Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
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Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#12Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
Heston Blumenthal discusses exactly that in his book "In Search of Perfection"
https://www.amazon.com/Search-Perfection-Heston-Blumenthal/d...
From memory, it was basically to heat up a cast iron pan to get it very hot and then to sit the pizza on top of that, with the other side of it close to the grill element. He also mentioned how you can use the 'cleaning mode' of some ovens to get up to the required temperature.
A description here http://www.insearchofheston.com/2013/05/how-to-make-hestons-... - see "Step 7: Cooking the Pizza"
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#13Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
1. Make great dough. The ingredients are cheap, it doesn't take much manual time -- but you want to let it ferment in your refrigerator at least overnight. 2. Make your own sauce. The ingredients are cheap, and a little experimentation will get it to the taste that you want. 3. Don't overtop it. The natural tendency is to want more - more sauce, more cheese, more whatever else. Start off very simply. Scatter little b…
I've been making my own pizza at home for around a decade now and your 5 points are very good advice. I think 5 is probably the most important. I have recently been on a calzone kick[0] and have been experimenting with different ratios of cheeses.
[0] Not sure why I've never tried before. I guess because the pizza's been so good.
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#14Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
Thermal mass is your friend. You need something that can hold a lot of heat, is flat, food safe, heatproof, textured and porous.
Preheat for an hour and drop the pizza on it. Also turn the infrared broiler. Or blowtorch. Thin crust also helps.
Edit: If you can think of way to make the topping stay in place(impossible) , the perfect way to bake a pizza is tandoor. Good pizza is rich flatbread and not casserole on a dough. Which from my observations is the biggest error people make.
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#15I've been using this recipe for a good seven or eight years now and it has never let me down. But you really do need an oven that is capable of 800F. I eventually knuckled down and bought a small dedicated pizza oven with a thermometer.
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#16Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
It is too cold for a thin pizza (Napoletana). The temperature must be at around 450C! The cooking time is too long and will make it "biscotata" (Amazing video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV4gegZ7JNU ).
With such "cold" oven the best is to cook "nonna" pizza (grand ma'). I think this one is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2ws4sTKrdI For the dough, you can use this ones as inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gijjMJiR_q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcD999Ci78E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SJGQ2HLp8
Best tip to avoid uncooked dough under the tomato sauce: remove all the possible water from the tomato sauce.
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#17surprised to see this here, but it doesn't have style sheets, so maybe not too surprised ;) jeff varasano's website is a great resource for pizza hackers and lays a lot of myths to rest (like proofing). my own process (which I cook in a blackstone pizza oven at ~800°) has a bit more in common with tony gemignani's basic neopolitan (described in his pizza bible ), with the addition of the earlier and longer autolysing…
Any recommendations for L.A.?
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#18Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
Baking Steel can _sort of_ get you close to a proper pizza oven, but it's expensive, exceptionally heavy and still not quite "it" -
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-...
Pizza stones or ceramic tiles don't work well in the ovens, even though they are often marketed for oven use. They are great on BBQ grills though.
OTOH, the Fool Proof pan pizza is excellent and works every time -
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/01/foolproof-pan-piz...
PS. There are also small-ish wood-fired ovens for those with a bit of backyard. I can't seem to find it now, but these are made by a specialist company that also sells an unbranded version -
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#19Folks who know pizza: What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?
If you have an outdoor grill, put a pizza stone on it that and use that to make your pizza (after preheating of course). Your outdoor grill can reach higher temps than a kitchen oven.
If you're going to go heavy on the toppings, bake the the dough for a while, then add toppings.
Re: Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008)
#20surprised to see this here, but it doesn't have style sheets, so maybe not too surprised ;) jeff varasano's website is a great resource for pizza hackers and lays a lot of myths to rest (like proofing). my own process (which I cook in a blackstone pizza oven at ~800°) has a bit more in common with tony gemignani's basic neopolitan (described in his pizza bible ), with the addition of the earlier and longer autolysing…
Any recommendations for L.A.?
California Pizza Kitchen