A pizza cookery weekend in Naples helps, good fun too!
Ahh Corona, well spotted, I should have been more specific on the ādoughā. The creation of one I disapprove of vehemently, the ingestion of the other my doctor disapproves of. What can one do
We do a sourdough pizza!
We were in Naples earlier this year and enjoyed the chaos. A return next year to maximise the ROI on our new pizza oven makes complete sense (in my head ). Any recommendations?
We have a panasonic bread maker, and I use the standard white bread recipe for the dough. I then leave it in a tub in the fridge, and there is dough whenever I want a pizza. Leaving the dough in the fridge does improve it since it is easier to roll, but you have to let it warm up first. I tried one of the recipes from YouTube but it came out too wet and sticky.
In Naples, did you make it to the āLāantica Pizzeria da Micheleā. Fantastic atmosphere and pizzas.
We made it to many wonderful pizzerias! I canāt remember the school, but I am now responsible for shaping the pizzas so must have learnt something
Pizza night is after we refresh the bread starter, so the bit that would otherwise be thrown out gets turned into dough with pizza flour and spends the next 17+ hours in the fridge developing flavour.
What is the bread starter? I just use dried yeast.
We make sourdough, so use wild yeast. A bread starter is often called a āmotherā, and sits in a box in the fridge until we want it. Basically a live culture of flour and water. And does have to be fed from time to time if we donāt make bread, pizza, crumpets, naans, breadsticks etc.
Slow proving times, but much more flavour and many find easier on the gut.
We got one based on the discussion in this thread, and used it for the first time last night. All fine apart from my being clumsy and messing up placing second pizza so a heap of sauce and cheese dropped on the stone.
Remaining 4/5th of pizza was just fine but how do I clean burnt gunk off the (reconstituted?) stone?
High temperature burns most of it off but they do take on a patina after a while.
Most, but not all. Still some gunky bits and I donāt want next pizza to stick.
Phew, must have been messy! Generally if I have a spill, I just leave the oven on once I have finished cooking at a high setting and it soon chars it off. I have scraped a few bits off gently, but there are many warning not to wet the pizza stone since it may fracture.
Semolina and flour mix on the pizza stops it sticking.
Part of the gunk is die to the semolina and flour mixing with the fallen pizza sauce and creating a new form of concrete .
(And yes, messyā¦)
If using the oven at full temp doesnāt burn it off then the ovenās not getting hot enough!
Ok, so I thought Iāll put it on again to burn off the gunkā¦ā¦.how stupid can one be!!
Luckily we have an effective smoke alarm, and I have already read the instruction book!
Whoops!
By the way, I just read the spec for your Ariete pizza oven. It reaches 400°C, which probably isnāt high enough to burn off food residues. Youāll need at least 450°C to do a proper jobā¦
Iāv never seen stone singe like that!
Or wood grain