How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master • Hacker News Board

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#11

Post by perlgeek » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:40 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #2

I'm quarantined with two Italians (father-in-law and his mother) from Northern Italy and had been planning on making pizza from scratch to surprise them but always thought I would make a huge mess in the kitchen... from the video, it looks totally manageable! The hardest part is having to wait 11 hours to eat it!

> The hardest part is having to wait 11 hours to eat it!

That's mostly a matter of perspective. You have to plan your Pizza a day ahead, but making the dough on the day before and putting it into the fridge doesn't feel as bad as waiting with a hungry stomach before food is served :-)

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#12

Post by perlgeek » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:43 AM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #4

I typically buy my dough from Trader Joe's but what to start doing it myself. There's a recipe in the article, but anyone else have a goto recipe they love?

Just a quick thought: depending on how adventurous you feel, you might consider buying ready-made pizza dough from the supermarket, and start with that.

If you like your pizza, the next iteration would be to also make the dough yourself. Expect several iterations / attempts until you can make it well and reproducible, and get a good feel for how much you need.

The first few batches of pizza dough I made were not very good :-).

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#13

Post by subpixel » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:44 AM UTC

xchip wrote: post #7

Please ignore all these experts, all they want is to make you feel special because you drink/eat their stuff. Above a certain threshold one cannot tell the difference between good and very good. Wine tasters know it and it has been very well documented. When it comes to flavours, as long as it doesn't harm you, your judgement is as good as anybody else.

Just as importantly, don’t fall for fetishism. Neapolitan pizza is a very specific style of pizza that, while “authentic” and photogenic, is by no means a superior style of pizza. Especially made poorly, at home, in an oven that is 200 degrees colder than necessary!

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#14

Post by ykevinator » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:44 AM UTC

Great read, thanks for sharing, there was just a new oven announced, I think it's ooni, which is for this kind of pizza. It's an outdoor propane pizza oven. BTW, I'm not sure you can cook pizza at 500 degrees in 90 seconds like the article says.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#15

Post by stevievee » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:45 AM UTC

xchip wrote: post #7

Please ignore all these experts, all they want is to make you feel special because you drink/eat their stuff. Above a certain threshold one cannot tell the difference between good and very good. Wine tasters know it and it has been very well documented. When it comes to flavours, as long as it doesn't harm you, your judgement is as good as anybody else.

Definitely not necessary to buy ingredients "certified" by the "Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana" but following the traditional methods yields some really tasty pizza.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#16

Post by stevievee » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #4

I typically buy my dough from Trader Joe's but what to start doing it myself. There's a recipe in the article, but anyone else have a goto recipe they love?

Edit: The video in the article is a pretty good dough "recipe"

If you go down the rabbit hole, when making your dough try to source some double zero flour (00 flour) and experiment with "hydration" percentages which is the ratio of water and flour. These are the two ingredient factors I have found to have the most impact. The "recipes" are much easier than you think - it's mostly a waiting game

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#17

Post by ThePhysicist » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:50 AM UTC

JackMcMack wrote: post #3

My favorite read on pizza: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

Damn, he bakes those at 825F (440 °C), which unfortunately is unattainable with most regular home ovens. Mine e.g. maxes out at 300 °C so it's not hot enough to let the crust rise significantly and produce a nicely charred underside, at least not before completely burning the top.

What I'm currently experimenting with to solve this problem is to put the pizza on a flat, heavy and preheated iron pan or plancha and heat it at maximum power on the induction stove for 3 minutes to get the metal really hot. Then I put it in the oven at 300 °C for around 10 minutes. Doesn't produce perfectly charred pizza but comes a lot closer to what you can achieve with a real pizza oven. Still I'm not fully satisfied with the result, so thanks for the article link, I'll definitely try to apply some tricks mentioned there!

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#18

Post by hinoki » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:51 AM UTC

xchip wrote: post #7

Please ignore all these experts, all they want is to make you feel special because you drink/eat their stuff. Above a certain threshold one cannot tell the difference between good and very good. Wine tasters know it and it has been very well documented. When it comes to flavours, as long as it doesn't harm you, your judgement is as good as anybody else.

You can train yourself to detect most of these differences, but you do need to try many different “good” versions of something to develop your taste.

But beware, once you have a sophisticated taste for something you can no longer enjoy all the “bad” ones.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#19

Post by stevievee » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:55 AM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #17

JackMcMack wrote: post #3

My favorite read on pizza: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

Damn, he bakes those at 825F (440 °C), which unfortunately is unattainable with most regular home ovens. Mine e.g. maxes out at 300 °C so it's not hot enough to let the crust rise significantly and produce a nicely charred underside, at least not before completely burning the top. What I'm currently experimenting with to solve this problem is to put the pizza on a flat, heavy and preheated iron pan or plancha and hea…

For a quick pizza, I use a "Ooni" pizza oven and the results have been great. It's relatively cheap and you can get the temperatures you are looking for. I joined their first kickstarter and have been buying their ovens ever since:

https://uk.ooni.com/collections/shop-all/products/ooni-koda

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#20

Post by technothrasher » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:56 AM UTC

xchip wrote: post #7

Please ignore all these experts, all they want is to make you feel special because you drink/eat their stuff. Above a certain threshold one cannot tell the difference between good and very good. Wine tasters know it and it has been very well documented. When it comes to flavours, as long as it doesn't harm you, your judgement is as good as anybody else.

I agree with you that your own judgement is what matters on things like flavors, as long as you don't close yourself off to certain foods that may take a few tries to appreciate.

But I think you've dialed down a very complicated issue too far when you say "one cannot tell the difference between good and very good". A better characterization would be that many factors go into the perception of taste, and it's not always straightforward to identify "good". Here's a decent article on wine tasting that explores the idea much more honestly than, "Haha, experts can't tell!": https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2019/07/can-profess...