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How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

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Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#101

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.

Its talking about 500C and you definitely can cook one that fast at that temp.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#102
post #96

I highly recommend the book "American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza". I have a digital version and it took my pizza game to the next level. >Master bread baker Peter Reinhart follows the origins of pizza from Italy to the States, capturing the stories behind the greatest artisanal pizzas of the Old World and the New. >Beginning his journey in Genoa, Reinhart scours the countryside in search of the fabled focac…

Mastering Pizza by Marc Vetri is another good one. As well as The Pizza Bible by Tony Gemignani.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#103
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 really wish this wine meme would die. Essentially every test done to ‘prove’ that there’s no difference between cheap and expensive wines has had two massive flaws: 1. The label of ‘wine expert’ is left undefined. True sommeliers have spent thousands of hours studying wine and are not the same thing as a guy that takes a weekend wine-tasting course and gets a certificate. Yet most ‘studies’ fail to mention this. Ju…

> change their expectations about what they are tasting and their perceptions will change significantly

Isn't that the heart of the "meme"? I never thought it was "no difference" or "all wines are equal" but rather that you get out of it what you want.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#104

I am from Naples and eat regularly at Gino Sorbillo's and Ciro Salvo's places. As it often happens here, everyone will swear by its pretty small and obscure "favorite place", but they are masters without doubt ;) The dough recipe from the article is pretty legit and exactly the way I do it at home; the main problem I see is that it would be pretty hard to find good Mozzarella or Fiordilatte cheese (Fiordilatte di Age…

Ciao, Come siete ? I'm not sure if you have ever been to NYC but an interesting observation I have had with Gino Sorbillo is the pizza in Napoli is very good, but he/they opened a restaurant in NYC and it's absolutely average at best. I assume they import everything, but quality wise, the places are polar opposites. Also curious your thoughts of Da Michele?

I recently went to Naples and IMO the secret to just how amazing everything tastes there is the quality of produce. I don't know whether you can even export it - I don't know whether that kind of quality travels.

On the Netflix show ugly delicious one of the chefs explain supposedly in Naples chefs will choose their mozzarella freshness by the hour (e.g. 6 hours or 12 hours) but to make "authentic" Neapolitan pizza with Neapolitan mozzarella you're not going to get Mozzarella fresher than 7 days old...

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#105

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…

The way I've been doing mine is to preheat the oven as hot as it will get and with a baking steel on the rack second to the top. You could probably do something similar with the iron pan/plancha.

Then when it is as hot as it's going to get, slide the pizza on to the steel/pan/whatever and switch the oven to high broil. The heat from the baking steel cooks from the bottom and the broiler hits it from the top, delivering high heat on both sides.

I can get a pretty solid pizza in 5 minutes and there are lots of variations on this method (broil for a few min, switch to bake for the last few, etc) but you can play around with your oven and setup to get the best results.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#106

I am from Naples and eat regularly at Gino Sorbillo's and Ciro Salvo's places. As it often happens here, everyone will swear by its pretty small and obscure "favorite place", but they are masters without doubt ;) The dough recipe from the article is pretty legit and exactly the way I do it at home; the main problem I see is that it would be pretty hard to find good Mozzarella or Fiordilatte cheese (Fiordilatte di Age…

Isn't the oven one of the keys? And how true is that 'leopard spots' on the cornicione is a sign of a well made pizza?

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple flaw in your reasoning - none of the target audience of this comparison is actually a sommelier expert. The whole argument is about an average joe sampling say a wine costing say 15 euros in france and one costing 500. And the same average joe benefiting very little if at all from paying too much. Its like buying La Ferrari which all experts praise, when all you need is to drive 80kmh to next town. I persona…

> And the same average joe benefiting very little if at all from paying too much. Its like buying La Ferrari which all experts praise, when all you need is to drive 80kmh to next town. But that isn't usually why these studies are often referenced, and certainly wasn't what the OP meant. The argument presented is often that there is no difference between high-end wines and low-end wines , which seems to be demonstrabl…

Is there a good study out there showing that an expert can reliably distinguish between average and expensive wine? It should be quite easy to prove, but all I ever hear about are studies showing the opposite. Because there's a huge financial incentive in making people believe that expensive wine really tastes better, I think it's reasonable to be more skeptical of wine experts than e.g. WW2 experts.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about what must happen to a master sommelier's "blind taste" skills once they've passed the exam and no longer need to practice that skill on a regular basis. My assumption is that, like with any specialist, that skill gets rusty if not used, and that the more important everyday skills in that job revolve around their knowledge of wine, ability to suggest good pairings, and customer service.

That's a good point. It's sort of a "problem of the expert" - as you become better at something, the number of people with your level of knowledge becomes smaller and smaller. Since you have less experts or challenges to go up against (or indirectly, exams), your skill level drops.

You don't even have to go that far. If it takes an expert to tell the difference then it stands to reason that the average person will never really taste the benefit above the average level.

I guess this is why it's called "a matter of taste". Anecdote: I can't stand vinegar in anything. So it's really interesting to see someone insist that I should use it because it makes this or that better.

Experts have to judge based (also) on objective criteria. You don't, you just like it more or less.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#109
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a green-egg[1] style ceramic grill that works really well for pizza. Wood-fired, and can get up to a pretty good temperature. I use a pizza stone in it. 1: The exact brand is a Kamado ceramic grill.

Cool, but why do those cost like a Rolls Royce? Just a big ceramic ball, but priced like its made of gold.

With the Green Egg, you’re paying for a brand name for sure. The Kamado is definitely not cheap, but it’s typically around half the price.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish this wine meme would die. Essentially every test done to ‘prove’ that there’s no difference between cheap and expensive wines has had two massive flaws: 1. The label of ‘wine expert’ is left undefined. True sommeliers have spent thousands of hours studying wine and are not the same thing as a guy that takes a weekend wine-tasting course and gets a certificate. Yet most ‘studies’ fail to mention this. Ju…

A simple flaw in your reasoning - none of the target audience of this comparison is actually a sommelier expert. The whole argument is about an average joe sampling say a wine costing say 15 euros in france and one costing 500. And the same average joe benefiting very little if at all from paying too much. Its like buying La Ferrari which all experts praise, when all you need is to drive 80kmh to next town. I persona…

> Its like buying La Ferrari which all experts praise, when all you need is to drive 80kmh to next town.

Any car driver can easily appreciate the difference between a Ferrari and, say, a Ford. You can't say the same about wine.

Now, since you're making a utilitarian argument here - what is the point of becoming a sommelier when all it does is make you so sensitive to the taste of wine that you need to spend hundreds of dollars for "a really good one"?

On the surface, this sounds like a huge waste of time and money to me. Perhaps having such a fine taste is pure bliss. My suspicion though is that sommeliers are just bullshitters that use their knowledge of expensive produce to get into the company of wealthy people - and earn a decent living.

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