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The tree of perfection is a thorny bitch to climb. However, when one does, through perseverance and sheer will reach the zenith - the view is breathtaking. I am of the belief that it is possible for an apt home cook to replicate or better *MOST* of the very best dishes they eat out. I have had my share of success. A perfectly grilled ribeye, Danish from scratch,, homemade pasta, &c. The glaring shortcoming of my abilities thus far: a) vexation at being completely incapable of scoring a baguette properly and b) pizza that rides a wide modulation between “OK” and “good,” never reaching “WOW!” or much less so even “great"… that is until now. I have attempted this project buttressed with a more than basic understanding of baking and the guidance of several notable sources:

The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook: A Consuming Passion by Patrick O’Connell

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart

and My food blogging idol and friend Joe

to NO AVAIL. Well imafoodblog.com readers, I have FOUND THE HOLY GRAIL OF PIZZA, and YOU can make it at home.

Follow up:

Vera Pizza Napoletana is an entity all onto itself. The basic principles of which boil down to:

• The use of historically accurate (and regulated ingredients)
• DO NOT waiver from the stringent standards of weight/measure/process
• K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid, a.k.a. don’t mess with what works)

Technically the pizza I made is not a “Verace Pizza Napoletana” because I failed to bake it in a wood fired oven that is built to their specifications (all of which can be found by clicking on the link above). It is impossible to believe that any wide portion of the population would be able to afford these ridiculous ovens. Only the very wealthy and truly elitist foodies would even consider such an addition to their home cooking accoutrement. That said, I did follow all of the other, sometimes specific to the point of hilarity, instructions/regulations.

Above you will find all of the ingredients necessary to create a true VPN. Here is some info on the products to be used taken from their spec:

a. wheat flour type “00″ - this stuff is really cool, for more info on it see this: Joe’s article here. Not available widely in the US. Be prepared to part with an organ to buy it from specialty suppliers online.

b. Water:
• pH = 6-7
• Recommended temperature for production: 20 – 22°C
• Moderately hard: 60 - 80 mg/L as calcium

Well we definitely have water here. Talk about being a bunch of specific Steves… Checking with the DC Water and Sewer Authority, we whiff on the hardness scale. I do know, however, that we are looking at about 80 mg/L calcium in this particular apartment (after filtration) because of all my experimentation with making beer (including the batch where I underestimated the CO2 pressure and ended up blowing the top off my fermenter and getting beer onto the floor/wall/ceiling/desk/counter top/Sara’s puppy calender).

c. Salt: sea salt must be used - How about “Fleur de Sel?” I’ve got this one on the lock down.

d Yeast: Compressed yeast, biologically produced, solid, soft and beige in colour - I love fresh Yeast. I have this on hand whenever possible.

e. the recommended tomato is the “pomodoro pelato S.Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P.” - BALLZ. I’ll have to order these too.

f. Mozzarella – Certified mozzarella di bufala campana D.O.P, mozzarella S.T.G - Why not, it’s only $12/lb?

g. Oregano - How bout we use some imported Sicilian wild oregano… Oh it’s expensive and difficult to get, no bother, the good people at foodbuzz.com are picking up the tab.

h. fresh basil - I always have this on hand for my Roasted Basil and Garlic Olive Oil.

i. Olive Oil - Cold pressed olive oil that has not been refined, that is, extra-virgin or virgin olive oil, contains natural, biological antioxidants such as toceferol (Vitamin E). - Let’s just go ahead and order some from Italy to be safe.

Sheesh.

I am tempted to sub-title this photo: “20 minutes and 3 Bob Dylan tracks before a trip to Taco Bell.” It is just oregano, I swear.

The tomatoes are “homogenized by hand” as per instruction. Unlike other pizza sauces I’ve made nothing is added and the mixture is uncooked (until it hits the piping hot oven).

For the dough:

Water 1 litre (1000 ml)
Salt 50-55 grams
Yeast 3 grams
Flour 1.7/1.8 kg (depending on strength)
Mixing time 10 minutes to add flour

We have a
KitchenAid KP26M1XNP Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixer, Nickel Pearl and have never used it to full capacity before.

This time, it was over capacity. All of the water is added to the mixing bowl, and then the salt is dissolved. Yeast is added and then about 10% of the flour. The remaining amount is added slowly over a period of 10 minutes whilst mixing, always mixing, until the dough reaches: “optimal condition” - WTF? You were awfully specific about the water PH & hardness and which tomatoes to buy and now you could NOT BE MORE cryptic about the look/feel of the dough? Thanks, thanks a million. It took about 2 minutes after all of the flour was incorporated to realize that there was no way in hell our mixer was going to properly knead this dough. Sara and I kneaded it, instead, by hand, for 20 minutes until we got the above balls. They are covered with a damp cloth and allowed to primary ferment for 2 hours.

After the dough has risen, it is punched down and rolled into a log, and cut into 250g portions. It is then rolled “exclusively by hand” into equal weight balls. This stage is called: “staglio a mano” and the dough balls are called “panetti.” I had more than enough of this project for one night. They went in the fridge, I went to the bar, and all was well in the world.

The next morning I removed the panetti from the fridge and allowed them to rise for about 4 hours at room temperature before I formed the crusts. As you can see the dough is super thin (you can see my granite through it at some points). I am in no way a professional pizza dough roller. Not so unlike my TWD Daquoise FAIL, I didn’t quite get the circle I wanted. No bother, forward and upward we go.

This is the ridiculously expensive imported Mozzarella di Bufali. Consequently, it was SO much better than the fresh local stuff, I will pay the extra few bucks for it EVERY TIME. I like to support local artisans, but when you’re crushed, you’re crushed…

Pizza #1 is swirled with olive oil in the required circular motion and is ready to go into the oven.

Here she is out of the oven that was pre-heated for an hour at it’s highest temperature setting and a pizza stone inserted (lighting not so good for the picture, but trust me it tasted awesome). I ended up making several of these as I had some hungry pizza loving (pizza snobbing) Jews from LI and Geoff to feed.

Here is pizza #2. Notice that this time it is A LOT more round-ish. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.

Admittedly, this was not they very best pizza I have ever had. It was however, by far the best that I have ever made and is superior in every way to 99% of what you’ll find out. Having done this, I can see why they are so strict in the rules, and further why having the wood fired oven is imperative. In the end, the home oven is sufficient for crisping the extremely thin crust, but it just lacks that je nais se quoi that eating this pizza in a cafe in Napoli must have. I will definitely be making this again, with the same ingredients. It is my opinion that the most important differentiation between this an my previous failed attempts is the flour - standard tomatoes/cheese/other toppings would be fine. If you are serious about making pizza at home, get some “00″ flour from Italy, and give it another go!

I will be submitting this post to this month’s Bread Baking Day. The theme this month is pizza party and is being hosted by Zorra of 1x
umrühren bitte aka kochtopf and this week’s Yeast spotting on wildyeastblog.com