Baking
Now let’s make a pizza!
Don’t forget your mise en place (French for ensuring you have all your ingredients in place before you begin) before you get started, and this includes ensuring your oven is heated up to around 925F (if your oven doesn’t go that high, and most do not - look under the Resources tab for ‘ovens’ where we share some economical suggestions) as well as:
- Have your cheese cut (for mozzarella)/grated (for parmesan) and ready to spread
- Have your garlic peeled
- Make sure you sauce has been mixed (I use one 28oz can of tomatoes to 10g sea salt)
- Have your fresh basil washed and ready
- Have your oregano in a small ramekin ready to spread
- Have your olive oil in a workable can ready to swirl (and what I use in class is from GI Metal USA – Traditional Neapolitan 37oz oil can - ~$84)
- And always salt and fresh cracked pepper in ramekins just in case
- And anything else you want to put on your pizza
Take out a dough baby. He should have grown a bit, but not be taking over your rising box, Tupperware bowl, or counter. He should give a bit to the touch but spring back slowly, and not be sticky, but easily picked up with a spatula.
Put a small bit of flour on your worksurface just to keep it from sticking. With a motion from the center outwards, and with the pressure of the fingers of both hands on the dough ball, push up and out with your fingertips so the dough starts to form a disk. Flip over 180 degrees and do it again, now flip it over but turn it 90 degrees and do it again. Flip that over 180 degrees do a last time, and you are now ready to slap your dough.
Hold your hand on the right half of your disk, and pull the dough out a bit with your left hand. As you pull it out, rotate it 90 degrees in a clockwise motion so it is parallel with your forearm. Return to the table and do this again. Do these 8 or 10 times, and with each turn stretching the dough a bit more until you get a disk about 11” in diameter, about the thickness of a credit card in the center, and the outer crust, or ‘cornicione’, about ½” thick. This is ALWAYS done by hand, and NEVER using a roller or any mechanical device.
You are now ready to dress your pizza.
Marinara
- 70 – 100g tomato sauce (I use 1.5 chef spoons)
- 4.5g olive oil swirl
- One clove garlic
- Pinch of oregano
- Salt as neede
- Using a spoon place the pressed, peeled tomatoes in to the center of the pizza base, then using a spiraling motion, cover the entire surface of the base with the sauce excluding the crust (the addition or substitution of peeled tomatoes with fresh tomatoes is allowed)
- Remove any hard or dry sections of the clove of garlic and slice finely. Scatter the slices using the same circular motion over the tomato.
- Scatter a pinch of oregano in an orderly manner over the surface and add salt uniformly (if it has not previously been added to the tomato sauce, or if you just like a bit more salt)
- Using a traditional copper oil canister and the same spiraling motion as you did for your tomato sauce, starting from the center and moving out, pour Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the pizza
Margherita
- 60 – 80g tomato sauce (I use just 1 chef spoon)
- 4-5g olive oil swirl
- 80 – 100g mozzarella
- 3 fresh basil leaves
- 10 – 15g grated hard parmesan
- Salt as neede
- Using a spoon place the pressed, peeled tomatoes into the center of the pizza base, then using a spiraling motion, cover the entire surface of the base with the sauce excluding the crust (the addition or substitution of peeled tomatoes with fresh tomatoes is allowed).
- Add salt uniformly (if it has not previously been added to the tomato sauce, or if you just like a bit more salt)
- Spread thinly sliced strips of ‘mozzarella’ or ‘fior di latte’ evenly over the pizza base
- Grated cheese, if added, should also be spread in a uniform manner over the base
- A few basil leaves should then be placed on top of this, from the center outwards
- Using a traditional copper oil canister and the same spiraling motion as you used for the sauce, starting from the center and moving out, pour Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the pizza
Going in the oven
Using a wood (or preferably a perforated aluminum) pizza peel, and a little flour, the pizzaiolo transfers the garnished pizza using a quick wrist movement onto the cooking surface of the oven without allowing the condiments to move. The cooking of the Vera Pizza Napoletana must be done exclusively in a wood fire oven which has reached the cooking temperature of 485° C, (905F). This is essential to cook the pizza.
The pizzaiolo should monitor the cooking by gently raising the edges of the pizza using a metal pizza peel. The pizza should be slightly rotated, changing the side that is directly facing the fire, taking care to ensure the pizza stays in the same area of the cooking surface and ensuring that the pizza does not burn due to exposure to a different temperature. It is important that the pizza is cooked in a uniform manner across its entire circumference.
At the conclusion of the cooking, the pizzaiolo removes the pizza from the oven with a metal pizza peel, and places it on a flat, dry work surface. Cooking time should not exceed 60-90 seconds.
After the cooking, the pizza should have the following characteristics according to AVPN:
- The tomato should have lost all excess water, and should be dense and consistent; the mozzarella di Bufala DOP or the mozzarella STG should have melted on the surface of the pizza; the basil, garlic and the oregano will develop an intense aroma, and will appear brown, but not burned.
- The consistency of the Vera Pizza Napoletana should be soft, elastic, and easy to manipulate and fold. The crust should deliver the flavor of well-prepared, baked bread. This mixed with the slightly acidic flavor of the densely enriched tomatoes, and the respective aroma of oregano, garlic, and/ or basil, and the cooked mozzarella ensures that the pizza, as it emerges from the oven, delivers its characteristic aroma -- perfumed and fragrant.
