181–190 of 297 posts
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…
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Nespresso. That's what Italians drink at home today. Easy peasy, always good. Even my relatives in Naples drink it. :)
Second that. As much as I want to believe a $10k La Marzocco is absolutely essential to good espresso, a $100 Nespresso machine and Kazaar roast is the best espresso I've ever had.
I've been using this dough recipe (it has wholewheat in it) [0] and been really liking the flavor of the dough. I've also moved to slow rise, the dough flavor seems more complex (or it could be psychosomatic). I leave it in the fridge for 2 days or 3 days, depending on how quickly we go through one batch.
But for cooking, I'm following this method (which is similar to what suggested in the OP). Basically to cook the pizza with tomato sauce first and then add the cheese [1] (PSA - this guy has such fun personality, be prepared to watch hours of his pizza videos)
I've also bought canned peel san marzano tomatoes (from both Whole Foods and TJs) and just used an impression blender to puree it with some basil.
I watched an interview with the owner of Lucali in NY [2] and he said he cooks his tomato sauce. So I've been cooking my tomato puree simmering it for 30-40 min. It makes it much richer. Still not sure if I like it more or not.
[0] https://www.billyparisi.com/homemade-pizza-homemade-pizza-do...
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For years I've dreamed of building a wood-fired pizza oven, or buying one of the cast kits from https://www.fornobravo.com/ . But this looks way easier and cheaper. How long does a gas cylinder last?
My parents have a wood fired, and I have an Ooni Koda. I can compare: - The base is better on the wood fired oven. The Kodas stone doesn't get hot enough. I've read recommendations to replace the stone with a steel, because it's more conductive. - The koda heats up in a timescale I'm ok with. Like, 20 minutes. For the wood fired oven, it usually takes about 2 hours for the oven itself to be hot enough, but you really…
I had a piece of steel on a propane grill before, and the lid of the grill warped pretty significantly from it.
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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…
Steel slab ("pizza steel") + broiler at full blast does a good job.
I can't speak to pizza, but I have an espresso story to tell. One of my favorite things about going to Italy is the quality of the coffee. I really like extreme dark roast (your typical American diner coffee doesn't even count as coffee in my book). In Italy you can go into pretty much any coffee shop and come away with a top-quality espresso. (Don't even get me started on Starbucks.) It's a taste I inherited from my…
Those Italians in your coworker space, were they baristas or office workers? I would expect that Italians in Italy also cannot produce perfect espresso unless they made it their profession.
I grew up in an Italian household with both parents Italian immigrants and have a large extended Italian family.
It would have been an embarrassment to be unable to make a quality espresso.
I never drank any coffee/espresso beverages growing up and it was seen as a rejection of my family's culture, yet despite not consuming it I still was taught how to make espresso and would do it regularly for my parents.
Cuisine is a big part of Italian culture. We didn't go to restaurants because they made food better than we did at home because they were professionals, we'd go to give my mother a break and every time it was like the restaurant was on trial with my mother pointing out every damn thing that was done worse than had she made it.
Edit:
Just wanted to add that having been raised in that environment where authentic home-cooked delicious food was made every day, I can't go to Italian restaurants anymore, not in the US. It's completely ruined it. There were no professional cooks or barristas under that roof, just OG Italians.
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I feel that learning the classics on cooking is a good way to see how engineering mindset is close to cooking and food preparation mindset. Talking about Italian food in specific, they're very opinionated about what's the best way to work each ingredient, how to work dough, how long to leave pasta resting, and what's the best blend of herbs and the best species for each recipe. On engineering we call it standardizati…
DOP, DOC, etc are not about preference, they are designations for regionally protected products names with some production standards. Just like champagne is only champagne if it was made in champagne region from the right grapes in the right methodology. These assure on the other hand normally a good quality standard as the regional producers' associations have every incentive to keep quality good.
I can't speak to pizza, but I have an espresso story to tell. One of my favorite things about going to Italy is the quality of the coffee. I really like extreme dark roast (your typical American diner coffee doesn't even count as coffee in my book). In Italy you can go into pretty much any coffee shop and come away with a top-quality espresso. (Don't even get me started on Starbucks.) It's a taste I inherited from my…
I grew up with a generic espresso machine (pre-Nespresso, so one where you had to grind and compact the beans yourself) and I could make a decent cup from the age of 14. This was with North-American water and beans of average price and quality.
And now you have a plethora of capsule-based espresso machines with identical convenience to a Keurig, from Nespresso to Caffitaly.
someone mentioned honey instead of sugar, can I have some thoughts on milk instead of water and brown instead of white flour?
- no
- no