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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

#201

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

GuB-42 wrote: post #156
keiferski wrote: post #28

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…

I've met professional wine tasters. They are like human chromatographs. They don't just tell you how good a wine is. They can tell you which compounds are in excess, and which are lacking, they can guess what went wrong with the winemaking process and the growing conditions. They are an essential part of quality control and how wineries fine tune their process. As for difference between cheap and expensive wines, the…

They can tell you anything they like, doesn't make it true.

When put up against a real triangle/discrimination test, they just don't stack up. I'm not saying they don't do anything, but claims of being able to discriminate individual compounds in any sort of detail are not substantiated.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#202

Post by syedkarim »

Nothing beats Neapolitan-style pizza. If you are ever in Chicago, skip the deep dish and instead head over to Spacca Napoli on the city's northside.

https://www.spaccanapolipizzeria.com/

Supposedly, the owner shipped in Italian raw materials for the clay oven, as well as Italian masons to build it. I don't know that the oven is the reason for why their product is so good, but it is just miles apart from any other type of pizza in Chicago.

They also have wines that can't be found anywhere else in the US.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#203

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

Neopolitan is a setup for failure in the home kitchen. It's one of the most demanding styles in terms of equipment and preparation. It makes zero sense to pursue it at home unless you actually have a very strong preference for this style (highly unlikely if commercial pizza is even a crude reflection of preferences).

It's fetishism. It's sought because it has cultural cachet, it's hard to obtain, it's 'authentic', etc.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#204

Post by devchix »

dangerboysteve wrote: post #111
albmoriconi wrote: post #52

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

He hacks his home oven to use the self-cleaning cycle to bake at 800°F. :blink: I'm not comfortable doing that. I rarely crank mine to 500°F, when I do there's quite a bit of smoke that has to be vent.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#205

Post by sk5t »

seanhunter wrote: post #85
slow_donkey wrote: post #58

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…

It's called the same thing ("mother") in English, across uses in sourdough starter, kombucha, balsamic vinegar...

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#206

Post by ReptileMan »

tomcooks wrote: post #38
subpixel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

While I agree on your fetishism point, which is in my opinion a byproduct of both post-colonialist "exoticism" and capital-driven standardization of products: using a refractory stone allows your kitchen oven to reach the right temperatures. And it IS a superior style of pizza /s

Sorry - refractory stone is not enough for neapolitan pizza in home oven. You need something like the baking steel. And if you manage to get the infrared heater on during bake - you can get into the holy 2 minutes of bake time.

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#207

Post by airstrike »

bearzoo wrote: post #196
airstrike wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Pizzarte and Naples 45 in Midtown And for a different type of pizza but honestly my favorite pizza on Earth, try the Portobello pizza at Mediterraneo on the UES. They have no idea how good that pizza is otherwise they'd turn the whole place into a pizzeria and just do that everyday

in NYC una is the best i've found. it easily competes with the best in naples (in my opinion)

Thanks! First time I hear the name, so will definitely check it out next time I'm in the area (probably 2021 by the looks of things!)

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#208

Post by gunshai »

devchix wrote: post #204
dangerboysteve wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He hacks his home oven to use the self-cleaning cycle to bake at 800°F. :blink: I'm not comfortable doing that. I rarely crank mine to 500°F, when I do there's quite a bit of smoke that has to be vent.

Think about accidentally dripping room temperature liquid on to the oven window during the process....

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#209

Post by sevencolors »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #136
lisper wrote: post #126

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 don't know much about espresso, but the pourover coffee I make at home is certainly much higher quality than a Keurig machine. The beans are the most important part - you should get them roasted within the last few weeks. Even the fanciest pourover funnel costs only 50 dollars, but you can certainly get by with a cheap plastic one for a few bucks. If you want to go full hipster, you will also need a temperature con…

Last month I got a simple pour over setup that's not full-hipster. Coffee is 10x better than a Keurig or instant coffee. Both of which i have. Maybe it's partially being trapped in house but it's bordering on better than the coffee shops nearby.

Setup:

Hario v60 ~ $20

Pour Over Filter ~ $10

Grinder - $30 (already had)

Kitchen Scale - $10 (already had)

This guide is a good start: https://www.stumptowncoffee.com/brew-guides/v60

Re: How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

#210

Post by kimi »

boris wrote: post #165
kimi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe not "the best" - but for 30 cents a pop, it's so easy, and it's always good. Of course what you drink at caffe Mexico in Naples is a different thing, maybe a different planet; on the other hand,there are whole countries and maybe whole continents where your trusty Nespresso will brew the best coffee.
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