Cooking with Myhrvold and Migoya's Modernist Pizza

[Robenco15]

2 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

Neapolitan Pizza Dough with Poolish

 

In this variant of their Neapolitan dough they make a poolish, then add it to a dough that has much more yeast than their normal dough, which is then cold-fermented for a day. It was fine, but nothing spectacular, and was less convenient than their normal low-yeast 24-hr room temp Neapolitan dough. For the toppings I basically cleaned out the fridge. I wanted to improve upon the Tex-mex pizza I posted about last week, so I took their Neapolitan sauce and added quite a lot of dry chile to it, used both fresh mozzarella and chunks of cheddar cheese, and topped with taco meat, fire-roasted poblanos, corn, and black beans. I liked it, though it was over-topped for Neapolitan-style pizza.

 

Would love to serve this in Naples and watch people’s reactions. 

[Chris Hennes]

1 minute ago, Robenco15 said:

Would love to serve this in Naples and watch people’s reactions. 

Wait 'til they find out the "taco meat" contains no actual meat -- maybe we should try it in Mexico, too. Or even Texas!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

17 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

Wait 'til they find out the "taco meat" contains no actual meat -- maybe we should try it in Mexico, too. Or even Texas!

 

Chris, I can't say your most recent topping with corn kernels appeals to me, but the Neapolitan Pizza Dough with Poolish is what I've been tweaking for my last several pies.  Leftovers tonight!  My yeast may be old but I finally got the rim I was looking for by increasing the yeast to 3%.

 

 

 

I have to ask:  what is taco meat?  My disclaimer of living though a Neapolitan cholera epidemic still applies.  If you don't know how cholera is transmitted, it is not like COVID.

 

 

 

[Robenco15]

41 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Chris, I can't say your most recent topping with corn kernels appeals to me, but the Neapolitan Pizza Dough with Poolish is what I've been tweaking for my last several pies.  Leftovers tonight!  My yeast may be old but I finally got the rim I was looking for by increasing the yeast to 3%.

 

 

 

I have to ask:  what is taco meat?  My disclaimer of living though a Neapolitan cholera epidemic still applies.  If you don't know how cholera is transmitted, it is not like COVID.

 

 

 

Have you tried cooking the pizza and sauce first and then after 4 or so minutes taking it out, adding the cheese, and putting it back in for 2 minutes?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

40 minutes ago, Robenco15 said:

Have you tried cooking the pizza and sauce first and then after 4 or so minutes taking it out, adding the cheese, and putting it back in for 2 minutes?

 

My pizza cooks only for about two minutes total.

 

[Chris Hennes]

10 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I have to ask:  what is taco meat?

In this case it was Impossible seasoned with dried chile, cumin, and coriander, and browned with onions and garlic. I use it as a filling for hard-shell tacos and a topping for nachos. And now for pizza .

[weinoo]

I just cringed, only a little.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

 

This dough was almost a week old.  Still good.

 

[Chris Hennes]

Similar to @JoNorvelleWalker, I had a chunk of the poolish-based Neapolitan dough in the fridge from last Wednesday: I baked it last night for dinner. It was fine, but I stand by my preference for younger dough. Straightforward toppings, just their normal Neapolitan sauce, those little mozzarella "pearls", and green peppers. I pre-cooked the peppers a bit, I didn't want them quite as crisp as they'd come out of the Ooni on their own.

 

[Chris Hennes]

Al Taglio Pizza Margherita (KM p. 250)

 

This is my first go at the Al Taglio style, and I thought it was pretty successful overall. Their dough is quite high-hydration, at 80%, and includes 35% mature levain, though it's also got commercial yeast. This makes for a very flavorful crust which I liked quite a lot. It's another double-baked crust: the base recipe calls for baking with the sauce on, then cooling, then topping and reheating. I wanted to bake the crust the day ahead, so I used the alternate steps included for baking it without the sauce. In this case I found their main baking time spot on at eight minutes. Tonight I sauced and topped and reheated for five minutes, which was enough to heat everything up and crisp up the outer layer of the crust. I only baked half of the pizza tonight, so I'll be interested to see how well the crust holds another day at room temp (I'm not planning on freezing it).

 

 

[FlashJack]

Chris, that looks glorious. Well done and thanks for sharing.

[Chris Hennes]

And a day later, changing the toppings up a bit (brussels sprouts and blue cheese added, switched to pizza cheese underneath, same sauce):

 

Still good, but not quite as tender a crumb as yesterday. I might try freezing it right after baking next time.

[Raamo]

Ordered some 14-15% protein flour, what they recommended for new york style pizza and had our first pizza from it today:

 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I know I have another bag of King Arthur organic bread flour, but I could not find it.  It is in the stairwell, someplace, and the stairwell is cold and dark.  What I found first was a bag of Caputo Chef's Flour, so my current dough batch is about 2/3 King Arthur and 1/3 Caputo.

 

While the dough is cold fermenting, what would be good toppings for a white pie?  Suggestions or MP page references are welcome.

 

[FlashJack]

18 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

good toppings for a white pie?

Jo, my go-to white pizza is gorganzola piccante with thin sliced pear. Creme fraiche is a good base but you can more than get away without it.

 

The killer addition: a little fresh rosemary. It's heaven.

 

Edit to add: black pepper on the pear.

Edited December 14, 2021 by FlashJack
To add pepper (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 minute ago, FlashJack said:

Jo, my go-to white pizza is gorganzola piccante with thin sliced pear. Creme fraiche is a good base but you can more than get away without it.

 

The killer addition: a little fresh rosemary. It's heaven.

 

Sadly I have no Gorgonzola, cream fraiche, nor sliced pear.  No fresh rosemary either.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

6 minutes ago, FlashJack said:

Jo, my go-to white pizza is gorganzola piccante with thin sliced pear. Creme fraiche is a good base but you can more than get away without it.

 

The killer addition: a little fresh rosemary. It's heaven.

 

Edit to add: black pepper on the pear.

 

I do have black pepper.

 

[FlashJack]

Clever you. You might need to pick up cheese and a pear.

 

It is so simple that it's one of those things where you marvel at the transformative magic of the combination. Should not taste so good but, boy, it does. Please give it a go.

[weinoo]

I had lunch (and brought home 4 slices for Significant Eater) yesterday, at a place in Brooklyn not visited by the Modernist crew, while on their well-documented pizza travels.

 

I don't know that I'd call this classic New York City style (maybe @scott123 can further define it?), but I like it just fine. Especially the sauce/cheese combo, it just tastes like the pizza I remember as a kid.

 

 

These are the two slices I ate while at their outdoor seating, on 5th Avenue and 20th St., in Park Slope.

 

 

Only a slightly raised rim. You can see how flat the pie is above, before baking.

 

 

 

Where does this fit in with your experience, both @Chris Hennes and @scott123?

[scott123]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

I don't know that I'd call this classic New York City style (maybe @scott123 can further define it?)

Mitch, I know this wasn't your intent, but, you've triggered a bit of an existential crisis for me.  I've devoted the vast majority of the past 20 years of my life to finding the best slice in NY, and this was under my nose the whole time?  WTF? !  How could I possibly miss this? Something of this caliber?! And, apparently, that putz Mark Iacano is a well known fan? Yet more salt in the wound!

Haunting personal failures aside, this is definitely a classic slice.  If I was going to split hairs, I might say that the rim on the pepperoni slice is a bit more archetypal than the wider/more rustic rim on the slice above it. That said, this is absolutely within the classic NY style spectrum (large-ish diameter, thin crust, well defined small rim, golden brown delicious/not too much char).

 

Man, this hurts.  The (seeming) slice of my dreams, in Brooklyn, all this time.  Obviously, I'm going to need to taste it to know for certain, but I'm confident that this blows modern Joe's out of the water.  

No whole wheat flour there- no polydextrose or lecithin, and I will bet you every single cent I've ever earned that there's no where near 70% water in this dough  

[weinoo]

2 hours ago, scott123 said:

  Obviously, I'm going to need to taste it to know for certain, but I'm confident that this blows modern Joe's out of the water.  

Let me know when you're going !!

[Margaret Pilgrim]

On 12/13/2021 at 8:08 PM, FlashJack said:

Jo, my go-to white pizza is gorganzola piccante with thin sliced pear. Creme fraiche is a good base but you can more than get away without it.

 

The killer addition: a little fresh rosemary. It's heaven.

 

Edit to add: black pepper on the pear.

We've been making this for years.    And, yes, black pepper with pears.   Glad to read this pie has fans.

[FlashJack]

1 hour ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

We've been making this for years.

Including rosemary? It's magic.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

2 hours ago, FlashJack said:

Including rosemary? It's magic.

Yes!   Aslo magic with roasted figs.   But discretion is the key.    A kiss, not an assault.

[Chris Hennes]

11 hours ago, weinoo said:

Where does this fit in with your experience, both @Chris Hennes and @scott123?

Going only by appearance (obviously!) it looks a lot like the slice I had when I was in NY a couple of weeks ago, which is the one and only slice I have ever had in NYC. I actually had decided against posting about it because a) mine was from some random chain-looking place just off Union Square so I figured it wasn't really representative and b) it didn't have the big puffy rim that I thought was characteristic of the style. So I'm interested to see that I was wrong on that count, at least. Had I known that I was supposed to be seeking out Joe's I'd have gone there, I probably literally walked past it, you said they have a Union Square location, right?