Cracking the Pizza Code

Like many New York transplants living in the nation's capital, I've always found myself whining about the inadequate pizza options in my adopted city. Typically, I don't even bother trying to eat pizza in DC and I content myself with waiting until I visit NYC to satisfy my cravings (this is better for my triglyceride levels, anyway). But a few weeks ago, after being particularly underwhelmed at a highly-rated DC pizza joint, I had an epiphany. I decided that with enough work and experimentation, I could do better.

This was (and is) a bold and, frankly, arrogant statement on my part. I'm very picky about what type of pizza I enjoy, but I've never attempted to make pizza myself, and don't have any sort of formal training as a chef. I don't have NYC tap water, which I've been raised to believe is the key to the crust, and my oven only reaches 500 degrees. By all accounts I've read, you need an oven capable of reaching 800 degrees to get a charred/crispy crust. The importance of the temperature really kicked in when I read Jeff Varasano's crust recipe in which he wrote, "Try baking cookies at 75 instead of 375 and see how it goes." I don't think that's an ideal analogy given that obviously it isn't proportional. And clearly you can't cook anything at 75 degrees whereas you can at 500 degrees. But it did drive home a point -- i.e. that certain things are baked at a certain temperature for a reason. (Varasano himself went to drastic measures to achieve the right temperature. After figuring out that the cleaning cycle in his oven reached as high as 975 degrees but that his oven locked during the cleaning cycle, he used gardening shears to break off the lock thus allowing him to bake pizza during the cleaning cycle. He now has his own restaurant in Atlanta though, and I assume has overcome such limitations.)

After doing some thinking, I decided that if I get really serious about this, I can bring back NYC tap water when I visit and store it for when I make my dough. I also remembered that over the summer, I was helping a friend do some grilling for his son's birthday, but our effort was complicated because he accidentally bought competition grade charcoal and dumped a whole bag of it in the grill. The grill ended up being so scorching hot that we could barely flip the burgers, and I ended up severely burning one of my fingers on a metal chicken skewer. (I've since recovered, though at the time I was convinced I'd never get feeling back in the tip of my finger.) In any event, a friend of mine has one of those outdoor brick grills in his backyard, so after poking around the internet, I realized that I could put my pizza stone on that grill, and with the right amount of charcoal, can get the temperature close to the desired heat range, if not hit 800 degrees outright. (And luckily for the nerve endings in my hands and arms, a wooden pizza shovel is longer than a burger flipper).

However, before going to such great lengths, I understand that I have to take some time to do initial experiments at home with dough until I at least find something with a satisfactory flavor. And that's what I'm in the middle of doing now, starting off really basically.

Right now, I have a batch of dough sitting in my refrigerator that I made on Saturday even though I don't intend to use until Monday night. That's because under one philosophy, it's better to let dough slowly ferment in the refrigerator for a few days before using it. But I also intend to make another batch tomorrow night, because other recipes call for simply making the dough three hours before consumption.

My early research into the art of dough making has made me appreciate what a miracle truly great pizza is, as well as understand why you can go to hundreds of different pizzerias and end up with the food tasting totally different even though the essential ingredients are the same. A basic dough is just flour, water, salt, and yeast. But there are an infinite amount of variations beyond that. Different pizza chefs prefer different types of flour, and in some cases, use a blend of several flours. Some use kosher or sea salt, others use plain salt. Some insist on adding olive oil to the dough, others warn against it. Some say that having NYC water is key, others say that it's a myth. Some recipes call for luke warm water, others say it must be ice cold. Some say that you mix the yeast in the flour first and then slowly put in water, others say you dissolve the yeast in the water first and slowly add flour. And what kind of yeast to use? Active dry yeast? Brewer's yeast? Natural yeast? Sourdough yeast? It actually turns out that there's a whole subculture surrounding yeast cultures. For instance, one site sells two Italian cultures for $16, and boasts:

We searched for Italian cultures unsuccessfully for 15 years and suddenly have two, one which has been carefully guarded and is almost impossible to obtain. They are both from the Naples area, where the first pizza was made in the 1800's, and are among the best we have ever used, consistently producing fabulous breads that are flavorful and that can be quite sour. We were told when we received them that they were different, and we confirmed that difference. We will keep the secret, and let you determine what it is when you use them.

I'm far from the point at which I can get my head around such stuff, but I hope through this blog I'll be able to explore all of these different pizza-making issues. If this is a project I keep up with as opposed to one that proves ephemeral, maybe this site will eventually be a helpful forum for others, too. Or else, perhaps it will serve as a cautionary tale for any other arrogant New Yorkers out there who think they're capable of making good pizza just because they've watched it done before.