Post by greensheepuk on Mar 5, 2013 22:16:15 GMT
Well, while my beef brisket is on hold in the BBQ section of the forum I thought I might document my Napoli pizza making process from top to bottom as it stands right now. I’m still a beginner as far as Napoli goes and so the recipe keeps evolving as I learn more but like any Napoli recipe, my constant goal is maximising all of the positive aspects of a minimum number of ingredients.
Pics at the bottom!
Dough.
I can’t credit any one source with the recipe I’m using at the moment as it’s come from a number of sources, most notably Forno Bravo and Jeff Varsano. As it stand I’m using:
Ingredient - Bakers Percentage - This Batch
Flour - 100% - 500g
Water - 65% - 325g
Salt - 3.5% - 17.5g
Dried Active Yeast - 0.5% - 2.5g
I’ll summarise the recipe points as best I can:
1. Flour is strong white bread flour, I aim for 12-14% protein from the label
2. Dried active yeast comes in tins from the supermarket, it’s not the same as instant yeast. I use it because once opened it keeps in the freezer for an age. I know it’s no comparison to a sourdough starter, that’s my next step! Dried active yeast needs to be activated before use, this is not the same as ‘proofing/prooving’ as I understand it. I take approx 100ml/100g of the above water at luke warm temps (105-115f) and mix in about 1/2tsp of sugar ‘til dissolved, then add the yeast and again mix ‘til dissolved. Then leave for 5 mins or so and there should be a foam on top and a smell of yeasty goodness! I’ve tried using this yeast without this step more than once (usually by mistake) and it has never worked.
3. Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl (try to keep the salt and yeast mix separate until mixing starts), but hold back approximately ¼ of the flour. Mix gently with a dough hook for 1-2 mins until all the ingredients are combined (i.e. no loose flour) then leave covered at room temperature for approx 20mins (look elsewhere for the reasons for this but don’t skip this step!)
4. After the rest, turn the mixer back on for 5 mins at low speed, at this point the dough should be very wet and probably unmanageable by hand. After the 5 mins is up, add the remaining flour a spoonful at a time (let the dough take on each spoonful of flour before adding more) until the dough is as wet as possible but just manageable by hand. This sounded like a difficult aim to achieve to me, but for a beginner simply make as above the first time adding all the remaining flour and enjoy your pizza. The next time leave 15g behind, if that’s still ok to handle then leave off another 15g next time. Keep going with this until you can no longer handle the dough properly to form the pizza, by this point you’ll have enough experience to judge the dough based on look/feel and you’ll know how much flour to leave out. If you find you’re always leaving the same amount out then you can adjust the base recipe to suit but you should always be adding the remaining flour until the dough feels right, not until there’s none left to add! The properties/humidity of flour can vary from bag to bag so no recipe will ever be perfect on all occasions. It’s all about the look and feel of the dough, not quantities.
5. After adding enough flour, mix for a further 4-5mins until the dough is smooth.
6. Split the dough into balls, I find about 225g is right for 11” Napoli, 250g for 12”. Roll the dough ‘into itself’ for a minute or so, so that the dough has no outside torn edges (look this up on google/youtube). Then place in a very lightly oiled bowl/box, covered with cling film, in the fridge. You should use as little oil as possible to allow the dough to be removed later for shaping without disturbing its structure too much but using too much will make shaping more difficult and impair the final pizza.
7. The dough is in the fridge to develop flavour and texture, not volume. The next step for me will be to move onto sourdough starters with days long cold ferments in the fridge to make the most of this process and maximise flavour, but that’s not this recipe. This recipe is a stop-gap for short notice pizzas so I simply make the dough as early as I can and leave in the fridge for as long as possible bearing in mind that I need to take the dough out then let it come up to temperature and rise before I can use it.
8. So as above, my oven takes about 60mins to get up to temp, so I take the dough out another 60 mins before I light the oven so the dough has a total of 2hr to warm up and rise. I put the dough bowl somewhere slightly warm but most importantly away from drafts. In my case it’s on top of a snake tank lol, but that’s not essential, an airing cupboard is fine!
9. Once the dough has barely doubled in size its ready to shape and cook. Be careful with the dough from this point onwards, any rough handling will knock the air out.
Sauce.
1. This recipe is getting too long so I’ll keep it simple. I’m sure the best Napoli pizza sauce comes from San Marzano tomatoes, but they’re near impossible to get hold of where I am, whether fresh or tinned. I’m actually going to attempt to grow some this year but until then my current best pizza sauce is simply passata. No salt, no sugar, no oregano no cooking, just in a bowl at room temperature. On this occasion I’m using Sainsburys fine chopped tomatoes in tomato juice as I’d never seen them before and thought they were worth a go. But I’ve also used normal tinned tomatoes drained in a sieve (to remove some excess water) then pressed through the sieve or just chopped to make a sauce. Whatever the method just don’t pre-cook them if it’s going in a WFO, a Napoli style pizza with a pre-cooked sauce isn’t a Napoli style pizza.
Cheese.
1. Mozzarella. Buffalo mozzarella is noticeably better than cows mozzarella and is always worth the extra cost if you can get it. I drain from the bag, slice thickly and press between kitchen paper to remove excess moisture, you might have to change the paper once or twice. Then tear into small chunks.
2. Parmesan. Grate. Easy! Don’t buy the pre-grated/shaved stuff, it’s certainly convenient but it tastes like crap.
Basil and Olive Oil.
1. Fresh basil, good olive oil. Easy!
Extras.
The majority of times I make good old margarita. When it comes to Napoli pizza it’s either margarita or marinara so any extra ingredients is straying from tradition. So when I do add them for a bit of variety it’s all about quality not quantity, I don’t want to mask all the effort that’s gone into the above with a flood of toppings. Today it’s simply some iberico chorizo and green queen olives.
Forming and Topping.
So the oven is ready, the dough is ready and all the ingredients are prepped and at room temperature. For the last six months or so I can happily say that I’ve only formed my bases by hand, It’s a huge improvement over using a rolling pin and although the first few (ok maybe first 20!) were a bit messy and occasionally disastrous, I’m getting better every time and am actually starting to enjoy the process! That being said, I’m certainly not the person to be teaching anyone how to do it, however I have watched a lot of tutorial videos and the best one by far has been:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbkfDqA8yKg
It seems more aimed to a commercial kitchen and the dough is much drier than you want for a WFO/Napoli pizza but it’s very detailed and helped me a lot.
Once it’s formed and cleared of as much loose flour as possible, the base is straight onto the lightly floured peel (Home-made from a £5 Wickes floor board! Lol). Once the basic stretching is done you really need to minimise the amount of flour involved. Don’t be tempted to throw a handful of flour/semolina onto the worktop or peel to stop the pizza sticking, it’ll compromise the way it cooks. Just a light dusting is all you want, just add the toppings as quickly as you can and shuffle the peel backwards and forwards every so often to prevent sticking, this whole process will get better with practice.
Adding topping to me is simple enough, I always follow the same order. Sauce, mozza, parmesan, other toppings, basil, salt and pepper (optional), olive oil. The most important point with toppings is to keep them light, again quality not quantity. There should be plenty of sauce still visible when you’re done, if all you can see is pepperoni and mushrooms then you’ve overdone it!
Cooking.
Not much I can say here as clearly every WFO is different. For me it’s 2-4 mins with regular turning. The only thing I would say, and this is purely my own opinion, but if it takes longer than about 5 mins to cook a Napoli style pizza then you’re oven isn’t hot enough and you’re probably not getting the best out of the ingredients and prep. That’s not to say it won’t be a good pizza, just maybe not as good as it could be.
JK
Pics at the bottom!
Dough.
I can’t credit any one source with the recipe I’m using at the moment as it’s come from a number of sources, most notably Forno Bravo and Jeff Varsano. As it stand I’m using:
Ingredient - Bakers Percentage - This Batch
Flour - 100% - 500g
Water - 65% - 325g
Salt - 3.5% - 17.5g
Dried Active Yeast - 0.5% - 2.5g
I’ll summarise the recipe points as best I can:
1. Flour is strong white bread flour, I aim for 12-14% protein from the label
2. Dried active yeast comes in tins from the supermarket, it’s not the same as instant yeast. I use it because once opened it keeps in the freezer for an age. I know it’s no comparison to a sourdough starter, that’s my next step! Dried active yeast needs to be activated before use, this is not the same as ‘proofing/prooving’ as I understand it. I take approx 100ml/100g of the above water at luke warm temps (105-115f) and mix in about 1/2tsp of sugar ‘til dissolved, then add the yeast and again mix ‘til dissolved. Then leave for 5 mins or so and there should be a foam on top and a smell of yeasty goodness! I’ve tried using this yeast without this step more than once (usually by mistake) and it has never worked.
3. Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl (try to keep the salt and yeast mix separate until mixing starts), but hold back approximately ¼ of the flour. Mix gently with a dough hook for 1-2 mins until all the ingredients are combined (i.e. no loose flour) then leave covered at room temperature for approx 20mins (look elsewhere for the reasons for this but don’t skip this step!)
4. After the rest, turn the mixer back on for 5 mins at low speed, at this point the dough should be very wet and probably unmanageable by hand. After the 5 mins is up, add the remaining flour a spoonful at a time (let the dough take on each spoonful of flour before adding more) until the dough is as wet as possible but just manageable by hand. This sounded like a difficult aim to achieve to me, but for a beginner simply make as above the first time adding all the remaining flour and enjoy your pizza. The next time leave 15g behind, if that’s still ok to handle then leave off another 15g next time. Keep going with this until you can no longer handle the dough properly to form the pizza, by this point you’ll have enough experience to judge the dough based on look/feel and you’ll know how much flour to leave out. If you find you’re always leaving the same amount out then you can adjust the base recipe to suit but you should always be adding the remaining flour until the dough feels right, not until there’s none left to add! The properties/humidity of flour can vary from bag to bag so no recipe will ever be perfect on all occasions. It’s all about the look and feel of the dough, not quantities.
5. After adding enough flour, mix for a further 4-5mins until the dough is smooth.
6. Split the dough into balls, I find about 225g is right for 11” Napoli, 250g for 12”. Roll the dough ‘into itself’ for a minute or so, so that the dough has no outside torn edges (look this up on google/youtube). Then place in a very lightly oiled bowl/box, covered with cling film, in the fridge. You should use as little oil as possible to allow the dough to be removed later for shaping without disturbing its structure too much but using too much will make shaping more difficult and impair the final pizza.
7. The dough is in the fridge to develop flavour and texture, not volume. The next step for me will be to move onto sourdough starters with days long cold ferments in the fridge to make the most of this process and maximise flavour, but that’s not this recipe. This recipe is a stop-gap for short notice pizzas so I simply make the dough as early as I can and leave in the fridge for as long as possible bearing in mind that I need to take the dough out then let it come up to temperature and rise before I can use it.
8. So as above, my oven takes about 60mins to get up to temp, so I take the dough out another 60 mins before I light the oven so the dough has a total of 2hr to warm up and rise. I put the dough bowl somewhere slightly warm but most importantly away from drafts. In my case it’s on top of a snake tank lol, but that’s not essential, an airing cupboard is fine!
9. Once the dough has barely doubled in size its ready to shape and cook. Be careful with the dough from this point onwards, any rough handling will knock the air out.
Sauce.
1. This recipe is getting too long so I’ll keep it simple. I’m sure the best Napoli pizza sauce comes from San Marzano tomatoes, but they’re near impossible to get hold of where I am, whether fresh or tinned. I’m actually going to attempt to grow some this year but until then my current best pizza sauce is simply passata. No salt, no sugar, no oregano no cooking, just in a bowl at room temperature. On this occasion I’m using Sainsburys fine chopped tomatoes in tomato juice as I’d never seen them before and thought they were worth a go. But I’ve also used normal tinned tomatoes drained in a sieve (to remove some excess water) then pressed through the sieve or just chopped to make a sauce. Whatever the method just don’t pre-cook them if it’s going in a WFO, a Napoli style pizza with a pre-cooked sauce isn’t a Napoli style pizza.
Cheese.
1. Mozzarella. Buffalo mozzarella is noticeably better than cows mozzarella and is always worth the extra cost if you can get it. I drain from the bag, slice thickly and press between kitchen paper to remove excess moisture, you might have to change the paper once or twice. Then tear into small chunks.
2. Parmesan. Grate. Easy! Don’t buy the pre-grated/shaved stuff, it’s certainly convenient but it tastes like crap.
Basil and Olive Oil.
1. Fresh basil, good olive oil. Easy!
Extras.
The majority of times I make good old margarita. When it comes to Napoli pizza it’s either margarita or marinara so any extra ingredients is straying from tradition. So when I do add them for a bit of variety it’s all about quality not quantity, I don’t want to mask all the effort that’s gone into the above with a flood of toppings. Today it’s simply some iberico chorizo and green queen olives.
Forming and Topping.
So the oven is ready, the dough is ready and all the ingredients are prepped and at room temperature. For the last six months or so I can happily say that I’ve only formed my bases by hand, It’s a huge improvement over using a rolling pin and although the first few (ok maybe first 20!) were a bit messy and occasionally disastrous, I’m getting better every time and am actually starting to enjoy the process! That being said, I’m certainly not the person to be teaching anyone how to do it, however I have watched a lot of tutorial videos and the best one by far has been:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbkfDqA8yKg
It seems more aimed to a commercial kitchen and the dough is much drier than you want for a WFO/Napoli pizza but it’s very detailed and helped me a lot.
Once it’s formed and cleared of as much loose flour as possible, the base is straight onto the lightly floured peel (Home-made from a £5 Wickes floor board! Lol). Once the basic stretching is done you really need to minimise the amount of flour involved. Don’t be tempted to throw a handful of flour/semolina onto the worktop or peel to stop the pizza sticking, it’ll compromise the way it cooks. Just a light dusting is all you want, just add the toppings as quickly as you can and shuffle the peel backwards and forwards every so often to prevent sticking, this whole process will get better with practice.
Adding topping to me is simple enough, I always follow the same order. Sauce, mozza, parmesan, other toppings, basil, salt and pepper (optional), olive oil. The most important point with toppings is to keep them light, again quality not quantity. There should be plenty of sauce still visible when you’re done, if all you can see is pepperoni and mushrooms then you’ve overdone it!
Cooking.
Not much I can say here as clearly every WFO is different. For me it’s 2-4 mins with regular turning. The only thing I would say, and this is purely my own opinion, but if it takes longer than about 5 mins to cook a Napoli style pizza then you’re oven isn’t hot enough and you’re probably not getting the best out of the ingredients and prep. That’s not to say it won’t be a good pizza, just maybe not as good as it could be.
JK