Sunday, October 11, 2009

A Tale of Two Doughs

Here's a photo of my first attempt at dough, which was based on this recipe adapted from Peter Reinhart's book.

Though I haven't cooked with it yet, I sense that I messed it up, because there are various cracks in the dough even though most of the dough balls I've seen posted elsewhere are very smooth. My guess is that it's because I didn't knead the dough for long enough. I made this by hand rather than using a mixer, and basically was satisfied when the flour, water, yeast, olive oil, and salt were all mixed together evenly, and the dough seemed, in accordance with the recipe, "springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky." Truth be told, I never really understand how the adjectives used in recipes relate to anything in reality. So I just sort of started guessing. I pulled the dough apart and tried bouncing it against the bottom of the bowl, then used it to gather up all of the excess flour around the sides to test the stickiness factor. I mean, if it bounces a bit, does that mean it's springy? If it expands like a Stretch Armstrong action figure, does that make it elastic? Or does that tip the balance to the wrong side of the tacky scale? In any event, in hindsight, I think that I would have ended up with a smoother dough if I had worked it a bit longer.

Given that I had already determined I was going to make pizza on Monday night while I watch football, I decided this would be a good excuse to try a different dough recipe for comparison purposes. While the first one has been fermenting in the fridge since Saturday night, I figured I'd make a different dough that only ferments for three hours in a warmer place . As I was trying to decide, one of my brother's suggested I check out the official rules of the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani (the Association of Neapolitan Pizza). By not having the right oven, I'm already violating one of the major rules to begin with, but even so, one rule I found interesting was that Neopolitan pizza has to be made with natural or brewer's yeast. Since I used active dry yeast in the first dough, I decided that for my second dough, I'd use brewer's yeast (which I tracked down in the dietary supplement section of Whole Foods).

After doing some searching for a recipe that would give me some guidance on the ratio of brewer's yeast to flour, I came across this one from Kyle Phillips. Yes, it's from an About.com article, which doesn't have the appeal of some dusty old recipe from an Italian cookbook I dug up from the bargain bin a used bookstore in Naples, but again, this is just my first attempt, and I have to start somewhere simple.

As for the toppings, I decided that during the experimental crust phase I should use cheap toppings. No need to invest in pounds of ultra-expensive Italian cheeses just to waste them on substandard crust. Instead, I'll just use processed mozzarella in a bag. Luckily, I was able to secure canned San Marzano tomatoes -- the ones used in NYC pizza -- for a relatively cheap price. I bought the crushed tomatoes instead of the whole peeled tomatoes because I prefer a saucier type pizza to one with giant chunks of tomatoes.

As far as baking is concerned, the big thing I'm looking out for is whether the cheese melts at relatively the same pace as the crust cooks. Some people I've read have suggested cooking the crust on its own for five to 10 minutes, then taking it out and putting on the toppings, allowing the crust more time to bake since the cheese melts faster. Other people say even at 500 degrees, it should work out just fine without giving a head start to the crust.

Ok, so enough build up. The next time I write a post, it will be to report back the results of my first experiment with actually baking pizza.

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