slkinsey

Of course, from what I gather, "Rhett" could have used some breath freshening himself.

Racking is done quite often... Don't they worry about oxidizing the wine by racking it so frequently (this is a real issue for home brewers)? Or do they do it under CO2 or Nitrogen or some such thing?

The general concensus of people that have been to many of the branches is that, one or two dishes aside, the 9th Avenue branch is the best.

Yea, I think it's better. Personally, I tend to use regular AP flour with around 20% cake flour mixed in to lighten it rather than high gluten flour. The way I learned to make pizza dough involved an extra-long fermenation startiung with very little yeast at (cool) room temperature. That's what I do, and it's always worked brilliantly for me. If you want to save money and don't want to acquire another gadget, it's what I would also do if I were you.

Not having to eat at Perkin's is pretty high on my list of reasons...

Hey... when you think about it, it's better than not getting passed over, right?

Actually, if money and space are a concern, I'd suggest you do the kneading by hand. Hear me out here... The thing to do is prepare the dough around 24 hours before you make the pizza. Use only a little bit of yeast. Now, if you knead by hand for around 3-5 minutes this won't develop the gluten properly for making pizza. But the mechanical and chemical action of a 24 hour ferment with "whenever you think of it" punchdowns will finish developing and crosslinking the gluten as much as you could possibly desire. It sounds like it won't work, but I was turned on to long-fermented "no knead" bread several years ago and it really does turn out. This way, all you require is a large bowl and some plastic wrap. No need to worry about the temperature or anything like that, because it will all even out after 24 hours.

Owen... why a bread machine and not a stand mixer like a KitchenAid?

Today, I try not to bestride the world quite so much like a Colossus. And, of course, I need to remind myself when lunchtime comes around not to cry havoc! and let slip the hotdogs of war.

It all depends on whether or not you want to develop the gluten. With pastry and biscuits, etc. you want the result to be tender and flaky. As a result, these techniques and recipes are designed to minimize devevelopment and cross-linkage of gluten -- a big part of this is making sire the dough is "worked" as little as possible. With bread and pasta, on the other hand, you want to develop the gluten to its fullest extent. For bread, the network of gluden traps gasses produced by the fermentation of the yeast and inflates the dough. In pasta, the ntwrock of gluten holds the pasta together, and provides structure and "bite" to the cooked pasta. As a result, dough for bread and pasta should be kneaded thoroughly.

"Bench flour" = the flour you use on the board while you are kneading/shaping/cutting the dough. "Nidi" = the plural of "nido" which = "nest."

Re: pasta drying racks, etc... I've always tended to simply dust the freshly cut pasta with bench flour and form them into little nidi on a sheet pan to wait for cooking. Never had any problems.

Those would kick ass on homemade biscuits.

I'll be very interested to read about the things you cook. I've always had an interest in kosher cooking, but less so in Ashkenazi cooking than some of the other traditions. I find the idea of traditional Italian Jewish cooking especially interesting (believe it or not, there was a time when there were a lot of Jews in Italy). There are several interesting books on the subject, as it so happens. One of my favorite Jewish-Italian dishes is to make some tagliatelle and roast a chicken. Then, while the chicken is resting the fresh pasta is tossed with the chicken pan drippings and some herbs to make the starch course. Very tasty! I really want to go to Tevere 84 (meat) and Va Bene (dairy) some time. They are kosher Italian places on the East Side, but not Italian-made-kosher. They are restaurants run by a Jewish family from Rome making real Roman Jewish Italian food. Supposed to be very good.

How are the Dansko's on width? I have super-wide feet (7 1/2 EEEEE or 8 EEEE).

5:45 AM!!!!!!!!!!!! Great Caesar's ghost!

I know! It must be cold fusion or something. Seriously, though, there is something different about cooking this dish with a thin layer of furiously boiling liquid over high heat as opposed to a thicker layer of barely simmering liquid as in a traditional braise. I've even noticed this using water instead of wine, so it's not just the reduction of the wine (although this does, of course, make a difference). The other nice thing about doing it this way is that it is a nice excuse to have a nip from the bottle every so often.

It's somewhat similar, yea. For those who weren't there (a.k.a. everyone else) I was telling JJ about one of my favorite simple dishes from Le Marche, pollo in fricò. To make this dish you need one cut up chicken (or a bunch of wings and thighs), a bottle of dry white wine, a few cloves of whole garlic, a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and a tablespoon or less of juniper berries. The chicken is browned in a saute pan over high heat, the fat drained off, the garlic, rosemary and juniper added along with just enough wine to cover the bottom of the pan at a furious boil. On goes a lid. Every so often, a little more wine is added piano a piano as we say, to keep a <1 inch layer of liquid boiling over high heat. When the bottle is empty, the chicken is done. Nothing to it. Fairway didn't have any roesmary, so I employed the same technique using olives and thyme instead of rosemary and juniper.

Personality-wise, ferrets are more like puppydogs... only with ferrets it lasts their entire lives. So... what is everybody's favorite ferret picture? I'm stuck between the picture of Issachar asleep and the picture of Asher and Zebulun in the House of Bites.

Ah, well yes... I'd say you have a pretty good shot at reproducing John's. If by John's you mean a relavitively thin pizza with little or no char and none of the etherial middle layer of puffyness that comes from a truly superheated oven. John's is, in my estimation, pizza that could easily be turned out with a gas-fired stainless pizza oven. It's basically a variation on a standard pizza, but with a thinner crust and fewer toppings (i.e., Di Fara without the kickass sauce, cheese and other deluxe toppings). Personally I don't think John's pizza is all that exceptional, but I would agree that it can probably be reproduced in a home oven given the right equipment and technique. Again, however, you run into the problem of consistency if you would like to bake more than one pizza. If, however, you're willing to wait half an hour between each pizza, you should be able to turn out John's facsimiles until the cows come home. While I do agree that conduction is the most significant, if you are going to be cooking the pizza in 3-5 minutes, and especially if you are going to use somewhat moist ingredients like fresh mozzarella or "raw" pomodori pelati, strong radiant heat from the top is very important. There is a certain effect that is produced when the toppings cook on the crust (raw sausage, for example) that is not possible with precooking. Convection, as you suggest, is the least important. This is true of all baking tasks. However, even this smallest thermal element can make a big difference. Try baking a boule or roasting a chicken with the door to the oven open a crack to let out the hot air and you'll see. The pizzaioli at Patsy's East Harlem, I noticed, are very careful to leave the oven door open only the minimum amount necessary. With other ovens, such as the abovementioned dome shaped ovens with proportionally tiny oven doors, it is less important to have the door closed all the time.

That's total bunk. Ferrets have been domesticated for over 2,000 years. A ferret has no more biting issues than a kitten or a puppy. They have to be trained, is all. The best information on the NYC legal situation, including the history, may be found at: http://nycferrets.com/

I don't know much about Vulcan ovens nor can I find any info doing a web search, but I have done a substantial amount of research on wood burning ovens. From the pizza cooks that I've spoken with, wood burning ovens can and do reach temperatures exceeding 900 degrees. Yes, this is correct. A wood fired oven can get plenty hot, certainly well within the range of temperatures maintained in the coal-fired establishments. The Neapolitan pizzerie use wood. If wood produces the same result as coal, why are the coal-burning pizza places in NYC (and elsewhere) perceived as superior to all challengers? Are there any serious challengers using wood? If I wanted to open a pizza shop to compete with, say, Patsy's in Harlem (putting aside Patsy's history), would I stand a chance with a wood-burning oven? To be honest I am not quite sure why this is, Joe. Pizza Napulitana, as you know, doesn't feature Patsy's-level char. Maybe the NYC-style coal places are even hotter than the Neapolitan places, and that is what contributes to the distinctive classic NYC style. Perhaps it is simply the case that one needs to burn a lot more wood to get the appropriate temperature. All I can say is that using wood doesn't seem to limit what they do in Napoli, and I have it on relatively good authority that the ovens there are around 750F. If the NYC coal-fired places are more like 850F, a hundred degrees can make a big difference in the results. Whether one is definitively better than the other is hard to say... but it does make the NYC style even more difficult to achieve. FWIW, and I am not sure how much difference it makes, most Italian masonry ovens with which I am familiar have more of a dome shape than the coal-fired ovens I have seen in NYC.

Actually, not quite. The big difference between a masonry oven used for pizza as opposed for bread is that the fire remains burning inside the oven when it is used for pizza. One purpose of this is for the radiant heat to reflect off the roof of the pizza oven back onto the pizza, cooking the toppings. This is why Neapolitan pizzeria typically add the tomato element raw -- it cooks in the reflected heat. Measurements at the top of the oven often reach upwards of 950F.

Dude... I've been making pizza at home for over ten years, not to mention that I've been living in NYC all that time and travel frequently to Italy. So, when I say that I don't think you will be able to reproduce real pizza Napulitana -- especially in a stanard home oven -- I know whereof I speak. There are certainly things you can do that will produce a very good pizza in a similar style. But, I have to say that I think you are in for a lot of disappointment if you think you are going to make something that looks like it came out of Patsy's East Harlem. I'd be pleased to be surprized, however, so I wish you the best of luck.

Issa likes the bath.