One of the cafes we enjoyed in Sydney was Bertoni Casalinga. They manage to do something that I have always found absolutely, inexcusably appalling: reheat pizza.
I detest how disgusting NYC 'pizzarias' oven-reheat their cold slices of shit. But the people at Bertoni do it different: they start out with fundamentally good pizza (thick , fluffy crust, beautiful rich sauce, and high quality meat toppings) which they heat up in a large electric sandwich grill. It really comes out nicely.
I came home (prematurely) early last week after being the first off my table at a poker game at the "Crows Nest Club." On the way home I saw a Domino's pizza. They're the closest it comes to the type of pizza I like, so it got me hungry and I ordered one. It was ok, not great, but alright.
All this got me thinking, "I know exactly how I want my pizza to taste, so why don't I just figure out the exact formula for that?"
So that's what I started research work on this weekend.
I like rich tart sauce. That was easy to do. Make a very patient soffrito of onion, garlic, celery, then top off with three cans of italian passata, some tomato paste, and handful of chopped oregano. Simmer for an hour. Season as necessary with some red wine vinegar and salt. Child's play for anyone that regularly makes pasta sauces.
The trickier bit is the crust. I like a reasonably thick crust that is fluffy. I decided to skip the typical Jamie Oliver recipes and consult my big baking tome, the Culinary Institute of America's "Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft."
I followed it to the letter, using 57.8% hard bread flour and 42.2% semolina. (I cut the recipe proportionately, as it would have made more than eight pounds of pizza dough). About a kilogram of flour in total, this made enough dough for two large pizzas.
I cooked one pizza on a preheated pizza stone. The other pizza I cooked on a teflon-covered metal tray that has air vent holes throughout. Mom bought this for me a while ago.
Verdict: the metal tray makes a materially crispier crust than the pizza stone.
Although I double-proved the pizza dough, I still found it not fluffy enough for me. It wasn't doughy, but it just didn't have the Bertoni lightness I craved. In my next recipe iteration I will increase the ratio of hard bread flour to semolina so that there is more gluten in the bread and it can rise better. I will also roll out the crust thinner to start as I didn't anticipate how much it would rise. Finally, I think I will prebake the crust even longer than I think prudent to really brown the crust well.
Toppings worked well. I used fine Italian buffalo mozarella and a liberal shaving of parmesan from a beautiful ingot I bought in Sydney. The pepperoni I pre-heated in the microwave to drive off some of the grease. I hate wet pizza. I also pre cooked the mushrooms to drive off the water.
None of this is as good as Pizza Pub of course, but what to do....
Posted by Nils Blutig at November 11, 2006 08:42 PM | TrackBack