Life of a pizza

Feels like we've had several seasons worth of weather condensed into the last couple of weeks. Last time I wrote I was making pizzas in the snow wearing all the layers I own and yesterday was well and truly shorts and t-shirt weather - has spring finally sprung?

We had some friends over last night, the namesakes of our sourdough starters actually and with one veggie in the house it was time to test out some more meat free topping combinations. The highlight of the bunch being a variation of a birds' nest topping with ribbons of asparagus (British asparagus I'd like to add), lemon zest and quail's eggs… there may have been a tincy bit of dry cured pancetta on one side too, perhaps that's why it was my favourite…

I'm rambling now. What I was originally planning to write about was video app I've been playing around with, Vine. It's essentially the video arm of Twitter and makes short (6s) looping clips. You can find me on there under my twitter handle myperfectpizza and what better way to road test a new video app than try and document the full life of a pizza.

So here it is, 1.26 million words worth*:

Feeding the starter:

Mixing the dough:

Knocking back:

Making the balls:

Forming the base:

Top and cook:

Mushroom and wild garlic:

Birds' / Piggies' nest:

*working on the assumption that each picture's still worth 1000 words and assuming Vine shoots each of my 7, 6s videos at 30fps. Apologies.

Building a Billy

Last weekend was my dad's birthday and our family converged on the 'Norf' to celebrate. By conventional standards this was one of those 'big birthdays' although given my dad insists he stopped counting when he hit 40 we'll call this his '40th'.

My brother and I had big plans this year and for a while had it in mind that we'd treat him to an outdoor oven. A pyromaniac at heart we knew he'd like this and over the years we've had many a family gathering, come rain or shine with the BBQ at the centre.

This nonchalance to the weather proved useful as our train pulled into the station to see an inch of fresh snow on the platform. Still, you can't let a bit of snow put you off cooking outside… Or building an oven for that matter, although I use the term building loosely as the oven we'd chosen only required minor assembly, everyone meet Billy, Billy meet everyone…

You may notice a striking resemblance to Bertha and that's no surprise given he's from the same, excellent, Garden Oven Company. He arrived on a pallet on the Friday and by Saturday lunchtime he was fired up and ready to cook his inaugural batch of pizzas. That's even factoring in the best efforts of a hapless forklift driver, who along the way had gauged huge holes in the box and lost a couple of parts, still, it's amazing what you can do with a cable tie.

It was a great day, despite the weather we spent most of it outdoors, warmed by the fire and the 'chef's provision' beers. Eight pizzas and a monster, 2kg, shoulder of pork later and he'd done very well on his first firing, most of which is hopefully captured in the following video:

Building a Billy from MyPerfectPizza on Vimeo.

Note: Thanks again to Jay at the Garden Oven Company, who not only sorted out the order and a custom engraving but also drove to my parents' to replace the parts chipped in shipping, how's that for customer service!

Sticky peel

I'm writing this on the train home from Dorset, turns out South West trains don't have plugs by the seats and with the battery on my laptop fading this could well be brief.

I wanted to write a post with some basic tips on using a peel, you know, the flat metal plates on a stick for transferring pizzas in and out of the oven. We've had ours for a while and it's really useful, but it's fair to say our first attempts to use it were pretty disastrous. There was more than one occasion where a pizza quickly became an unintentional calzone as it stuck and flopped onto the stone. Still tasted fine mind you.

We persisted though and over time realised where we were going wrong. The aim here is to note down what we wish we'd known when we started out. I don't have any pictures so this will be illustrated via the medium of my scribbles on South West train napkins or similar - no expense spared here… [edit: in the end I found a notebook but I'm afraid you're still stuck with my doodles]

First things first, the best tip I can give is to use plenty of flour or semolina to stop things sticking in the first place, sounds simple but I still forget from time to time. Polenta or semolina also adds a contrasting texture where it sticks to the dough.

Secondly, you need to be quick. If you're going to faff, you've got friends over who're all making their own pizzas and taking their time then it's probably easiest to use sheets of tin foil, dust each one generously and then you can take a along as you like.

If you're doing things properly though here are my tips:

• Use a wooden peel if you've got the option for transferring uncooked pizzas, we'll call this your 'placing peel', the dough sticks easier to steel. Aluminium placing peels also work well

• Work the dough and top the pizza on the worktop or similar. Lie the peel flush with the work surface and then rotate it onto the dusted (don't forget that) placing peel

• Once on, pull out the edges of the pizza to it's at full size once again
• When you're ready to bake, give the pizza a little shimmy back and forward on the peel to check it's loose and then slide it straight on to the stone. This can take a bit of practice with small domestic ovens, and in a moment's over exuberance I've slid a few pizzas straight off the back of the pizza stone - all part of the learning though

• Now it's time to use the metal peel, your 'turning peel', if you have one. Most pizzerias use a peel with a small circular head, much smaller than the pizza diameter, these tend to be made of steel primarily to withstand more time in the oven. The turning peel is used to lift the pizza at and angle, if you keep one edge in contact with the stone you can roll the pizza and replace in the centre allowing it to cook evenly

• If you're using an oven like mine, there's an additional step here to get your leopard spots
• Finally, slide it out and serve

Simples

Troubleshooting a sticky peel
If for whatever reason the dough does stick, don't panic. Your best bet is to slowly pry the dough away with a spatula or similar and each time you manage to release a section throw some flour or polenta underneath.

Top Toppings - what the chefs go for...

A couple of weeks ago I was asked what my favourite topping is:

"Well you can't beat a well made sourdough margherita, then again, I'm a sucker for anchovies and find it hard to look past them on a menu..."

some time later

"...recently I've been making more white pizzas (without the tomato sauce) and brussels sprouts on a pizza was a revelation..."

their eyes have now well and truly glazed over

"MEATBALLS!" they rouse, "Kale, potato, have you tried them on a pizza?"

I clearly wasn't in a particularly decisive mood although it also highlights that you can't define perfect pizza, it's different things, to different people, at different times. What you can work towards is truly great pizza, memorable pizza, and that's what all the guys below specialise in. After my inability to pick a single favourite I got in touch with some of my favourite pizzerias to see what the top pizzaiolos in the UK choose when they have blank canvas of dough.

In no particular order, here's what the pros said:

Restaurant: Story Deli

Chef: Lee Hollingworth

In their words:

"We do pizza. Pizza's fun to make & fun to eat, but we're not about pizza it's just a vehicle that we use we're about organic food and earning a living from using organic food to support farmers & growers who are out there saving the soil. Everything we buy is 100% certified organically grown with the exception of the spring water we use to make the dough - it can't be called organic, but it's drawn from certified organic land, which is the closest I can get & sea salt - it also can't be called organic, but the brand we use is certified by the soil association as suitable for use in organic cooking. I don't use yeast - because there isn't an organic one. There are seven organic pizza flours in Italy having tried them all the one I use is the best for the way we cook @ 405c or 410c. People seem to like our product so I'm pleased.

Me - when I'm by myself - my partner & kid usually hijack the recipe. I always make a pizza around 3 basic ingredients egg, garlic roasted, fresh baby spinach & birds eye chillies adding an ingredient here & there"

Restaurant: Pizza East

Chef: Brian McGowan

In their words:

"My personal favourite pizza topping here is our Veal Meatball pizza. We use a white panna base. The pizza is then topped with torn San Danielle and our own Veal meatball mix. We make our own mix in house each day. Some chopped sage is sprinkled over the top and the pizza is placed in the oven. We hold our ovens at a lower temperature to traditional ovens as our dough has a far higher water content when compared with usual pizza dough. If the temperature is too high the crust will burn on the outside before the pizza is cooked through. The cooking time is normally between five and six minutes. The pizza is then sliced and finished off with some freshly grated lemon zest. Heaven.

This is my personal favourite but our biggest sellers are the Margarita, Salami and our Cotto pizzas. I cannot stress enough the attention that should be paid to the quality of the dough and the freshness of the toppings. If you keep this in mind at all times then you’re well on the road to producing the best pizza possible."

Restaurant: Pizza Pilgrims

Chef: Thom and James Elliot

In their words:

"I think our favourite topping of the last year has to be Nduja [edit: aka The Ninja as I insist on calling it]. It is a spicy sausage from Calabria in the South of Italy, made from the belly and cheeks of the pig, along with a (very) high proportion of Calabrian chilli (sometimes around 50%). It is then smoked and cured. We discovered it on our "Pizza Pilgrimage" at the end of 2011 in a small town called Spilinga.

The fatty cut of meat used means that it also has the strange property of being spreadable. This also makes it amazing on pizza - as the Nduja melts in the hot oven and releases pools of hot, spicy, meaty oil. It needs to be used sparingly for this reason, and we often don't add any olive oil to the pizza to compensate. It works well on a bianca base, but we think it is hard to beat just added to a sourdough Margherita."

Restaurant: Great British Pizza Company

Chef: Rachel Seed

In their words:

"As you may know, we have a very small main menu (6 pizzas) as we use the best quality (local wherever possible) ingredients and make everything ourselves. We also always have two weekly specials, and the most popular have been the pulled pork and BBQ sauce (inspired by our trip to Orlando where we had fabulously gluttonous trip gorging ourselves on delicious street food!) and Chaumes, trompette mushrooms and smoked garlic (all ingredients purchased from a trip across the channel to visit some french markets)."

Restaurant: Santa Maria

Chef: Lucio Miano Petta from Naples

In their words:

"The main thing is...that we are sort of against toppings. For us the best topping is just the fior di latte mozzarella. We are pioneers of the "less is more", the less you put on a pizza, the better. Only this way, you can taste the freshness and lightness of the dough, and the tomato sauce. Toppings would hide the underneath flavours!

Fave topping: just tomato sauce with garlic and origano (Marinara) fior di latte mozzarella (margherita) or going for the buffalo mozzarella (bufalina). Nothing else.

Fior di latte mozzarella, typical neapolitan mozzarella, has a very delicate and light taste. Combined with the tomato sauce, reaches the perfect combination. Has to be cooked in a 450-485 degrees oven for 50 seconds. Over doing it, will become liquid. Buffalo mozzarella, made with buffalo milk typical of the area of Mondragone and Battipaglia. Has a very strong taste, the texture is nearly rubbery and chewy. It's the deluxe version of the regular fior di latte."

Topping tasting

Less of a post, more a set of pictures from the weekend's tasting session.

A couple of good friends came over on Saturday and we used the excuse to test out a few toppings we'd been wanting to try. I'm not going to ramble on about which was our favourite, not just because each of us ended up picking a different one, but more because I've got a much more interesting topping related post in the pipeline which should be coming your way soon...

In the meantime here are some pictures of the weekend's creations:

Photos credited to said good friend

Due Sardi

It'd been ages since we'd made pizza, too long, ages since we'd even had pizza. But a Friday night in recovering from the dreaded lurgi seemed like the perfect excuse to try out some of the delivery places in the area.

The restaurant of choice was Due Sardi, the takeaway arm of Amici Miei (reviewed much more eloquently here) where we'd had a couple of excellent meals previously so our expectations were high. Things started well, I called through our order and it arrived, warm, within half an hour. Here's what we went for:

Margherita - Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Basil.

The benchmark for any pizzeria. A prize to anyone who spots the basil

Napoli - Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Olives, Anchovies

 Another classic and personal favourite.

Completa - Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Pepperoni, Gorgonzola, Onion, Avocado & Cherry Tomatoes

More out of curiosity than anything else.


They looked quite good, some reasonable blistering and signs of charring although overall I'd have preferred another 30s in the oven. The toppings weren't bad either, generous quantities and a good salt kick from the anchovies and gorgonzola on the Napoli and Completa. For me the jury's still out on the role of avocado on a pizza and as well as looking a bit brown by the time it arrived it didn't really add anything here.

The real let down was the crust though, perhaps my favourite part of a pizza, this was a real disappointment. Dry, bland, chewy to the point of distraction and lacking rise or fluffy texture.

Having said all that these were still a reasonable set of takeout pizzas and given we demolished them all they can't have been that bad. I sometimes wonder that I've been spoiled of late and that combined with my initial high expectations probably worked against them. So perhaps I should give them another try?

Here are the details:
Cost: A very reasonable £23.65 including delivery
Verdict: The dough was the let down.
Will we be back: Perhaps, the excellent meals we've had at Amici Miei previously have probably earned them a second chance

How the leopard got his spots

…not from an Ethiopian as in Kipling's version, or in the usual fashion for Neapolitan pizzas but get them he did and we were pretty proud of last night's pizzas.

Yesterday was another day of tests, tweaking and perfecting. We were using Caputo Tippo 00 flour for the first time, we tried out three different dough hydrations (all with the Franco Manca recipe mentioned in the last post). We trailed three new topping recipes, all classics in their own right originating from some of the best places in the US. But we were also testing out a new method of making pizzas. Something I hoped would achieve the charred edges but chewy interior which we'd been aiming for. That's what I was most excited about. That's what I'd like to talk through here.

The technique itself I actually dreamt, yes, I now dream of pizzas - does that make me fluent?! The idea being to cook the base quickly and achieve the rise and 'oven-spring' in the crust as it's placed on hot stone for 60-90s; at that point though, I would take the pizza off the stone on a metal peel and use the lower firebox section in Bertha to caramelise / carbonise - take your pick. That was the plan anyway.

Here's how it looked in practice:

initial bake on the stone

finished off by the fire

And for once, it was a plan which worked. As tasty as our previous efforts had been, they'd always looked a little anaemic. We'd brought them out early to avoid drying out the crust and burning the base, but in doing so, we'd missed the speckled charring or leopard spots which add so much flavour - a hallmark of greatness for the best pizzerias. 

Check out these beauties though:

The texture was amazing too, fluffy, chewy and just what we'd been aiming for. We were chuffed.

I've love to go on about the flavour, to talk about the specific toppings, as these were three recipes I'd had my eye on for ages, although our sinuses had other plans. We both had stinking colds and as visually appealing as these all were, we couldn't taste a thing. What's the sensory equivalent of a rain check? We're going to have to make all of these once again.

Here are the recipes though if you're having better luck on the mucus front:

Brussels Sprout and Pancetta Pizza (à la Motorino)

 Pizza Sorrentina (Kesté Pizza & Vino)

 Rosa Pizza (Pizzeria Bianco)