Last week I had a taste for some hot pastrami. It was cold and windy, and me and my wife found ourselves on New York City's Lower Eastside, historically a bastion of the Jewish deli. Some little voice told me that it may not come up to expectations. But a hankering for "old favorites" won out. Safe to say, things have changed. The delis aren't, themselves, specifically the famous Katz's, one of my favorites, had changed. Its free pickles on every table are no longer the same. Even its aging, cranky waiters that somehow inspired fondness (if not love) were noticeably gone.
I felt like a tourist visiting a shell of history in food, tradition lost. My old world neighborhood's goût terroir (a French wine term meaning "taste of the soil") has disappeared. And yet there are new places, like the latest wave of artisanal wood oven pizzerias sprouting everywhere in New York. Their new but old approach to making pizza, gives hope for those tired of the standard parked pies pies sold by the slice behind the counter.
I wolfed down a pastrami sandwich, feeling more full than satisfied. So afterward's, my wife and I meandered over to get some Bialys, another lost ethnic art. Again, it proved different from what I'd remembered. In fact, its basic toppings of onion and poppy seeds were missing! But, then my wife stopped at Doughnut Plant, who had rightfully earned a line of people snaking out the door. They make the most delicious old school - new school (organic) donuts that I love.
There is still promise and hope in these bright lights of the city. I guess it will take good chefs and bakers to re-visit, re-vamp the old into the new...still a good Deli is in need! Can this new generation of chefs, bakers be the guardians of lost traditions of taste, or am I just an old school nostalgic?
Don't you hate chores; vacuuming,mopping etc... Sometimes, actually, they're okay. Well lunch break gives you an excuse to clean the kitchen first thing after your meal! So what do I have in my larder and pantry? Pizza. Wild. Yeasty. Fermented and aged in my fridge. With a bit of scanning pizzamaking.com's pizza calculator, and some bit of experimenting with hydration - and of course the flour, my pizza oven is gonna have some work cut out. Here comes burnt cheese on my stone! Dough was good. On to the next bread. But will be revisiting this pizza or a different formulation of it again, no doubt. No doubt!
It seems an item people (and the media) never tire of exploring. I don't blame anyone. I love my pie. But more people might try making it at home, as it's so easy. Not to fuel more recessionary "don't go out" habits that hurt my fellow professional chefs, but pizza is a dish more people should enjoy making at home, as well as out. A good home baked pizza is satisfying and doable. With some basic appliances (like the Cuisinart oven I wrote about months ago) you can get a crisp New York style pizza to compare to the pre-baked and parked
specimens in too many of today's pizzerias.
Some of the recipes I've used, I will convert to sourdough, ever the purist. But I do yeast when I am short on time or just getting the munchies!
This is a nice recipe from Betterbaking.com, a simple and reliable dough. It's good, even left over two days in the refrigerator. But if your even more inclined to try some adventurous and more detailed dough, go and visit my friend at foolish poolish bakes, and even like Susan at wildyeast who grills hers! Or you can give my rendition of Verace Neopolitano dough a go if you have some sourdough culture!
As any regular reader of this blog might guess, pizza has always been a favorite for me. It can be interpreted in so many way. And its derivative names comes in so many different languages! Here's my own addition to those pies and names. This pie is an off shoot of two cultural mainstays; a marriage of sourdough Neapolitan pizza with Alsatian ingredients of a flammeküche, a pizza with no borders!
This will be going to Zorra 1 x umrühren for her pizza BBD 2 year anniversary, viel spaße!(Got to join in the fun, because pizza is fun, isn't it?)
500g “00” caputo or A.P. flour 325g aqua (water) 20g sale (salt) 3gr livieto (yeast)
Sourdough version: Based on 100% percent hydrated starter
376 g flour 201g Water 247g Levain 20g salt
Flammeküche topping:
Onions about 2 medium sliced
a couple of slice's of really good smoked bacon cut into small dice
a bay leaf, salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons of greek yogurt, a spoon of quark or fresh cheese, salt, pepper nutmeg.
Sweat onions in a pan with about a quater of a cup of water till softened and starting to get golden brown, add bacon and continue cooking with bay leaf, season and let cool.
mix the yougurt and fresh quark, season.
Cover the rolled out dough with yogurt and cheese mixture, spread cooled onion topping.
Bake in pre-heated oven @ 500 F till bottom and edges of pizza or flammeküche get a nice crusty brown look!
Drink with a good, no excellent beer, maybe an ale, IPA or lager?
This morning, a Facebook-based suggestion from Ilva Berretta about
making focaccias and schiacciate for lunch made me head for the refrigerator and pull out some pizza
dough for my own lunch!
Pizza, like most food ,is subjective. Who makes the best, who invented it, or what it's supposed to look and taste like? Who says! Well, here in New York City, Neopolitan style pizza seems to be the standard for most. It was later morphed from wood oven to the brick style oven, which made New York pizza a hybrid amongst so many others. There are endless variations on how to make a dough; yeasted, with an old dough, with "00" zero flour, etc. And the cheese is also a touchy topic, never mind the tomatoes, San Marzano,and even the topping whatever!
My own pizza experiments lately have been less then perfect, and it's not as if I have a brick oven burning at around 800 degrees either. So I already cancel out the mottled charred up-skirt pizza you find in all the trendy pizzerias and websites blogging on the subject. Instead I get a little chewier, airy dough more similar to a street pizza. Nothing wrong with that, eh?
I decided not to use commercial yeast, but since my last ventures at livieto naturale weren't promising, I re-worked my numbers and prayed! Putting on my baker's cap I worked out a standard straight dough Napoletana dough formula and made it into a sourdough version. I did incorporate the Jim Lahey method of no-knead, and a long slow rise, about 10 hours, after which I let the dough sit in the fridge to get some typical pizza style dough rest overnight.
Also, I used some "00" flour, and I like it. Maybe it's a bit snobbish, but what the hell, if you got it use it! I think this dough is traditional D.O.C., flour; water, salt,fermented dough, that's it. The toppings, basic, some tomato product, pesto, prosciutto, mozzarella and a touch of parmegianno!
It worked!
Pizza Neopolitana
500g “00” Caputo or A.P. flour
325g aqua (water) 20g sale (salt) 3gr livieto (yeast)
Sourdough version 840g Dough yield
375 g flour 200g Water 245g Levain 20g salt
There is a yeasted version if your in a hurry or so inclined, and I didn't bother with in instruction on mixing, it's pizza! Here is a pretty decent looking site on the whole deal, sorry I am off for another slice!
I have been craving a decent pie lately, as it seems my neighborhood joints don't make it the way that sings to me. Sign of the times, when there aren't even some Italian Pizzaoila's living in New York. What is a deranged home baking chef to do? Make it himself! Since I found myself regularly feeding my levain, I was happy to make a pizza dough for Sunday. Puffy, soft and airy, even though I didn't make it with any "00 flour," it's not just that available or sitting around my kitchen. I used my Heckers unbleached A.P. and went to it, using a converted Neopolitan recipe spied on one of the holier-than-thou sites for pizza freaks. Then I cranked the Mick Hartley's conversion scheme and went at it!
My oven only hits 550 degrees. And because of safety concerns, I am not about to Jimmy-rig it like my recent guest Jeff Verasano. Also, I don't have a self cleaning oven. And it's bad enough my wife already hates it when I bake at about 460 F for my regular loaves. She told me this morning no more baking for two weeks, put the flour away! So my observation on this is pizza, good chewy, crusty dough if stretched very thinly, airy and with buffala mozzarella. A bit of parmesano. And you're in like Flynn! Oh, don't forget the Black Chocolate Stout or some Winter Ale, soda is for kids.
Pizza Napoletana
Straight dough 500g 00 caputo or A.P. flour 325g aqua (water) 20g sale (salt) 3gr livieto
Sourdough version 376 g flour 201g Water 247g starter 3g salt
During the weekend I was looking at a Joe Pastry's blog where I fortunately found a link to a pizza guru, Jeff Verasano. From his extensive hunt for the best "New York Pizza", to his method of engineering his oven to cook a pizza at the authentic 800 degree temperature, it's all fascinating. There are various sources for cheese, sauce, mixer reviews, flour and water myths and methods of making a Neopolitan style pizza.Checking the list of his pizza shop rankings (all from personal visits) establishments, I noticed that he had ranked a pizza joint I knew well from my high school years in Stamford CT., zip code 06902. Not exactly a Hollywood zip code, but it did have a quirky place called the Colony Grill, otherwise known as Jimmy Bo-bo's, an Irish bar that served a thin crust pizza pie.
So what is so special about a pizza joint? Well in the case of Colony Grill (or Bo-bo's) it was the crust. My brother first introduced this place to me when we first moved to the area from a town 20 minutes away. Named after the owner (Bohanon, I believe), Bo-bo's was a gem. Before telling you about my introduction, let me describe the place. "Back in the day," as I remember it, Bo-bo's walls were covered by photos of military GIs going back to WWII. Some of the guys in the pictures now worked behind Bo-bo's bar or as waiters. Like the regal and charming "Fitz," his Dapper Dan coiffed hair, his beer belly and his regular greeting of "hey fellas!" made you feel immediately welcome.
My brother was initiated when he joined the Navy with an all night drinking party. When he returned from Boot Camp, Bo-bo's gave him an even a bigger party. But I digress. We were talking pizza at Bo-bo's. Their pie was like no other. With its thin crisp crust, it avoided the curse of most local pizza joints, namely rubbery dough overloaded with tons of tasteless cheese. More, Bo-Bo's had a unique sauce, which while a little greasy and on the sweet side, was balanced with a light sprinkling of cheese and, if you liked, fennel sausage from a place across the street called Deyulios. My preferred pie was with sausage, but I could go with the plain as well. I guess it was that dough that made it stand out. Once, I remember, my brother asked for the recipe. The kitchen guys laughed but they let him look at how the pizza was made. According to my brother, the crew had an old clothes wringer through which they passed the dough, achieving that spectacular thin crust.
My last visit to Colony, I went alone. Minus my brother, not seeing Fitz or anyone from my past, I felt a bit lost. Especially when I noticed the place crowded with yuppies and tourists who now flock to Bo-bo's, as it seems to have finally found the reputation it long ago deserved. Sometimes I think that anything on the cutting edge, once discovered, it suffers. Loses more than charm, perhaps a bit of its soul. At least, it seemed that way to me that night, because for some reason the pie, well it was different. Bo-bo's had introduced more pizza toppings, like stingers, which were described as jalapenos but were really Serrano peppers. Maybe something brought in by the now predominantly Hispanic crew. Maybe it was nostalgia, or it was my brother telling me to go and have a pie for him, only he wasn't there to share it. I missed the place where me and my brother had shared some great pizzas and beer.
Gleaning from Jeff Verasano's own recipe, which he kindly provides as a general guideline, I recently put my hand to recreating those wonderful pies like we once ate. Without a sourdough at hand, I decided to approach the formula with a poolish, equal amounts flour and water with trace of yeast. I left it out overnight and the next morning proceeded with the rest of the ingredients; water, flour, salt and yeast, (optional). I mixed by machine, let the dough sit out for about a half hour, then stuck in the fridge to retard.
Jeff says he allows his dough to develop about two-six days refrigerated in individual containers. Being impatient, and wanting some lunch, I whipped up a pizza and used stock tomato sauce, generic mozzarella, basil leaves and some olive oil to caress the top of the pie. I don't have a pizza stone, nor do I have a real deck oven, so instead I used the back of a second-rate sheet pan, baking it in my trusty vulcan broiler oven, which can get to 700 degrees or more. At first I wasn't sure about the basil but, wow, what a flavor! I could of used buffalo mozzarella, but I find it pretty wet, so I used the commercial block mozz, admittedly greasy and with no really discernible profile of real mozzarella cheese. The dough hadn't risen in the bowl nor in the oven, and yet I recognized something familiar. Was it a mistake? dunno, maybe it was fate, but hell it sure tasted like a Bo-bo's to me!
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