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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

#111

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…

I use packed dry yeast but I have always let my dough do a slow rise in the refrigerator for a minimum of 3 days up to 6 days. I use 00 flour and cook the pizza's using my Roccbox pizza oven or a custom Baking Steel 23x19 3/8" steel in the oven.

Also if you want a good guide for NY style pizza then this is a good read.

http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#112

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…

> 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…

> 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"?

Because not everything is about maximizing economic transactions?

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#114
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really - you can find focaccia of various types which is close but not quite that.

I know the difference between a focaccia and a pinsa. Turin, Milan, Bergamo, Brescia and other cities have a lot of "pinseria" joints. Ma tipo tante eh. Saluti!

Maybe they don't cross the Po then, not really seen them in Emilia :)

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#115
post #37
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N.Italy: I'm quarantined [well, it's lockdown, really] with two Italians, one is my wife (other is son): I'm not allowed even remotely near the kitchen. Every mealtime has become a stereotypically-italian ultra-marathon. 2.4kg heavier since. Yes, i am trying to keep fit but going from 30-200km daily bicycle rides (eas 28km commute and back for work) to balconia+pasta+pasta sure takes it toll.

> I'm not allowed even remotely near the kitchen Ahha! I do not know why, but in every international couple I have met (including mine) the Italian part always ends up taking over the kitchen. My non-Italian wife says it is a matter of low adaptability to different cooking styles on our part. Maybe it's true. But she seems to be happy to accept it :-)

In my case it is my significant other which had trouble adapting to Italian food. I took over the kitchen anyway :-), and I'm learning how to cook Turkish food, which is as wonderful as the Italian food.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#116

Our last attempt: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_TDukylKSj/ We made it in a regular home oven but on maximum temperature of 285°C (545°F) and broiler on. It takes no more than 2-3 minutes. We followed this recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SJGQ2HLp8

Wow, Instagram has really gone over to the dark side. They haven't just broken the back button, they have entirely disabled it. There is no way to escape that site other than typing in a new URL or going to your browser history.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#117
post #116

Our last attempt: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_TDukylKSj/ We made it in a regular home oven but on maximum temperature of 285°C (545°F) and broiler on. It takes no more than 2-3 minutes. We followed this recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SJGQ2HLp8

Wow, Instagram has really gone over to the dark side. They haven't just broken the back button, they have entirely disabled it. There is no way to escape that site other than typing in a new URL or going to your browser history.

Terrible, sorry about that. Only on desktop though. On mobile works fine.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#118

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…

> But yes, if you use a wine costing 2-3 euros, quality of taste in many aspects will be incomparable even to that average joe. 2-3 euro wine tastes disgusting to even an "average joe"

Pretty sure I've had wine that cheap in France and it was perfectly OK.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#119

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…

I find a pizza stone is a great addition to the regular home oven for crispy bases.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would instant yeast have an effect on slow rising? You'd just use a smaller amount than AD or cake yeast? I can't think of any significant difference especially compared to AD.

Instant yeast tends to be very aggressive/successful so what happens if you use a small amount of instant yeast is you get a slow rise but it's a monoculture microbially speaking versus if you use a typical sourdough starter (called "madre" in Italian baking) there are several strains of bacteria which are about equivalent in terms of how fast they multiply. So the final dough has a more diverse microbiome. The theor…

Definitely agree in regards to sourdough starter vs yeast. Although I thought most Neapolitan pizzerias didn't use sourdough anyways - would love to be wrong about this.
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