nonlinear
04-24-2010, 10:40 AM
some pics from last night's NY-style pie. dough was made last wedneseday night using king arthur bread flour. cold rise for 48 hours, punch down, ambient rise for 2 hours. cooked at 550 F for about 10 minutes. came out to 15 inches, cut into 4 giant slices, just like in nyc. (you can see how large the slices are by looking at the last pic, where there is a slice sitting in a "small" sized pizza box to keep the crust from getting soggy.)
toppings were brocolli, crimini mushrooms, and hot genoa salami. the brocolli and crimini mushrooms were sweated for about 10 minutes in 550 degree oven, to remove water which can make for a wet/sloppy pie. salami was nuked for 30 seconds to remove excess grease, and improve crispiness.
Brocolli is one of my FAVORITE pizza toppings. it has the PERFECT combo of crunch, texture, and flavor, and is just the right bite size when cut properly. i'm not sure why it's not a more commonly used ingredient... for anyone who hasn't had brocolli on pizza, you should really try it!
many people don't appreciate how fucking difficult it is to get pizza ingredients (or 75% of the other grocery items that are widely available in the US but not in canada) in Canada. so instead of using a high-quality mozza like Grande or something, here i'm using Co-op pizza mozzarella (42% moisture). it's just OK, but I really can't find anything better. if anyone knows where i can source Grande, please let me know. i also had to use hot genoa salami (about 2" in diameter) instead of pepperoni, because for some reason one can't find "regular" pepperoni ANYWHERE in Calgary. the only stuff you can find is the thick, spongy ORANGE crap made by Pillars or wal-mart private label. you'd think that it would be a simple thing to get, being that we are only 3 hours from the US, but apparently no one here likes this stuff. y'all are satisfied eating CD-sizes bologna "pepperoni" on your 2-for-1 CPU pies with processed cheese food. :poosie: :poosie:
anyway, enough bitching. here are some pics. sorry, the scale is out of whack in some pics (e.g. the cooked full pie looks oddly small, even though it was 15 inches), but you get the point:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4394/nyc001.th.jpg (http://img179.imageshack.us/i/nyc001.jpg/)
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6647/nyc002.th.jpg (http://img208.imageshack.us/i/nyc002.jpg/)
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9249/nyc003.th.jpg (http://img689.imageshack.us/i/nyc003.jpg/)
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1318/nyc004.th.jpg (http://img192.imageshack.us/i/nyc004.jpg/)
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/7120/nyc018.th.jpg (http://img706.imageshack.us/i/nyc018.jpg/)
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/3491/nyc022.th.jpg (http://img691.imageshack.us/i/nyc022.jpg/)
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5565/nyc023.th.jpg (http://img707.imageshack.us/i/nyc023.jpg/)
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4482/nyc025.th.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/i/nyc025.jpg/)
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/159/nyc024.th.jpg (http://img52.imageshack.us/i/nyc024.jpg/)
toppings were brocolli, crimini mushrooms, and hot genoa salami. the brocolli and crimini mushrooms were sweated for about 10 minutes in 550 degree oven, to remove water which can make for a wet/sloppy pie. salami was nuked for 30 seconds to remove excess grease, and improve crispiness.
Brocolli is one of my FAVORITE pizza toppings. it has the PERFECT combo of crunch, texture, and flavor, and is just the right bite size when cut properly. i'm not sure why it's not a more commonly used ingredient... for anyone who hasn't had brocolli on pizza, you should really try it!
many people don't appreciate how fucking difficult it is to get pizza ingredients (or 75% of the other grocery items that are widely available in the US but not in canada) in Canada. so instead of using a high-quality mozza like Grande or something, here i'm using Co-op pizza mozzarella (42% moisture). it's just OK, but I really can't find anything better. if anyone knows where i can source Grande, please let me know. i also had to use hot genoa salami (about 2" in diameter) instead of pepperoni, because for some reason one can't find "regular" pepperoni ANYWHERE in Calgary. the only stuff you can find is the thick, spongy ORANGE crap made by Pillars or wal-mart private label. you'd think that it would be a simple thing to get, being that we are only 3 hours from the US, but apparently no one here likes this stuff. y'all are satisfied eating CD-sizes bologna "pepperoni" on your 2-for-1 CPU pies with processed cheese food. :poosie: :poosie:
anyway, enough bitching. here are some pics. sorry, the scale is out of whack in some pics (e.g. the cooked full pie looks oddly small, even though it was 15 inches), but you get the point:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4394/nyc001.th.jpg (http://img179.imageshack.us/i/nyc001.jpg/)
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6647/nyc002.th.jpg (http://img208.imageshack.us/i/nyc002.jpg/)
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9249/nyc003.th.jpg (http://img689.imageshack.us/i/nyc003.jpg/)
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1318/nyc004.th.jpg (http://img192.imageshack.us/i/nyc004.jpg/)
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/7120/nyc018.th.jpg (http://img706.imageshack.us/i/nyc018.jpg/)
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/3491/nyc022.th.jpg (http://img691.imageshack.us/i/nyc022.jpg/)
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5565/nyc023.th.jpg (http://img707.imageshack.us/i/nyc023.jpg/)
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4482/nyc025.th.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/i/nyc025.jpg/)
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/159/nyc024.th.jpg (http://img52.imageshack.us/i/nyc024.jpg/)