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Fire in the oven!
By Ann | September 3, 2010
That is, the PIZZA oven. But let me explain. For five years, we’ve rented the same house in Provence, a house with a remarkable garden, a beautiful swimming pool — and a pizza oven. For four years, we’ve attempted to make our own pizzas in the wood-burning oven, only to face uncooked dough, ash-covered cheese, collapsed pies — in other words, unmitigated pizza disaster.
It turns out, fifth time’s the charm!
The secret is lighting the fire about an hour before you cook the pizzas. And the secret to a good fire are those little fire-starter cubes, which turned even this central-heat-loving city girl into expert fire-builder. Add a handful of kindling and some dry logs, and I felt as proud as Cro-Magnon.
Before sliding your pizza into the oven, clear a space for it by carefully moving the embers and burning logs into a semi-circle. Pizza cooks very quickly in a pre-heated, wood-burning oven — only 5-6 minutes. I used a pair of oversized barbecue tongs to rotate my pies so that they singed, er, browned evenly.
As for toppings, I kept it simple since margarita is my favorite. But I broke new margarita territory with this variation: a crust cooked with tomato sauce and topped with slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella after the pie has come out of the oven. Sprinkle with torn basil leaves and drizzle with olive oil. Perfection.
Of course, now that I’ve conquered the oven, I’m only hungry for more homemade pizza… the chewy and crisp crust, the slightly charred flavor that comes from over-exposure to the fire… mmmm! I wonder how my neighbors would feel if I built my own wood-burning oven in an unused corner of my balcony? Just a little one?
Do you have any pizza-making tips, mes amis? I’d love to hear them!
Pizza dough
There have been countless articles about creating the perfect crust with tips on using special flour, aging the dough, kneading, not kneading… But I believe that the secret to a crisp and chewy crust lies quite simply in the heat of your oven — and I’m beginning to suspect that a regular kitchen oven doesn’t get hot enough, even with a pizza stone. If you’re lucky enough to have access to a wood-burning oven, or just want to experiment a little, here’s my recipe for pizza dough, which yields two pizzas for two hungry people.
2 cups all-purpose flour (plus more for dusting and kneading)
1 pinch salt
2/3 cup warm water
1 envelope active dry yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
Combine the flour and salt. Mix together the yeast and warm water until the yeast fizzes. Stir into the flour, along with the olive oil, to form a sticky dough. Turn out onto a floured surface. Dust your hands and the surface of the dough with flour and knead until the dough becomes elastic and non-sticky, sprinkling more flour if necessary, about five minutes. Lightly coat a large bowl with olive oil and place the dough inside, turning once to oil it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for one hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
Punch the dough down, turn it out onto a floured surface and divide into two balls. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise again for 15-20 minutes.
Topics: Sur ma table | 11 Comments »
11 Responses to “Fire in the oven!”
Comments
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September 3rd, 2010 at 6:19 am
Nice, Ann! My pizza bible is American Pie by Peter Reinhart, highly recommend. The dough is all about a cold rise–you make it a day before and refrigerate it overnight. And a new tip I learned recently: when cooking pizza at home, after the stone is preheated, switch the oven to broil (if your broiler is from the top of the oven, of course!). The stone stays hot enough to cook the dough from the bottom and the broil gives you those nice charred bits you get from a real pizza oven.
But wait, aren’t you supposed to be making pissaladiere?
September 3rd, 2010 at 7:30 am
How fantastic! I make pizza at home fairly often, but it’s not the same as a fire-cooked pie. I’ve had some success with calzone, baking it in a preheated Dutch oven à la the famous no-knead bread.
A swimming pool and a pizza oven? I might never leave!
September 3rd, 2010 at 8:30 am
[...] Fire in the oven! | Ann Mah annmah.net/2010/09/03/fire-in-the-oven/ – view page – cached Freelance journalist Ann Mah has contributed to Conde Nast Traveler, the International Herald Tribune and many other publications. This blog features her articles and also discusses food, restaurants and Tweets about this link [...]
September 4th, 2010 at 4:11 am
Omigoodness, Ann – first congratulations on your perseverance! I can’t say I would have stuck with it. But thank goodness you did; I can only imagine how delicious it was! (Just discovered GreenPizz here in Paris; quite yummy.)
September 4th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Wood-fired ovens are a blast!! Our Mugnaini oven was installed in 1997 and I recall our first pizza became a disappointing calzone. We’ve learned to preheat the oven for 3 hours with either oak or almond wood (almond burns hotter) then move the wood to the other side of the oven and place the prepared pizza on top of where the wood was. The creates a crispy crust with a little tasty ash on the bottom of the pie.
One of the problems with fresh or Buffalo mozzarella is that it’s watery, so be sure to squeeze out as much moisture as you can.
My dough recipe is:
2 tsp active yeast disolved in 1/2 cup water
“00″ Flour (4 cups)
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 additional cup of water
All ingredients go in my Zoji bread machine. I use the “Basic Dough” cycle and voila, 1 hour 58 min. later I have perfect dough. This yields either 3 or 4 dough balls. Let rise under cover for 30 or so minutes and you’re ready to go.
I wish I could say I’ve mastered hand-tossed pizzas. Even after several hours of lessons I still cannot whirl the pizza over my head, so I end up stretching the dough into a 12″ circle. I sometimes even resort to using my French rolling pin to get the dough as thin as possible.
Try to keep the ingredient list simple. Also, resist putting too much sauce or cheese on the pie. Before inserting into the oven finish with a fine drizzle of olive oil.
What makes writing this totally fun is that I finished reading “Kitchen Chinese” this morning and checked your website only to see my second favorite food group, Pizza (Asian is 1st) on your blog.
September 6th, 2010 at 8:13 am
The pizza featured in this post truly was the most delicious I’ve ever tasted. Nonetheless, something tells me the Vicomte who lives upstairs from us would flip quicker than an IHOP pancake if we tried to install even a hibachi on our balcony!
September 7th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Thanks, Mike K.! I should have turned to you, the true pizza expert, before I ever started this project. I love your tip about the broiler. Maybe I WILL make pizza in my home kitchen!
Camille — The pizza oven has drawn me back every year without fail! But now that I know about Dutch oven calzones…
Sweet Freak — Some would call it obstinance… but it just made the pizza that much more sweet. I will have to give GreenPizz a try!
Lisa S. — Thank you for the amazing tips and recipe — you are a true afficianado! I can’t wait to try your dough recipe. And, thank you for your kind words about Kitchen Chinese. I write about Asian food a lot, too, so I hope you’ll stop by again!
Chris — Ha! I think you might be right…
September 9th, 2010 at 11:58 am
the angle of your elbow as you slide in that pizza is truly magnificent. what form!
September 10th, 2010 at 4:07 am
Devorah — Why, thank you. I’m in training for the pizza olympics.
September 17th, 2010 at 11:28 am
I tried your recipe last night! It worked beautifully (though, of course, it would have tasted better had I not forgotten the SALT (DUH)). How do you get the dough to become thin? I poked it with my fingertips turning it in a circular motion for quite a while and it got round(ish) and big(ger) but I ended up having to resort to the rolling pin to get the size/thinness I wanted. It didn’t seem stretchy (though it didn’t retract either). I always have this problem so I’d wager it has more to do with me than any of the recipes I’ve tried… Cooked the pizzas on some limestone tiles I bought at the hardware store with the oven on MAX. Result: crispy, very low tech, cheap, and the thrill of adventure whilst sliding them into oven! Thanks for the recipe
September 20th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Anna, oh, wow, you tried it, how neat! It sounds like your dough might be too sticky… I wonder if you’re kneading it enough and adding enough flour? Did you see Mike’s comment (at the top) about pre-heating the stone and using the broiler? I want to try that!