
02:34the Gluttony from Hell and the Super Supreme from Pizza Hut.
02:38I want to set myself some goals, some targets.
02:40Yeah, I want to make my pizzas healthier.
02:42I want to make them tastier. I want to make them faster.
02:45Right. And, you know, hopefully I can make them cheaper.
02:48All of the pizzas were produced in under 12 minutes,
02:51the cheapest coming in at a highly competitive $11.
02:54But Michael's been paying special attention to the taste.
02:58What I'm noticing is a lot of these pizzas are starting to taste very much the same.
03:02You know, you can't taste the individual flavours that are on the pizza.
03:05What I want is a pizza that has individual flavours
03:08and then when you eat them all together,
03:10the harmony of all the flavours together go,
03:12that's a great pizza.
03:14But the food truck's not just about taste.
03:17It's also about speed.
03:19It's been great tasting all these pizzas.
03:21But, yeah, to tell you the truth, I think I've had enough for a day.
03:24But, you know, now I really need to find out how they make them so damn fast.
03:29Hell Pizza is New Zealand's most successful locally owned pizza chain
03:33with over 60 stores countrywide.
03:35Michael is meeting store manager Sanjay for some cheesy hands-on training.
03:40Are you ready for Hell today? I'm ready for Hell.
03:42Awesome. Let me take you there, mate. Bring Hell on.
03:49I'll just take you through the procedure of making a dough.
03:52You add water first, you then add yeast.
03:54So every Hell's Pizza in New Zealand makes it this way.
03:57They follow the same procedure, otherwise we give them Hell.
04:00Pull it out.
04:02Now you know why you don't need to join a gym if you work in Hell.
04:05Here we go.
04:07Smash them in semolina like this.
04:09You're making your job much easier, much faster,
04:12by doing this in your, what we call, mise en place.
04:15So that's what I need to know.
04:16We are going to put this through the sheeter.
04:18All you do is you pull it in a little bit.
04:20So you always want a little overlap there.
04:22Yeah.
04:23You have to be fast.
04:25You can't give this to the customer.
04:27Okay.
04:28So just dip this in rubbish.
04:30There.
04:31Oh, you did it again.
04:33You thought life was easy in LA.
04:35Hold it on the side.
04:37Far out.
04:39Now you know when the franchisees, they train with me, they go through Hell.
04:42I know.
04:44Okay, you ready? This is going to be my good one.
04:46A little bit.
04:47Oh.
04:48Into there.
04:49Look at that.
04:50That's good.
04:51How's that look?
04:52Beautiful.
04:57You are going to make a lust.
04:58You have one minute.
04:59One minute.
05:00Welcome to Hell.
05:01Sauce.
05:02Build the edges.
05:03Some base cheese.
05:04Faster, faster.
05:05Your time is splitting.
05:06Distribute it evenly.
05:07Ten pieces of salami.
05:08Faster, baby.
05:09Barbecue.
05:10Five swirls.
05:11Ah, pepperoni.
05:13Ten pieces.
05:14Faster.
05:15Time going, time going.
05:16Bacon.
05:17Yeah.
05:18No, you're missing the edges.
05:19You need to cover it properly with cheese.
05:21Okay.
05:22That's a beautiful looking pizza.
05:23Now you can put it in.
05:24And it's in line.
05:26I think the biggest thing I got out today was the importance of teamwork.
05:29I can't fit that size team into my food truck.
05:32It would be quite funny.
05:33We would all be jammed up like little sardines.
05:35But I'm sure I can squeeze one of my chefs from Malton into there.
05:38Yeah.
05:39I'm going to have to if I'm going to make this work.
05:41You have the infrastructure here.
05:43You can work fast.
05:44There is a procedure for it to go fast.
05:46Getting all that stuff into a truck and then getting it cranking would be a very difficult task.
05:53I think what working here today really brought out is that people want their pizzas so fast.
05:58And that's going to be my challenge in my little food truck.
06:01So I'm going to set myself a benchmark.
06:03I'm going to say if people don't get their pizzas within ten minutes, then they're free.
06:09I really hope I don't regret that.
06:12There's more chance of hell freezing over than Michael making a pizza faster than us.
06:22Gourmet chef Michael van der Elzen has spent the last few days getting a slice of the New Zealand pizza market.
06:28In a few days, he'll be selling pizzas to the hungry masses at the George FM party in the park.
06:33But before he can party, Michael's back at work.
06:36The first step to a healthier pizza is a better selection of lean meat topping.
06:40For the meat pizza, I've gone for venison.
06:42Yes, it is expensive, I know, but it's full of iron, it's full of vitamins.
06:47And I just think it's a really healthy choice.
06:50I just need to salt it down a little bit with a curing mix.
06:53In there I've got some juniper berries and I've got a little bit of crushed up cinnamon.
06:58By drawing out some of that moisture, I'm enhancing the flavour of the meat.
07:02Michael's also keen to turbocharge his tomatoes by slow roasting them overnight with herbs and garlic.
07:08Tomatoes are great. They're full of lycopene, which is the pigment that makes them red.
07:12And it's this red pigment which acts as the antioxidant.
07:15So it actually makes the sauce on the pizza the healthiest part.
07:18So I'm going to take these little beauties, I'm going to put them in the oven for eight hours.
07:22And I'll come back to them tomorrow and they're going to be my flavour explosion.
07:30Today, Michael's going to test his pizza ideas on hungry locals to see if he's on the right track.
07:36But before he can get to first base, he's got to make a pizza base.
07:41700 grams of white flour, 300 grams of wholemeal flour.
07:45By mixing in wholemeal flour, Michael's adding extra fibre and nutrients to the dough.
07:50When I was a little boy, my mum used to make a Dutch bread called Kunter bread.
07:54She used to make the dough much like this and when I'd go to sleep, she would come in the middle of the night and just slide it in beside me.
07:59And the warmth of my body was enough to perfectly ferment that dough by the morning.
08:03So I'd wake up in the morning and there would be this four or five kilo dough lying next to me.
08:08But Michael's got a lot more than the base basics to think about.
08:13Outside, it's lunchtime in Mount Eden and Michael's using the food truck as a mobile lab to experiment with flavour combinations.
08:20He's got dozens of toppings to choose from for his pizzas, from traditional to gourmet.
08:27I want to see what the good folk of Mount Eden and New Zealanders in a whole want on a pizza.
08:31So we're going to make tiny little tasters.
08:34Come on, try some pizzas mate.
08:36What are you liking, pizzas?
08:38Barbecue maybe, chicken?
08:39These are probably a little bit fancier pizzas.
08:41We've got a whitebait, so that's fresh South Island, West Coast whitebait.
08:44Very good.
08:45Have you had lunch yet?
08:46A ham and cheese sandwich, but it's a bit better.
08:49What's your favourite pizza?
08:51I'm a meat eater.
08:52Try that vego, that's got lentil on the bottom, goat's cheese, eggplant.
08:57I'll deny you.
08:58See if I can convert you.
08:59I'd find that very hard.
09:01Yeah, for a vego one, that's quite nice actually.
09:03What do you boys like on pizzas?
09:05Cheese and pepperoni.
09:06So you like meat.
09:07That's beef with red onion jam and garlic aioli.
09:11So if you went into a pizza bar, would you order that?
09:13Yeah, I think I'd order them if they weren't too much more expensive than that.
09:16So price makes a difference as well.
09:18So this one here is venison and pomegranate red onion.
09:21So it's quite a classic combination of flavours.
09:23The reason why I've used venison is for the health factor.
09:27Venison is a very lean meat.
09:29I love the venison and the pomegranate, but there's too much in here.
09:33Too much filling on it?
09:35Yeah, I prefer the simplicity.
09:37Michael's learned that Kiwis will try out landish ingredients like venison and pomegranate on a pizza,
09:42but too many flavours can kill a good topic.
09:45People love the simple flavours, the clean flavours of the vegetarian, but they also want their meat.
09:50So I'm thinking I'm going to have to make three different pizzas.
09:53So it's back inside for Michael.
09:56Michael wants to attempt a venison pizza idea he has.
09:59After rinsing off the salt and searing the venison,
10:02Michael combines it with tasty mushrooms, smoked on the spot.
10:06I'm using manuka chips. You can use any chips, as long as they're not treated wood.
10:10You could use tea tree, you could use totra.
10:12They're available from any hardware store.
10:14Look at that. You know, that's just flavour. It's great.
10:17Michael's also supplementing the sauce with an onion jam.
10:21Here comes choppy choppy time.
10:23I've been slicing onions for 25 years, I still cry.
10:28Brown sugar, balsamic vinegar.
10:33Pizzas are fun. You know, the action in the kitchen, you're making a little mess.
10:38I want a punchy cheese. Pecorino is great. It's a goat's milk parmesan.
10:42The first people to taste Michael's pizza are his team of chefs.
10:46Frenchie, Mikey, and most importantly, Matty, who will be assisting Michael at the gig tomorrow.
10:53Beautiful.
10:55I've got my venison. It's been sitting in the fridge maybe 10 minutes, maybe a little bit more.
10:59I'm going to grab a little bit of parsley.
11:01Not so much for flavour, but this is for colour.
11:03You know, you do eat with your eyes.
11:05Time to feed the boys.
11:08Venison, smoked mushroom, onion jam pizza.
11:11Give it a whirl. Tell me what you think.
11:13Be honest. I'll be alright. I won't fire you.
11:22That's a lot of venison for a cheap pizza.
11:26It's a bit dry as well.
11:28What about if I forget the parsley?
11:30Yeah, could you turn it into like a sauce or put it through a pesto?
11:33I'm going to do a salsa verde.
11:34That'll be healthy.
11:36And then some fresh rocket on there.
11:38Maybe finish it with a little shaved pecorino on top.
11:41What do you reckon? Give me a minute.
11:52Try that.
11:53You know that already, you've got colours coming through on that.
11:55Yeah, it smells nice.
11:57That's more punch.
11:59Might be on to something.
12:00Pulled out all the flavours, eh?
12:02Even if you're not super healthy, like,
12:04what's all this greens? I don't want greens on here.
12:06You'd still eat the salsa verde.
12:09Makes it a bit more chef's food as well.
12:10Bit of texture to it, the crunch to it.
12:12Absolutely.
12:13So now we've got smoked mushrooms, onion jam, 12-hour cooked tomatoes,
12:16seed venison, rocket salsa verde.
12:19What about vegos then? What are you going to do for that?
12:21The New Zealand heavy check.
12:22We can do a vego as well.
12:24Hopefully it sells.
12:28It's a packed night at Moulton and Liquid Moulton.
12:31Out back, Michael is road testing his vegetarian pizza recipe.
12:35I've put some tomato on there.
12:36Now I'm putting on some lentils, so this is my veggie.
12:39Some spinach, some eggplant and some ricotta with goat cheese mixed through it.
12:44Michael is making three of the same pizzas,
12:46so he can test which cooking method
12:48will produce the fastest, most scrumptious pizza.
12:51First up, oven.
12:53It's on 250. It's cranking.
12:55It's as hot as I can get it.
12:56It's been on for half an hour.
13:01Bang.
13:04Run of the mill pizza cooker, been heating up five minutes.
13:07Now, barbecue.
13:10Barbecue's on, been on for maybe 20 minutes.
13:12I'm going to put this on to a pizza stone.
13:19Seven minutes.
13:22And I've even overcooked it.
13:24Oven, 11 minutes 45.
13:27That's taken four minutes long and it's gone over my ten minutes.
13:30OK, barbecue, we're on eight and a half minutes.
13:35OK, now let's finish them.
13:37Pomegranate.
13:39Roasted rosemary.
13:40Fiery watercress.
13:42Done.
13:43Now we need to compare the flavours,
13:45because not only does it have to be fast,
13:47it's got to taste good.
13:49Pizzamaker oven barbecue.
13:50Nice crisp on the pizzamaker.
13:54That is a great tasting pizza.
13:57Taste the lentils, goat's cheese, pomegranate.
14:00Hot.
14:01Seven and a half minutes.
14:02This is out of the oven.
14:03You know, look at that.
14:04There's no colour on it.
14:06Colour is flavour.
14:08To our barbecue, like the pizza cooker,
14:11we've got great colour.
14:13Great crust, nice and crunchy.
14:15I think the barbecue is a great option.
14:17You know, great for someone at home.
14:19But for me, game day tomorrow,
14:22100 pizzas under 10 minutes,
14:24I need that extra minute and a half.
14:26So, pizza cooker it is.
14:29I still don't know whether I can make it in 10 minutes.
14:31I've got to take the order,
14:32I've got to make the pizza,
14:34I've got to cook the pizza,
14:35I've got to garnish the pizza,
14:37cut the pizza up, serve the pizza.
14:39Under 10 minutes.
14:41Serve the pizza.
14:42Under 10 minutes.
14:43There's still work to do.
14:51Gourmet chef Michael van der Elzen
14:53has set himself the challenge of making healthy pizzas.
14:56Today, he'll be selling his new pizzas from the food truck
14:59with help from sous-chef Matty.
15:01I did my castings last night
15:03and I've decided to sell my pizzas for six bucks,
15:05which is ridiculously cheap.
15:07But, you know, I'm only making them nine inch.
15:10So they're not huge.
15:12But what's worrying me is I still haven't made a pizza
15:15from woe to go in 10 minutes.
15:17That scares me because if I don't make them in that time,
15:20I'm going to be giving them away for free.
15:22And that's not what a chef does, let alone a Dutch chef.
15:25So, for Michael and Matty, timing will be everything.
15:28What we'll do is we'll roll here,
15:30cook here,
15:32cut here,
15:33garnish here,
15:35throw there.
15:38I've decided to go for a margherita for my third pizza.
15:41It's a classic.
15:42Tomato, mozzarella, basil.
15:44Beautiful.
15:45And it's still very low in fat.
15:47What I want to know is will people go for
15:49what they know and what they recognise
15:51as opposed to going for my new, fresh, wonderful pizzas.
15:54OK, so we've got that.
15:56The venison, the vegetarian and the margherita pizzas
15:59not only need a fast, cheap, tasty kick...
16:01Look at those colours. Girly.
16:03...they also need a health tick.
16:07Nutritionist friend Angela has compared Michael's pizzas
16:10with the competition.
16:12I've compared them with the Howell Pizza Hut
16:14and Domino's pizzas.
16:16And the great news is that your pizzas are coming
16:18much more on energy, total fat and saturated fat.
16:22So that's absolutely fantastic. Great.
16:24Unfortunately, the bad news is that your venison pizza
16:28is much higher in sodium than what I'd like to see.
16:31Because Michael has cured his venison in rock salt
16:34for three hours, he's created a meat topping
16:36with higher sodium levels than any of the big chains.
16:40It's that salt. Exactly.
16:42And there's very little I can do now
16:44because in one hour we're going to be making lots of pizzas.
16:47Come on, try. Come on. Do this to me.
16:49Not now. Not today. Try.
16:51There we go.
16:53At Coil Park in Point Chevalier, Auckland,
16:55the punters are gathering for the George FM party in the park.
16:59But are they punters with taste?
17:01Man, I'm really nervous.
17:03There could be hundreds of people here.
17:05There could be thousands.
17:07But nerves are what makes a chef a chef.
17:10If you don't have nerves before you go into service,
17:13then you don't care.
17:19Beauty, Maddy. Beauty.
17:23What do you feel like? The Nine Vergy.
17:25Any 10 minutes, I'm punting from now.
17:29You going, Maddy?
17:31First up, here we go.
17:33We're away.
17:37Four minutes, Maddy.
17:40I don't know about our times, though. Our ovens are a little bit slow.
17:43They're only on two, so I'm cranking them up to three.
17:46Almost there. Almost there.
17:48Here we go. First one's up.
17:50With less than a minute to go,
17:52Maddy puts the finishing touches on their first pizza.
17:54Here we go. Here comes the first one.
17:56Your first pizza.
17:58Oh, look at it.
18:01Yum.
18:04It's yum.
18:06We just knocked out our first pizza
18:08in under 10 minutes.
18:10Fantastic. It shows that we can do it.
18:12I'm stoked.
18:13But, man, we've got so many people in line.
18:15We've got to get back on with it.
18:21Maddy.
18:24Ready.
18:26So we've got three pizzas.
18:28Mozzarella, basil, perfection.
18:30Next one is your vegetarian
18:32with a bit more to it.
18:34Next one, venison.
18:36Nice, lean, beautiful.
18:38And then I've got smoked mushrooms,
18:40I've got onion jam,
18:42and finishing that with avocado salsa verde.
18:44Woo-hoo!
18:46I've seen pizzas cooked in wood fires
18:48under two minutes,
18:50but the kind of gears
18:52the shonky gear he's using
18:54out the back there, I don't know if it can be done.
18:56But he's got a guarantee, right?
18:58So he's got to be pretty confident he's going to do it.
19:00What's the time there?
19:026.50.
19:04No way!
19:06You have to have hidden those somewhere.
19:08We don't just beat it, we smash it.
19:12The base is superb.
19:14This is awesome.
19:16There's so many flavours going on in that as well.
19:18That's incredible.
19:20It cracks a sausage sizzler's ass.
19:28As word gets out, the crowds are picking up.
19:30He's getting quite bigger.
19:32While most orders
19:34are sliding out in under ten minutes...
19:36Mate, I think we're going to have to make you pay.
19:38Three classics and a meat.
19:40Woo-hoo!
19:42Some of the pizzas are cutting it pretty close.
19:44I think we've snuck in there by about 30 seconds.
19:46And it's not long
19:48before they give away their first free pizza.
19:50My pizza took 12 minutes.
19:52Pretty stoked.
19:54Free food.
19:56It's so disappointing to give away a pizza
19:58after we've done 40 great ones.
20:00I blame Matty anyway.
20:02To solve the problem, Michael and Matty
20:04limit the number of orders they are taking.
20:06But while they've staunched a very small leak
20:08of free pizzas, the queue
20:10is getting bigger and bigger.
20:12There's so many people out there.
20:14Far out. They all want my pizza,
20:16which is great, but the problem is
20:18they're having to wait too long.
20:20I think some of them are probably...
20:22Man, some of them must be waiting at least an hour by now.
20:24Luckily,
20:26the pizzas are well worth the wait.
20:28Beautiful. Six minutes.
20:30Five bucks. Pretty good, actually.
20:32Better than Hell's Pizza.
20:34Hell's Pizza's pretty up there, but it's better than Hell's Pizza.
20:36For $5, mate. I'm pretty impressed, eh?
20:38This posse loved the pizza,
20:40but it's a relationship that has to end.
20:42Less than two hours after opening,
20:44Michael and Matty flog their final pizza.
20:46Still looks as good as the first one.
20:48Awesome. Cheers. Thank you.
20:50Enjoy it.
20:52Matty, we did it. High five.
20:56The food truck
20:58sliced up and served 100 pizzas
21:00in under two hours.
21:02And all but one in less than
21:0410 minutes after the order was placed.
21:06But customers had lengthy waits
21:08before they could actually order,
21:10and, overwhelmingly, ignored Michael's
21:12healthy gourmet options
21:14in favour of the more traditional pizza.
21:16I think today I've learnt a lesson
21:18in the meaning of fast food.
21:20It has got to be fast.
21:22I don't think Matty and I
21:24could have worked any faster than what we did.
21:26Very classic food.
21:28People don't necessarily want huge amounts of flavours.
21:30They just want
21:32simple flavours that they understand done well.
21:34I think we made some fantastic
21:36pizzas today.
21:38They were healthy, they were cheap, and they were fast.
21:40The thing is you don't go to Domino's,
21:42you don't go to Hell Pizza or Pizza Hut
21:44and wait over an hour to place your order.
21:46I think for the food truck to move forward
21:48we need to address that.
21:50High five, Matty.
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