Pizza Napoletana
Pizza is the perfect food, or so I’m so often told. When I moved to Providence, Rhode Island, I’d heard that there was great pizza to be had, so I asked everyone I met to recommend his or her favorite place. They all seemed to have a different style that they preferred, not unlike the diversity I’ve found in similar explorations into barbecue and chili. There is Sicilian thick-crusted pizza and thin New York style (the kind where the nose of the slice has to be flipped back into the center of the slice to keep all the cheese from running off). At least two-dozen franchise pizza shops exist within a three-mile radius of my home, some with prebaked shells, others with house-made crust. There are double-decker pizzas, cheese-in-the-crust pizzas, and a very popular twice-baked crust, recently dubbed Argentinian pizza in some regions, but here it is mysteriously and incorrectly referred to as Neapolitan. The best pizza I’ve had in recent years was in Phoenix at Pizzeria Bianco, a small restaurant run by Chris Bianco and his friends and family. Chris grows his own basil and lettuce behind the restaurant, makes his own mozzarella cheese, and hand-mixes his pizza dough in large batches (I mean really hand-mixes, on a bench and by hand). It is wet dough, like ciabatta, and sits for hours slowly fermenting. His is the closest I’ve had to pizza made in the style of Naples: simple, thin crusted, and baked fast and crisp. Pizzeria Bianco serves only about six kinds of pizza, a house salad, house-made Italian bread (from the pizza dough), and three or so desserts made by Chris’s mom. They can’t keep up with the business, and getting a seat in the pizzeria is like winning the lottery. Naples is the birthplace of what we today call pizza. Genoa has its focaccia, Tuscany its schiacciata, and Sicily its sfincione, but true Neapolitan pizza is the perfect expression of the perfect food. Every other style may also be crust and topping, but life would be better if only this superior version were allowed to call itself pizza. More to the point, it is possible to make a great pizza at home even if your oven cannot reach the heat levels used by the very best pizzerias that burn hardwood or bituminous coal and reach between 800° and 1200°F! Jeffrey Steingarten wrote a wonderful piece in the August 2000 issue of Vogue in which he told of trying dozens of ways to generate enough heat to replicate a pizza oven in his home. He nearly burned down his house in the process. Unfortunately, most home ovens will not go beyond 550°F, if that, but the following dough will produce an amazing pizza even at that relatively low heat. It has long been my contention that it is the crust, not the toppings, that make a pizza memorable. I’ve seen some expensive, wonderful ingredients wasted on bad crust, or, even more often, a decent dough ruined in an oven that was not hot enough to bake it properly. For many years, cookbook instructions have been to bake at about 350°F or maybe at 425°F. Rarely do you see instructions that suggest cranking the oven to its fullest capacity, but that’s what you have to do to make a great pizza at home. The single biggest flaw in most pizza dough recipes is the failure to instruct the maker to allow the dough to rest overnight in the refrigerator (or at least for a long time). This gives the enzymes time to go to work, pulling out subtle flavor trapped in the starch. The long rest also relaxes the gluten, allowing you to shape the dough easily, minimizing the elastic springiness that so often forces you to squeeze out all the gas. Lately, there’s been a controversy regarding what type of flour to use. Unbleached is a given. It simply delivers more flavor and aroma. For the past few years the trend has been toward high-gluten or bread flour because it promotes oven spring and holds together better during handling (this is called dough “tolerance”)...
Recipe information
Yield
makes six 6-ounce pizza crusts
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Stir together the flour, salt, and instant yeast in a 4-quart bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). With a large metal spoon, stir in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment). If you are mixing by hand, repeatedly dip one of your hands or the metal spoon into cold water and use it, much like a dough hook, to work the dough vigorously into a smooth mass while rotating the bowl in a circular motion with the other hand. Reverse the circular motion a few times to develop the gluten further. Do this for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are evenly distributed. If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to create a smooth, sticky dough. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet and doesn’t come off the sides of the bowl, sprinkle in some more flour just until it clears the sides. If it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water. The finished dough will be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50° to 55°F.
Step 2
Sprinkle flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Prepare a sheet pan by lining it with baking parchment and misting the parchment with spray oil (or lightly oil the parchment). Using a metal dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you are comfortable shaping large pizzas). You can dip the scraper into the water between cuts to keep the dough from sticking to it. Sprinkle flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Lift each piece and gently round it into a ball. If the dough sticks to your hands, dip your hands into the flour again. Transfer the dough balls to the sheet pan. Mist the dough generously with spray oil and slip the pan into a food-grade plastic bag.
Step 3
Put the pan into the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough, or keep for up to 3 days. (Note: If you want to save some of the dough for future baking, you can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag. Dip each dough ball into a bowl that has a few tablespoons of oil in it, rolling the dough in the oil, and then put each ball into a separate bag. You can place the bags into the freezer for up to 3 months. Transfer them to the refrigerator the day before you plan to make pizza.)
Step 4
On the day you plan to make the pizza, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator 2 hours before making the pizza. Dust the counter with flour, and then mist the counter with spray oil. Place the dough balls on top of the floured counter and sprinkle them with flour; dust your hands with flour. Gently press the dough into flat disks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Sprinkle the dough with flour, mist it again with spray oil, and cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap or a food-grade plastic bag. Let rest for 2 hours.
Step 5
At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone either on the floor of the oven (for gas ovens), or on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible, up to 800°F (most home ovens will go only to 500° to 550°F, but some will go higher). If you do not have a baking stone, you can use the back of a sheet pan, but do not preheat the pan.
Step 6
Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or cornmeal. Make the pizzas one at a time. Dip your hands, including the backs of your hands and knuckles, in flour and lift 1 piece of dough by getting under it with a pastry scraper. Very gently lay the dough across your fists and carefully stretch it by bouncing the dough in a circular motion on your hands, carefully giving it a little stretch with each bounce. If it begins to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue shaping it. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss as shown on page 208. If you have trouble tossing the dough, or if the dough keeps springing back, let it rest for 5 to 20 minutes so the gluten can relax, and try again. You can also resort to using a rolling pin, though this isn’t as effective as the toss method.
Step 7
When the dough is stretched out to your satisfaction (about 9 to 12 inches in diameter for a 6-ounce piece of dough), lay it on the peel or pan, making sure there is enough semolina flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide. Lightly top it with sauce and then with your other toppings, remembering that the best pizzas are topped with a less-is-more philosophy. The American “kitchen sink” approach is counterproductive, as it makes the crust more difficult to bake. A few, usually no more than 3 or 4 toppings, including sauce and cheese is sufficient (see page 212 for ideas).
Step 8
Slide the topped pizza onto the stone (or bake directly on the sheet pan) and close the door. Wait 2 minutes, then take a peek. If it needs to be rotated 180 degrees for even baking, do so. The pizza should take about 5 to 8 minutes to bake. If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone to a lower shelf before the next round. If the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone for subsequent bakes.
Step 9
Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Wait 3 to 5 minutes before slicing and serving, to allow the cheese to set slightly.
BREAD PROFILE
Step 10
Lean or enriched, rustic dough; flat; direct method; commercial yeast
DAYS TO MAKE: 2
Step 11
Day 1: 8 to 12 minutes mixing; 5 to 10 minutes dividing and rounding
Step 12
Day 2: 2 hours resting; 10 to 25 minutes per pizza shaping; 5 to 7 minutes baking
Commentary
Step 13
This formula utilizes the pain à l’ancienne delayed-fermentation technique, but this version has a small amount of olive oil to tenderize the dough. The oil can be left out, if desired, which also conforms to the strictest guidelines of authentic Neapolitan pizza. Both versions make the best pizza dough I have ever had or made. Using the delayed-fermentation method accomplishes all the flavor objectives of poolish and biga methods, and the small amount of yeast is just enough to leaven the dough without eating up all the sugar during fermentation. The result is a naturally sweet, thin, golden crust that crisps on the bottom and the edges but retains enough moisture to taste creamy in the mouth.
Step 14
Baking pizza at a low temperature ruins the crust because it takes so long to brown it that all the moisture evaporates, leaving a cardboard-dry shell behind. The key to great pizza is an extremely hot oven and baking surface. The race between browning the crust and melting the cheese is one of the great culinary dramas, and if they converge at exactly the same moment, you will have a memorable experience. The thinner you can stretch the dough without tearing it, and the more evenly you stretch it, the more likely that this baking convergence will occur.
Step 15
This dough can also be used to make focaccia and any rustic bread.
Step 16
It is perfectly acceptable to add a small amount (about 10 percent) of whole-wheat or rye flour to the dough, substituting it for an equal amount of the white flour. This gives the pizza a more rustic quality, kind of a peasant-style crust.
Step 17
I use water that I’ve chilled in the refrigerator to 40°F (the usual temperature for refrigerators). If you don’t have cold water, float some ice cubes in a beaker of water long enough to chill it to at least 40°F (colder is even better), then measure out what you need. Also, it improves the dough if you put the flour in the refrigerator at least 1 hour before mixing or, preferably, the day before.
Grace note: Some Pointers for Making a Better Pizza
Step 18
Your sauce should not be too thick, as it will thicken in the hot oven. You do not need a lot of sauce, and you do not need red sauce. Pesto, white or brown sauce, and cheese without sauce are viable options. Fresh clams tossed in garlic oil and spices (as made justifiably famous at Frank Pepé’s Pizzeria in New Haven, Connecticut) is an amazing combination, topped with just cheese. Less is more—but make the less truly more by using quality ingredients.
Step 19
I prefer a blend of 3 cheeses. One is a fresh hard cheese (not boxed or pregrated), such as Romano, Asiago, Parmesan, or Sonoma dry Jack. The second is a good “melter,” such as mozzarella, Monterey Jack, Cheddar, or Gruyère. The third can be any favorite, including some version of blue cheese. I grate or shred them with 1 part hard cheese to 2 parts “melter” and 1 part optional. Then I mix in a few teaspoons of a variety of dried or fresh herbs and spices, such as basil, oregano, thyme, herbes de Provence, black pepper, and granulated or fresh garlic. This blend gives the cheese a more interesting appearance and boosts the herbal flavor of the sauce.
Step 20
The dough does not need a “lip,” but one inevitably occurs because the edge is usually thicker than the center and it doesn’t have any sauce to hold it down. Do not try to build up the edge by crimping—you want it to bubble up on its own and create a light, airy crumb.
BAKER’S PERCENTAGE FORMULA
Step 21
Pizza Napoletana %
Step 22
High-gluten flour: 100%
Step 23
Salt: 2.2%
Step 24
Instant yeast: .54%
Step 25
Oil: 9.9%
Step 26
Water: 69.1%
Step 27
Total: 181.7%
Note
Step 28
The keys to shaping pizza dough are flouring your hands and using your fists (rather than fingertips) in the toss. Jennifer is getting the hang of it!
