- Hello everyone.
It's Dave from Austin Eats.
Today we're going to tackle pizza.
Not just any pizza,
but a true Neapolitan pizza.
The original margarita pizza that came out of Naples, Italy.
And, of course, to do this right,
we're going to do it with fire.
And a lot of fire. Now, I know a lot of you don't have a
wood-burning pizza oven in your backyard,
but that's okay.
We'll tell you how to adjust the recipe and the technique
to you use a pizza stone in a standard oven,
but for now we're going to do this the right way
and cook with fire.
So let's get started.
I'm a big believer in getting the right tool for the job.
And here's a few things that are going to help make your
pizza-making adventure a whole heck of a lot easier.
A dough tub to let the dough proof in while it's rising.
Of course, a pizza cutter and a pastry blade are helpful,
but the most important things right here are the two scales.
Why?
Because you always want to make,
and I mean always,
want to do your dough based on weight, not by volume.
You'll get a much better product,
and we'll be rewarded with an incredible pizza,
and you'll never go back.
Why two scales?
Well, the one on the right is a 500-gram scale with
an accuracy of a 10th of a gram.
That's great for weighing things like flour, you know,
500 grams of flour,
or a couple hundred grams of water.
It's not so good when you're measuring small quantities
like, oh, a gram and a half of yeast.
When you're measuring something small,
you want a more accurate scale.
The one on the left is a 200-gram capacity scale that is
accurate to within a hundredth of a gram.
So I suggest getting both.
They're just not that expensive.
And you will be rewarded with a relatively minor investment
and fantastic pizza.
I'm also a big believer in using the right product,
So I use flour out of Italy.
And the flour I use is Caputo brand.
They come out of the mill just outside of Naples,
and this is fantastic flour.
Now, I have two different flours here.
The one on the left is a true pizzeria flour,
and that's the flour you're going to use
if you are cooking in a wood-fired pizza oven,
where the floor gets to about 900 degrees.
You need the pizzeria flour for that.
If, however, you're cooking on a pizza stone
and a standard oven, well,
then you want to use the chef's flour.
If you use the chef's flour in a hot, hot oven,
you're going to have a mess,
and you're going to be cleaning the oven.
So they make two different products
depending on how you're using it.
So I suggest buying the one based on
how you're going to do this.
You'll also notice that I'm using Caputo brand yeast.
Now, I could have used probably any active, dry yeast,
but I figured why not?
Now the other key ingredient is using San Marzano
Roma tomatoes.
Now, they only come out of Italy.
They were available in 28-ounce cans at most
major supermarkets.
Throw these a blender with a little fine sea salt,
and you will have just a very simple but delicious pizza
sauce that will accompany just about any pizza
that you can conjure up.
So it's time to make some dough.
We're going to start by placing 14 grams of very fine sea
salt in our mixing bowl with 290 grams of water.
That's 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's 58% of the volume of the flour.
That's the Baker's percentage.
Now, that's going to be a little bit different if we were
making this for a pizza stone oven.
For this recipe, for this oven, we're using a 58%.
So we're just going to swish that around a little bit
to make sure that the salt dissolves.
It's ... you really want to have the salt
completely dissolved before you add the yeast.
That's looking pretty good.
So in goes one and a half grams of the yeast,
and we're just going to let that sit for a moment.
I just want it to hydrate for a moment or two before
I swirl it around.
Just let it soak a little water,
and then we'll swish that around.
Yeah, that looks pretty good.
Give that a swirl. That's the way we want it.
Now we're going to add 500 grams of flour.
We're using the pizzeria flour.
This is the high-temp flour from Caputo.
So we're going to put this on our mixer.
We're going to start right away with the dough hook,
and we're going to incorporate the dough.
Now, it'll take probably three or four minutes at first
to get this dough to come together.
And you're going to have to scrape down the sides a couple
of times because the dough hook is just not very effective
at pulling that flour in from the sides.
That's okay.
It'll take its time.
And in three or four minutes,
it will start coming together.
And when this is done,
we're simply going to let it rest for 20 minutes.
Now, you know it's done when you look in
the bottom of the bowl and those strange pieces,
those extra pieces that are just swirling around down there.
When those have incorporated,
then we're ready to rest.
We rest 20 minutes, we come back and then start kneading,
and we're going to kneed on the low speed for
about three minutes.
And then we're going to need on the second speed
for another three minutes.
Once we're done with the kneed process,
and that looks pretty good right there,
into the dote tub it goes.
That's been lightly sprayed,
and it rests for two hours.
Now it's time to start forming the dough.
We're going to take that dough,
and we're going to do our first fold.
So we're going to stretch it out,
fold it on top of itself,
pull it apart, do it again,
do it one more time.
And then once we've done that third fold,
we're going to roughly fold it into a ball.
A couple of hours later,
we're going to take that same dough ball
and just cut it into three equal pieces.
And once we have three equal pieces,
then we're going to start forming our actual pizza dough
balls that we will then use for creating each
individual pizza.
So in order to do that,
there's a technique of pulling the dough tight
that I want to show you here.
We're going to take each dough ball
on a counter that is not floured.
So you don't want your hands floured.
You don't want the counter floured.
And we're going to carefully pull
while pressing down just slightly
with the back of your hands.
Like you're with your little fingers,
you're sort of pulling the dough toward you,
but never rotating off of the seam.
So the seam is staying down this entire time.
And what we're trying to do is tighten up the ball.
We're trying to make the ball,
the top of the ball,
very smooth, very even,
and a little bit tighter in texture.
Now, this will help us create a dough or pizza that is
actually nice and easy to work with when it comes
time to form it.
I put these back in the tub that has been sprayed with a
little cooking spray.
Hit 'em on the top with little cooking spray
so they don't dry out,
and then cover them up and come back
to them a little later.
These get refrigerated overnight, by the way.
The next day, when it's time to make pizza,
you take each dough ball and flatten it out on a floured
cutting board.
Now to do this,
you just use your fingers,
and you start at the center,
and you sort of work your way out to the rim.
Now, you don't go all the way
because you want to have a rim on your pizza.
That's part of the fun of making pizza is you want a nice
thick rim.
So push out almost all the way.
Now, once you have it about eight inches in diameter
or so,
then we're going to start stretching the dough.
And I'm going to do that by picking the dough up and simply
stretching the outer crust by holding it vertically and
letting gravity sort of pull this down.
This will automatically expand the dough.
No need to throw this in the air,
although that's a lot of fun,
it also makes a huge mess.
And you have to explain to your significant other why you
got flour everywhere.
I'm not allowed to do that in my house.
So the best I can do is put it over my knuckles
and gently stretch the dough out until I have it
to about 12 inches in diameter.
Once we're ready, once we have it formed at 12 inches,
we're going to take our pizza peel,
and wood is great,
hit it with some corn meal so that it kind of acts
like a lubricant almost.
It acts like a little BBs,
and your pizza will just slide right off
into the pizza oven.
Put your pizza up on top and now get the shape right.
You know, put it back into the round shape,
and we're gonna hit it with a little bit of
really good olive oil.
I, of course, have olive oil from Tuscany.
You could use anything you really want,
but buy a good olive oil.
Brush it all around,
paying particular attention to the edges.
Why?
Because the edges are going to be close to the fire,
unprotected, and the olive oil will give it
a little bit of protection,
give it a nice opportunity to develop a great golden color
and not really burn.
So once we have our olive oil down,
now it comes time for the tomatoes.
Generally a third of a cup is what I use on a pizza,
but not so with a margarita.
Why?
Because a margarita is going to use Buffalo mozzarella,
which is a lot of water content in it.
So if you use a full third of a cup,
well, you're making soup, not pizza.
So put on a sparse quarter cup,
smear it all the way to the edge,
and then put on a little bit of either Pecorino,
Romano, or Parmesan, right on top of that.
It doesn't take much.
Maybe a little less than a quarter of a cup,
not even.
Maybe a couple of tablespoons.
And then on top of that,
we're going to lay down our sliced Buffalo mozzarella.
Now Buffalo mozzarella, water mozzarella,
is available in most markets.
And most markets are carrying a true cow's milk
mozzarella that is very different than a Buffalo mozzarella.
The Buffalo mozzarella can be found online
and even in some of the specialty markets,
and it is well worth - even Costco has it.
And it is well worth it.
It's not that expensive.
And it makes a very big difference in the pie.
Now, a true margarita pizza has basil on it.
You know, people are split whether you put
the basil on before or after the fire.
Frankly, the fire is so hot,
and it just kills the look of the basil,
so I prefer to do it after.
So first of all, the fire is nice and hot.
We got to move everything back and get this ready.
And once we've got the fire pushed to the back wall,
we should have a nice big rolling fire across the roof of
the pizza oven.
Now we're ready to cook.
So once the floor is swept clean, in goes the pizza.
And believe it or not,
we're going to put it pretty close to the fire,
about six inches.
Now, the floor of that oven is about 900 degrees right now.
And I know that because I measure it with a
laser thermometer.
By building the fire in the center,
and then pushing it up,
all those embers are blasting the heat into the
floor of the oven.
So as this thing radiates heat,
it's now cooking the crust on the bottom,
and the fire in the back is actually working
to brown the edge of the crust.
So after about 20 seconds or so, we're going to rotate it
maybe a quarter return.
This thing is going to cook in 90 seconds.
90 seconds.
That is all.
So you don't want to walk away.
You don't want to go get a beer.
You want to watch what you're doing and pay attention
to the pizza.
after another 15 seconds or so,
we're going to rotate it again.
And you can see just on the right side there,
the crust is just starting to be golden brown.
Now, you'll notice I don't do two pies at one time.
Why?
Because I want to be able to control this.
If I do two pizzas at a time, it's very easy to forget one.
And then I'm throwing it away and making it all over again.
So the heat coming across the top of the oven is what's
really melting the cheese and cooking all of the flavors
on whatever toppings you have.
And the fire in the back is what's actually cooking the edge
of the crust.
And the heat coming from the bottom is what's
cooking the rest of the crust.
So after about oh, 70, 80 seconds,
we're pretty darn close.
We're going to check the bottom here in a second and
make sure that it is nice and starting to be golden brown.
And then we're going to pull this out and let it sit
for a few minutes.
Very important specifically with a margarita pizza.
Why?
Because these are a little soupy.
And like I said, there's a lot of water content,
and you want it to set up a little bit.
Then we're going to dress it up with some basil.
Again, I add the basil the end,
not before it goes in the oven.
And I like a lot of basil.
So it's a basil in every bite kind of pizza for me.
So we load it up with the basil and get this,
let it just set for a moment or two, slice it up.
And then we have a true slice of heaven,
right out of Naples.
The true margarita pizza from Italy.
It doesn't get any better than that.
It just doesn't, honestly.
Oh my God. That's so good.
That is so good.
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Links to the recipes can be found below.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
See you next time on another Austin Eats.