Robenco15
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Posts posted by Robenco15
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19 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:
Cacio e Pepe Pizza (KM p. 304)
@weinoo avert your eyes!
I've posted several times before about my attempts to make a cacio e pepe pizza (here and here) -- the Modernist Pizza variant takes a tack that would never have occurred to me. You basically just put spaghetti cacio e pepe on a pizza. Right... including the spaghetti.
This is an assembly recipe from their "Flavor Themes" section, based on a Neapolitan crust. The recipe has you make a cacio e pepe sauce using Wondra and xanthan gum as the starch/thickening component (since you are making it independent of the pasta, I guess). To top the pizza, you put down some large slices of fresh mozzarella, make spaghetti (I actually used bucatini, I had a fraction of a box to use up), add the premade sauce and some cream to the spaghetti and spread it out over the pizza, tuck some basil (?!?) leaves into it, and put some small mozzarella balls on top. It ends up being a lot of cheese! I suppose that's appropriate for cacio e pepe. Actually, it could have used more "pepe"!
All told, it wasn't bad pizza, but I'm not really sure there was much payoff to putting the actual pasta on there besides the "wow that's weird" factor. I found the basil to be a bit incongruous, so I left it off the second pizza and added more pepper, which I preferred.
So the recipe this pizza is inspired by is actually pretty doable and less involved. Not sure there is a written recipe online but it’s been on a few pizza shows and it’s pretty easy to follow along. YouTube probably has clips of it.
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19 minutes ago, FlashJack said:
That looks great. Can you explain the 'bee sting' toppings please?
It’s sauce, fior di latte, hot Sopressata pre-bake, and then finished with basil leaves and a drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey.
For the one pictured I decided to put the basil on the sauce and then the cheese over the basil and then the sopressata before baking. Then finished with the drizzle.
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My last 82% dough ball was great. Made this Friday and it still came out great tonight, Sunday night. This is a Bee Sting and it’s outrageously good.
The Modernist Neapolitan tomato sauce is great. Kinda reminds me of Lunchables pizza in its consistency.
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2 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:
Tokyo Marinara Pizza (KM p. 208)
I made this again with the high-hydration dough I used yesterday: this time it was double-aged, this was the same batch of dough. Apparently the defining characteristic of Tokyo Marinara is an enormous amount of olive oil drizzled over the pizza before baking. It's also got a bit of torn basil and dried oregano that the original lacks. And yes, it's supposed to have garlic... which is still sitting on my counter, I think, I completely spaced on adding it I was in such a hurry to prevent the dough from sticking. Doh!
That's about 2 tablespoons of olive oil on that 12" pizza: it's a lot. It's a bit "flamey" in the oven, but I didn't get a shot of any of the more exciting conflagration, there's not a lot of downtime for photography while making these!
The crust comes out nicely, with good pillowy edges, but truth be told I'm not sure it's really much of an improvement over their normal Neapolitan dough, which is certainly easier to work with. Maybe in a few hundred pizzas I'll have a clearer sense of it.
Looking forward to making this. How was the marinara sauce process? Reading it even seemed a bit tedious
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2 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:
Well, at any rate, the olive oil won't affect the thickening of the xanthan gum, so you are free to add it.
I figured but didn’t feel like experimenting the first time around
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1 hour ago, weinoo said:
See (and don't take this personally), this stuff is not even pizza to me. That's just me, by the way,
But as far as the book is concerned, I don't need to learn how to bake something that comes out like this. When I'm attempting to perfect pizza, as I know it.
Ok
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8 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:
You might try Twitter or Instagram, they're pretty active on social media.
Yeah I tweeted them right after this. In my experience if it isn’t a praising tweet or something similar they don’t bother.
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Made the Modernist Neapolitan Pizza Tomato Sauce just now for tomorrow night. Looks great. I usually add 2% EVOO but didn’t this time in case it’d mess with the Xanthan Gum. Wish there was a way to contact them with minor questions like this.
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82% went better this time around. Amazing what happens when you use the correct flour. Super Nuvola takes the characteristics of a higher hydration dough so at 82% it was just way too much.
This is the first one out of the oven so I took a pic so I didn’t forget. Not bad. I need to keep practicing.
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5 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:
Yeah, it's something they wrote about in Modernist Bread -- what you're really trying to do is hydrate the flour, that's what's causing the gluten formation, not the mechanical mixing action. You can basically instantly hydrate it by putting it in a chamber vacuum and running a cycle. With a dough like this one, it's hard to get the mixer to grab it, even running at 100% speed, so I don't bother. Get it mixed, and then into the chamber.
Thanks! Must be nice!
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3 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:
I just followed the recipe exactly, I didn't worry about whether I actually got every gram: that's been my process with all this sort of recipe in Modernist Bread as well. I very rarely try to get full gluten formation with my mixer: I let it do the preliminary mix and go for a few minutes, then switch to using the vacuum chamber to finish it off. Feels like cheating, but the dough is perfect every time.
Vacuum chamber? That works?
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11 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:
Bacon and Onion Pizza (KM p.273)
with
Modernist High-Hydration Neapolitan Dough (KM p. 40)
Up to now I've been making my Neapolitan pizzas with their standard Neapolitan dough recipe. Tonight I tried the Modernist variant, which makes a 82% hydration dough by pregelatinizing some of the flour -- this is the dough that @Robenco15 has been posting about up-topic. I used the Caputo 00 "Chef's Flour", same as I've been using for all my Neapolitans. I have one more 1kg bag of it left before I'm switching to their Pizzeria flour. Even with the Modernist treatment the dough basically behaves like a 82% hydration dough (surprise!!), so on the one hand it practically shapes itself, but on the other it is very sticky, and sucks up the flour you put down to lubricate your peel very quickly. Very, very, VERY quickly. I was apparently too lackadaisical in strolling to my pizza oven the first time, the pizza simply would not come off the peel: it was a total loss, it sort of rolled into a slopped mess in the oven, and from there went straight into the trash bin.
The second time I put a bit more zip in my step (and used semolina) and managed to get the pizza into the oven with a very vigorous shake of the peel. So I at least got one pizza tonight. Sort of. I was making a pizza from their "Classic" ingredients table. It's got a bechamel sauce, swiss cheese, bacon lardons, browned onions, and crumbled gorgonzola (added after baking). For the bechamel I tried the "Modernist" variant in this book, which is different from the one in Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Bread: in this case it's really just a milk fluid gel. It works fine as a pizza topping, but tasted on its own I think I prefer the original version they developed, with the pressure-cooked roux. Then, I missed what turned out to be a critical note about the bacon lardons, unfortunately. It says "partially rendered". I'm not used to cooking at this temperature, I just made the bacon the way I normally do for pizza. So it burned in the oven. Doh!
I remind myself that I bought the books specifically to push my cooking skills... it's working! Two more "learning experiences" tonight!
Awesome man! Yes, the dough is difficult. I’m using Caputo Pizzeria (blue bag), but not sure the difference is much in that regard. Did you make a higher amount of the pregelatanized flour so you had 150g? The first time due to wastage I only got 131g. The second time I doubled the pregel recipe so I easily got 150g. Were you able to get it to window pane? The paddle attachment helps a lot.
I’m doing it for lunch tomorrow and for 4 dough balls I’d like to get one good one, lol. Takes practice.
For shaping the balls some cold water on your hands helps a lot. Then when it comes to opening the skins, yeah, a ton of flour.
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Did another 82% hydration. This time with Caputo Pizzeria (instead or Super Nuvola) and the full 150g of pregelatanized flour. What a difference. Still needed the paddle attachment to get me to the window pane, but so much better. Excited for tomorrow night.
Here’s a bbq rib pizza from a few months ago.
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17 minutes ago, KennethT said:
To me, a classic NYC pizza should have a thin base, but more chewy - not crisp. The crust (the ring around the pizza) should only be about 3/4" - 1-1/4" wide - and should be a bit chewy as well.
Modernist Cuisine would agree with you
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82% hydration is tough. I’m going to be giving it another go tomorrow and cook on Friday while actually following the recipe exactly. No pics of that.
62% was great and easy. A very solid recipe. The meat tenderizer seemed to help. Also first time making the sauce with the packing liquid and was good. Not sure I’m going to continue that. May open to cans, strain, and puree the tomatoes to a thin consistency before adding 1% salt and 2% EVOO. Going to make it again for Sunday and use Caputo Super Nuvola flour instead of Caputo Pizzeria.
Not a great pic but was a busy night making 8 pizzas. Happy I remembered to take one.
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6 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:
New York Cheese Pizza (KM p. 213)
More learning experiences! Fantastic!
This is the main assembly recipe for their "New York Style" pizza: it's a medium crust pizza with a cooked tomato sauce and pizza cheese. I wanted to experiment with making larger pizzas, and this seemed like a good candidate. The base recipe makes a 20" pizza, but even in the Ooni I can only make a 16", so I scaled the recipe down to 64% for everything. That's still a much larger pizza than the normal 12" that I make. Even at its lowest heat setting, the Ooni is hotter than ideal for this pizza: more like 650°F than the target 550°F. Managing the pizza in the oven was also tricky, because it was harder to turn without the extra room at the sides that I normally have. So, I wound up with a crust that wasn't really quite baked right. Still edible, but I need to do some more playing around with the Ooni to try to dial in cooking at the lower temperature setting.
A word about the sauce: this is the only one of their classic tomato sauces that is cooked, and the recipe is considerably more complex than the others in that section. It smelled fantastic simmering away this afternoon, and the end result is delicious.
You can push in the Ooni knob when it is on high and slowly turn it clockwise (as if you’re turning it off) to get a super low flame. Completely safe. I believe Ooni has even signed off on this “hack.”
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Balled the high hydration Neapolitan. Wasn’t easy but I should get some pizzas out of them. Because of that I made the MCP Neapolitan dough as well so I’ll be eating pizza tomorrow regardless of hydration.
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I’m honestly a bit bummed/annoyed Biga doughs weren’t covered at all. Really weird to completely ignore something pretty popular when it comes to Neapolitan pizza.
Also shoutout Kitchen Arts and Letters. Got it from them for $400, but they threw in a $50 gift card so I was able to get some more cookbooks (including another pizza book, lol) I wanted. Shipped quickly, sent a book plate signed by the authors, and are hosting a Zoom class with the authors in November. Great place.
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I got this last week and am loving it. Haven’t gotten around to starting a recipe until tonight though.
Tonight I did the Neapolitan High Hydration dough. It wasn’t easy as it took me too long to figure out that using the paddle first would help it knead better when I switch over to the dough hook.
I was hopeful the pregelatinized flour technique would bake it easier than in the past when I’d make high hydration doughs, but I’m not sure it helped.
All that said, I guess I should clarify that it makes 150g of the pregel, after wastage I only got 131g so next time I’m going to make a larger amount to account for wastage and get me to that 150g mark.
I also used Caputo Super Nuvola so that probably is another (I hope) reason it didn’t come together as easily.
That said, it did come together and looks great. The only way I’m differing is after the 24 hour bulk and then split into balls, I’m going to put the balls in the fridge for 18 hours, then reball, and let go for 2-3 hours at room temp (like it originally calls for).
Gotta work around…work.
This one isn’t from MCP but wanted to share at least one pic of a pizza I made. I’m also really excited to try the Tokyo Marinara recipe.
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12 minutes ago, heidih said:
OK I think you got that 2 pack of the dark pink that taper.on one end. Honestly I would cut off a couple inches, season lightly and cook quickly - get a feel for it. My dad & wife always have it around from Costco maybe 4 pack but I am the designated driver of the prep. Dont want to overthink this cut in my opinion.
Yeah that’s it. I’ve been cooking that for years. Not looking for help cooking it, was just curious about the use of raw alcohol in the brine.
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3 minutes ago, heidih said:
Why I asked if it was the lighter loin which can be dry and to me less flavorful (thus needing assistance) or the darker strip;
Ah, I see. On the whiter side? I’ve never thought about it. Store bought two to a package tenderloins. Nothing fancy/special.
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2 minutes ago, heidih said:
Yes I would have been inclined to do as written although the tenderloins I get are quite tender.with just a quick marinade. We briefly broil them for 15 minutes or so. A darker part of the pig - so flavorful already. Loin - the white stuff different.
Technically he refers to it as a brine so I wonder if the intent is different than a marinade. It calls for 1/4 cup salt to go along with the cup of whiskey and another cup of honey and mustard mixture. -
So I’ll admit, I’m basing my information off Thomas Keller and his French Laundry cookbook when he discusses red wine marinade for meat. He says alcohol will toughen the exterior of the meat and slightly cook it.
Maybe he’s wrong? The more I research the more I’m finding conflicting info.
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A pork brine from Gray Kunz’s Elements of Taste calls for a cup of whiskey, then differing amounts of mustard, honey, salt, and paprika. No water. Combine all of that and then pour over pork tenderloin medallions and allow to brine in the refrigerator overnight.
My understanding has always been that raw alcohol will cook the exterior of the meat as it marinates (in this case brines). Is this an exception? Does anyone else find this a bit odd? I guess I’ll find out tomorrow 🤷♂️
For what it’s worth, I did try to burn off the alcohol and after 5 minutes it reduced to a third of a cup. I then topped it off back to a cup with whiskey because I thought my experiment failed. Maybe next time I should just top it off with water?
Cooking with Myhrvold and Migoya's Modernist Pizza
in Cooking
Posted
Haven’t tried it yet but will have to soon!