pizza slow (high quality)

nominative determinism

https://mastodon.social/@vga_gradients/115121070041127748

every time I walk past this house I’m like “Damn, I didn’t think people actually used More Windows (high color)”

I also started the night with two 100% cold fermentation 18" NY styles for the kids. Both were supposed to be 90% bread flour, 10% whole wheat, but I forgot the whole wheat in one of the dough balls so I labeled the tub on that side to see what difference it would make. I do the flour split calcs just in time, so they both had the same flour by weight, the only difference is which kind.

Wheat made a big difference, look how big it is!

two balls of pizza dough in a plastic tub with a little olive oil. the left dough ball is marked with a tiny pinch on the top which I then figured might get lost in fermentation, so I also wrote “10% whole wheat” on some yellow masking tape and put that next to the right dough ball, which, because it has whole wheat, is noticeably larger than the left.

two dough tubs with the lids off, photographed top downthe top tub has two dough balls for 18” NY style pizzas in itthe bottom has 6 dough balls for neapolitan pizza in it

an 18” NY style pizza on a wooden peel, prior to baking. I make NY style sauce w/ san marzanos, salt, sugar, half a clove of garlic, and a dozen basil leafs in a blender. the pizza is topped with parm and low moisture mozz

a just-baked 18” NY style pizza on a steel platethe pizza is topped with tomato sauce, parm and low moisture mozz

it’s a running joke in chat that we don’t own mandolines and anyone who uses a mandoline needs to be wearing safety gloves the entire time they handle the things and I’m pretty damn accident prone so I simply chose to never own one.

Well, I really wanted to try take on this zucchini pizza so I bought a safe-design one ( https://bydash.com/products/safe-slice-mandoline) instead of a benriner and gloves.

It does the job! You end up with ovals where I guess you could get circles from a benriner. Oh well?

Ah, jeeze, I see now that my take on the sweet corn pizza was missing thinly sliced (probably mandolined) red onion, that’ll totally fix it. Welp, I know what I’m doing next Friday!

Also, I made a batch a chili oil with simple red pepper flakes simmered in olive oil a while back and keep it in a deli container, it’s a big lift for anything it goes on.

Had a bunch of people over yesterday and tried to replicate what we had at Oobatz. I went w/:

90% zero zero

10% whole wheat

65% hydration

1% sourdough starter

8 hour warm fermentation with bowl folds between meetings when I remembered

48 cold fermentation, 4 hour counter warm

the zucchini pizza was incredible (not Oobatz incredible but, close maybe?), the sweet corn was missing something, maybe simply parsley (I forgot it), unsure.

Fleur de sel on the crust is a pro move.

a slice of neapolitan pizza on a fake paper plate made of melamine, drizzled with chili oilthe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz over which are layered the thinly slice zucchini, smoked paprika, and minced flat leaf parsley. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel

an uncut whole neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz, sweet corn sliced off the cob, and smoked paprika. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel

a standard neapolitan margherita on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with san marzano tomato (I open a can, pour off half of the tomato juice down the drain, dump the whole peeled tomatoes in a blender with a pinch of salt and blip it very briefly), smoked mozz, microplaned parmesan, fresh mozz, and a few tears of basil leaf. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.

the underside of one of the pizzas which I’ve lifted up off of a steel plate to check the crust, it is speckled with leopard spotting, many with tiny holes in the center, just like you want to see for this style

bonus if you don’t follow the wheat producer link, this fun infographic of wheats in a population what that looks like a @paulrickards plotter postcard

home again, researching Oobatz’s pizza maker, Dan Pearson, who took a neat path to Oobatz and in which I learned that I probably need to buy a mandolin to slice properly (boo, I’ll probably shoot my eye out), and that in addition to using 100% sourdough, he uses population wheat, which I’d never heard of, explained by this unrelated producer: https://wakelyns.co.uk/yq/

warning: apple podcasts link, linking only because it has a text transcript, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/106-the-american-baker-dan-pearson-behind-the-best/id1225708803?i=1000591392995&r=36

had pizza at Oobatz ( https://www.oobatz.fr) in Paris this week.

Holy moly it was great, like, wow, maybe my favorite pizza ever? I’m definitely going to try these tooping choices at home.

we asked the server if they could give any hints at the what the “surprise” pizza tonight was, and no, they could not. great concept.

two slices of neapolitan pizza topped with mozzerella and thin slices of zucchini, the crust is salted with maldon or similar large flakes of salt, and leopard spotted perfectlyin the foreground are two stainless steel hammered dishes of chili oil, one green, one red

a single slice of neapolitan pizza topped with mozz, sweet corn, and a few very tiny, thin red onion slices. I think it also has oregano flaks and chili powder and maldon on top

I really wish every recipe, but especially when fermentation, searing, boils, and active stirring are involved, were presented in expert tables of activity, duration, attention, and finally instruction, all preceded by plating time estimate. I keep all of mine in AnyList and I’m going to start appending this kind of information to the top of each, starting with when I need to have started today’s focaccia.

"Begin $interval prior to serving.

Bowl fold, two minutes, attentive, blah blah blah."