Yum yum! The PIZZA thread!

[Skybird]

Dont do that in Naples, you may not get out alive...

Seems you may be a guy for this one.


Terrible. There are much better nougat cremes than Nutella. LOL

[vienna]

Regarding the whole olive oil on the peel thing, to clarify, I was referring to a wipe of OO on the peel, not a liberal application; the 'trick' was taught to me by a guy who used to work in his family's pizza place in SF back in the &)s; he said that the flour method, while, perhaps, more traditional,was, in a fast moving, high volume kitchen could be rather messy, so, some time back in his family's business, they started using OO to 'grease the skids'; the amount of OO was very light and was akin to the practice of wiping down a BBQ grill with a paper towel dipped in vegetable oil to create a non-stick surface prior to actually grilling; it is also like taking a paper towel and wiping down a hot griddle or pan prior to cooking, say, pancakes; you just give it enough of a wipe to put a light sheen on the surface, not enough to make the food slide too freely...




<O>

[vienna]

Also wanted to put in my two pence about unorthodox pizza recipes; I live in Southern California and any food fad that comes along inevitably winds up as a pizza topping; things like pineapple, kale, jalapenos, tofu, and all other manner of cringe-worthy aberrations either originated in or was popularized across the nation, and the world, from the culinary hellhole that is Southern California; I am rather a pizza purist and the exotic, lunatic topping and/or sauce concoctions that seem to blaze across menus of pizza restaurants here do not have a place on my plate'; case in point, there was a NY style pizza place in Downtown LA that, for decades, served up the best, fundamentalist pizzas in the city, no pineapples, kale, tofu or any other nonsense; the place was basically a hole in the wall in the ground floor of an older office building and was always full and extremely popular with the office workers and blue collar worker in DTLA; however, DTLA started to gent gentrified, with 'loft lifers' proliferating, and the owners of the building got greedy and decided to raise the rents on their business tenants by whopping amounts and the pizza place was forced to close; the building owner leased to space to a trendy "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-toppings" pizza restaurant, which lasted only as long as their trendiness did, a matter of a couple of years...

So, the basic pizza joint was a decades long, successful, venture and the trendy flavor-of-the-month 'ristorante' died the death; in the years since the original pizza joint closed up, the space has been the home to a long parade of failed eateries, many of whom I'd be willing to bet left behind considerable unpaid rent as they closed their doors; the building owner must be so proud of his shrewd business sense...



<O>

[Skybird]

I am relaxed purist myself, when it comes to toppings. I do not stick to Margherita exclusively, but in principle all I do Are extensions of it, and I add just only few or just one additional ingredients. To mix in the exotic diversity of the orient or heretical stuff like spaghetti, chicken wings, pineapple and such, finds no mercy under my eyes. Less is more, and it helps the dough if it does not get squeezed to death and drowned in lceans of oil, fat and vegetable water. Thuna and onions. Spinacci, feta and plenty of garlic. Pickled or fresh paprika, but not both together. Champignons. Shrimps. The Germans most favourite pizza is, by huge lead, Salami, rarely I do that, too. I like to mix cheese, however, even on Margherita. Mozarella, Parmesan, Tilsit, Edamer, usually I have all four on just every pizza I make. I also use not only Oregano and Basil, but also Thyme and rosmary, but very gentlehanded only. What I do not want on my bread, is dripping grease. I fear tbese thick and overcheesed American style pizzas and me will never become close friends, while the original Neapolitan pizza is a bit too spartan for my taste. But I will do an original Neopolitan pizza first with the new device. It should arrive today, the dough needs until tomorrow, so Sunday is the day, yumyum!

[d@rk51d3]

I agree.
The biggest killer of a pizza is overloading. Less really is more. 3-4 items is the sweet spot.

We'll regularly hold a "pizza night", and invite friends and family.
Wife makes the dough in advance, then makes the bases.
Table is spread with a dozen or more toppings, (sauce, grated cheese, bocconcini, varoius meats, prawns, onion, mushroom, basil, olives, anchovies..... etc.

Each person takes their base and tops it as they wish, and I'll run them through the wood fired oven above. All too often, someone cant help themselves and overloads it, then ends up with a wet sloppy mess.

For starters though, we'll run a couple of bases through with garlic butter, parsley and anchovies. A bit like garlic bread to get everyone primed.

[Skybird]

You take your self-made oven to good use, well, the oven looks as if it really deserves that!

Crispy roasted baguette-like bread, then rub a halved garlic clove over it like nutmeg on a grater, some drops of olive oil, some hand-selected grains of salt, at best some flasks of dry Oregano or Basil, both not really needed - beats every Pringles, peanut flake, potatoe chip! And not as unhealthy, not all those bad fats in it that industrial snacks have.

Problem is German bakers cannot do baguette, they all seem to not use the right flour, but again this heavy, "protein-free" German flour type 405, 550. What you get from that when baking "baguette", is a soft-rubber-like bar of foamed material. Has nothign to do with baguette, which has huge air bubbles in it, is crispy, light, like a baked cloud.

Breads there are several hundred kinds in Germany, Germany is famous for having the richest bread culture world-wide (even on the Unesco list, I think). Or should I say: having had that? Today, its all that industrial ready-mixes bakeries use. I baked my bread myself for over 25 years, grinded the flour myself, too, then got lazy and start buying baker'S bread, get growing digesiton püroblems form it, and so have started to go back to baking myself. Too short processing time for th doughs, too much chemical shyte in it. Over 200 chemcial. agents the law allows. None of them has any room in bread!


Its the reason why I could never live only keto. I like dough and bread too much. Delicatesses, if done right, not just food.


When I want a real baguette or ciabatta, I do it myself. It takes a lot of time over the day, though, the dough is the wettest dopugh for any brea di know, and you need to come back to it time and again. Some years ago we had a video by a retired English cook who explained how he did Ciabatte, a friendly narrating grandfather's voice with an obviously friendly mind behind, and his ciabatta recipe was spot on. I find it difficult, but it is spot on. Needless to say: I use Italian flour for it.


I cannot wait, its hot over here, 27°C in the rooms, could not sleep, at 6 a.m. I went jogging, and at 8.00 a.m. I prepared a pizza dough, I still have some blu flour for fast processing left. The oven should arrive today, I plan to inaugurate it at 6-7 p.m., that gives the dough over ten hours. For the blue flour by Caputo, thats good. The red ones all better take 24-48 hours.

[Skybird]

This video on the tomatoe soup for pizza is recommended because of what he explains why canned tomatoes usually are superior to fresh tomatoes.

Its a bit like with many frozen vegetables. Good brands will harvest tomatoes at the best time of the year, when it is warm and they got a lot of sunshine and are ripe and their taste fully developed - and they get immediately processed and canned. Fresh tomatoes here in Germany often have days of transportation behind them, which lets their arome suffer, also they get harvested early and not fully ripe, to win a time reserve for the transport this way. Result: low arome tomatoes, fresh, but inferior in taste.

Excursion: something similiar is true for frozen vegetables from the fridge in the supermarket, it often has higher vitamine content than "fresh" vegetable from the shelve, because the latter has several times as long transportation behind, it plus the long hours it laid on the shelves, during which it can oxidize and lose vitamines on and on. "Fresh" does not automatically imply "fresh"!



Tomatoe, Basil, olive oil, salt - I personally also like a very little bit of Oregano. Either Basil or Oregano a lot, but never both a lot, the more of the one, the latter of the other, my rule is. I also sometime suse very small doses of Thyme and Rosemary. Not so much that you taste them, but only that much that you notice it when they are not there, if you see what I mean.

The tip on why not to use a mixer, was new to me. A mixer crushes the tomatoe pits, and that makes the sauce a bit bitter. Better not use a mixer, but only hands or a fork.

Harvesting day of canned tomatoes is printed on the lid of the can. It best should be between the 190th and 250th day of the year, the three-digit numbers tells that.

The difference of taste quality of canned tomatoes is immense, I tell that by experience. He has some things to say on that, too. I avoid cheap brands and German brands like the plague, they are not worth one penny, usually, but soar, and without taste. Italian brands, Mutti is good, but best is to get San Marzano tomatoes. Their flavour is second to no other tomatoe.


Thats what its about with Pizza Neapolitana: only very few ingredients - but these of the best taste quality you can get!

[Skybird]

Ha! Its miiiine...! And the new stockpile of flour arrived two days early as well, 10 kg, thats maaaaany pizzas!

[Skybird]

Okay, first attempt, and I sort of blew it, my own fault.

I gave the flour the amount of water that is meant for the other flour that I also use (I always have two, oen for shorter processing and preparation the same day, the other for longer processing over 2 or 3 days). Now, the flour I used today was Caputo Classica Blue, its a weaker flour with less protein and meant for short working time of the dough (preparation and baking on the same day), it can hold only less water (hydration 55-60%) - but I gave it the ammount of water I use to use on the other flour, Caputo Poizzeria red (hydration 65% and even slightly more), which has way more protein and is meant for long working times of 24-48 hours. The blue flour I used today could not hold that additional water too well, so the dough became very soaky, wet, it glued to everything and was glibbery, forming no marble, but an puddle of alien grease. Which was good, from a testing point of view.

Because I normally would consider such a dough as ruined, throw it away and call it a day. But I went on with this one, having on mind that I wanted to see if this additonal 150 degrees in available temperature would make a difference even on a mess like this. And they did!

Mind you, it was a messed up, wet dough, it held no air bubbles anymore, and it was impossible to form a higher rim and a flatter inside. The rim did not form huge air bubbles therefore, and did not rise too high, and evertyhing stayed flat and compact - but NOT GREASY. The dough rose, though only by a fraction of what I want to see, it formed only a very mild crispy crust, but the bottom was not bad, there just was too much flour and semola sticking to it that I used to slide it on and of the peel. Else their would have been even more borwn and blackened areas. It was baked thoruhg, it was compact, but it was not raw.

I consider this first test a success, although I messed up the starting conditions. But I learned some things from it, and it illustrated that the investment pays off, that 400 instead of 250°C really pays off. These messy starting conditions showed me that the greater heat made the difference between throwing it away, and kind of making a last second save. In the normal oven with 250 degrees on a pizza stone plate only, the pizza would not have risen at all , but would have remained to be a slime that I could put on my bread and spread it like butter or nutella. The fault lies in me, not the machine. I am confident for my next attempt next week.

The device is well-manufactured, no loose parts, steel on the outside, double walled, evertyhing fits, nothign looks suspicious. Double layered glass, too, a huge window, most devices of this kind have none or only very small ones. Another detail separating it from the Ferrari G3 is that it has less open slits at the lower rim of the lid where heat could escape. Its the same base construction, but in details it seems to be improved. The timer does not switch off the machine. The thermostate allows smooth setting of temperature from - a cording to the manual - 140°C to 410°C . Pre-heating time was 12 minutes, then the highest setting switched off the preheating. Baking time was 3 minutes. The price was 105 coins, shipping was free. It comes with an additional Teflon pan that could be inserted for the stone, and two halved pizza peels (a principle that worked very well, instead of one fully rounded you have two half rounds).



(Note to myself: start adding semola di grano duro to the dough/flour again, it helps to golden the crust more).

[Skybird]

Fermentation times 8 hours versus 48 hours versus 7 days.

Revealing is the looks of the dough structure at the end, after baking. The difference especially to the 7 days pizza, is obvious. Way bigger air bubbles even in the flat inside of the disc, not just in the crusty rim.



I have just set up a dough two hours ago that I plan to leave alone for 2 or 3 days, in the cooler. Planning pizza ahead one week maybe is a bit too eccentric...

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Not a big fan of pizza because of pepperoni and garlic mainly but the history of its origin is quite interesting.

Wish granted.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Skybird

"I give you 15 Euros if you just go away." :LOL





"Pizza? Cookie? Dogfood? I dont know." :LOL

That's hilarious! I need to show these to my wife.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Then dont put pepperoni and garlic onto it, and you're done, or not...?!

Best necro thread ever!


We'll just make Jim a fish-n-chips pizza, with a pint

[Skybird]

Okay, first testing with this new flour, Caputo Nuvola (Standard, there is also another Nuvola called Super which has even more protein). I did what I always do with a new flour I do not know: I set up three doughs simultaneously to compare how the flour is behaving while being processed, to visaually see the differences in the way the dough behaves. The differences is that I use different levels of hydration, in this case 60%, 65% and even 70%. 2 grams of dried yeast per 200 gr flour, which already is a very lot of yeast, 14 grams of dried yeast compare to 42 grams of freesh yeast), 7-8 grams of salt, and 120, 130 and 140 grams of water.

What i can say with confidence is that this flour commands high hydration, definitely. The 60% dough ball after 24 hours was a rubber ball I could trow against the wall and it would spring back. Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but it was very hard a dough and I would not like to roll it and spread it in another 24 hours later. I test it further with adding 20ml waterm wokring it again with the mixer for 5 minutes, and see what it looks like tomorrow. With some doughs you can do this, with others not.

My feeling says that this flour indeed wants 70% hydration, which is already a lot, I never did such wet doughs before except ciabatta and baguette, but never for pizza. They are quite liquid, sticky, and difficult to process and handle. Indeed, I HATE to handle such wet doughs, thats why I avoid doing it, it usually is a mess to clean parts and things afterwards. But this flour is very high in protein and sugar, and I think I red or heard in some internet place that Caputo indeed recommends this for 70% hydration. You may get away with 65%, too, but for my taste this too already felt a bit stiffer than the doughs I am used to. 60% is too low.

If you are totally new to making your own pizza doughs, maybe you want to stay away from this one for now, and come back to it later once you got some feel for the swing of things when making pizza dough and spreading it manually - and you are eager for those superbig and high rising rims.

This flour is just two or three years old I think, a new development, its a tipo 0 flour (not double 00), and is designed (by adding protein and sugars) to form cloudy (Nuvola=cloud), light, crispy super-soft high rising rims (that you do not drown in toppings, sauce and cheese), the traditional Neapolitan style. The high protein level demands much water, and thats what makes the dough difficult to handle.

For newcomers, I would recommend the red Cuoca or the blue Classica or Pizzeria. I find Cuoca and Pizzeria work with 60-65%, Classica with 55-60%. Cuoca is a very good allrounder, but if you love your pizza American style (thick, soft dough layers and rims, there are other choices to make.

Needless to say, with such long times of fermentation and processing (1-3 days in these testing cases), the dough is placed in the refrigerator. Take it out and bring it to room temperature 4-5 hours before cooking.

[Skybird]

Nice, my possibly two favourite flours side by side. The "Pizzeria" I know, my favourite, the "Nuvola" I have highexpectations of.

And apps - there are apps for this? I just tested the "pizza app" by NFP software. It lets you set some variables like time, room temperature, dough ball weight, and calculates precisely how much salt, yeast, water flour you need, but, and that is a big "but", it doe snto let you make a chopci eont he flour you take, how much protein, the W-value. How should this work then precisely? There are pizza flours ranging their proteion from around 10% to 14%. Their rising behaviour and stickiness and such are VERY different.

Also, there is no temp setting possible for refrigerators.

Anyway, the vidoe has the looks of the two doughs and piozza in the last third of the vidoe. The author too seems to favour the new Nuvola over the Pizzeria. Although the differences are not monumental, they are there.