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Ok, I posted yesterday (or day before, I don't remember) in the Pizza Stone baking section, but this seems more appropriate to continue the chronicle of my adventures in pizza cookery. I've actually been considering making a blog out of this, since it's still fairly early in my efforts, and I REALLY wanna build that oven in my backyard now... we'll see. Anyways.
Today, I hit a few Italian import shops for better ingredients - up to now I've been using the stuff you find at the grocery, with surprisingly good results in a couple of cases. But after reading the Forno Bravo site, I decided to seek out some of the "proper" stuff. Eventually I plan to order some of the stuff that Forno Bravo is hawking, but in the meantime, for those living here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, let this be your travelogue.
Real San Marzano tomatoes can be found at DeLuca's on Portage, under the Alba name (their house brand). They do have the proper bonafides, and are Choice grade with basil already added:
The added basil is not so good, as I prefer to add my own herbs, but the sauce I made was nonetheless fantastic, sweet and vivid, like the proverbial party in your mouth. They go for $3.75 a can, quite reasonable really. I did find one other brand of San Marzanos (forgot to check for the seal) at Piazza Di Nardi, which were a bit more pricey at $4.49 a can. I'll try them out at some point, though I can't see them being worth that much more.
I've always been a firm believer in the principle that it's a poor workman that blames his tools, but it's also gratifying when you get the right stuff to work with and things just seem to come together, as was the case with the sauce. Where the regular tomatoes you find at Safeway (any brand) come out watery and tasteless, these San Marzanos really are worth the extra coin, if you like to taste your food that is...
Less happy was the flour situation. I did, after much searching, find a few bags of 00 flour, on the bottom shelf at Piazza Di Nardi:
I was surprised, with the fairly large local Italian population, that nobody else was carrying it. I asked Tony at DeLuca about it, and he said that he had brought it in before, but he sold very little. I told him that if he brought some in I promised I would buy it, but considering that Forno Bravo appears to ship for free to Canada, I may just go with their brand, as it's not much more than the stuff around here.
I decided, in making the dough, to not add any gluten, just to see what this flour could do on its own. The first thing I noticed is that it seems to need a lot less water than the local all-purpose flour - with the same recipe I used last time, it sucked up at least an extra 1-1.5 cups of flour, and still stuck to the bowl. I ended up using one entire bag.
Forming the crusts was not as easy as with the domestic flour w/ added gluten - it stretched, but it also popped a few holes, and was generally a lot more temperamental than the last attempt. In the end, I had to resort to a rolling pin, at which point it behaved quite nicely, but still, it wasn't that nice stretchy dough that the guys in New York toss around.
Oh yeah, I also got some of DeLuca's own in-house Mozzarella, which was just freakin' amazing. Me and my girlfriend were both nibbling at it the whole time I was cooking, and I had to resort to some Safeway plastic stuff to finish up the last pizza. You could really see the difference between the two cheeses when the pizza was cooked - the rich, creamy looking DeLuca cheese vs. the washed-out, semi-transparent Lucerne stuff.
Anyways, I also adjusted the baking parameters - James suggested I turn the temperature up, which I did. I ended up with the opposite from problem from before - the crust, on the first couple of pizzas, cooked too fast, while the top just barely made it. I adjusted the temp down to about 450 or so, and the last pizza came out just about perfect. I'm thinking that next time I'll start by preheating at 550 for an hour or so, and then turn it down to 450 15 minutes or so before baking.
I'm also still working on the proper amount of flour to put on the peel - I always seem to have to shake the zza a little too hard to get it sliding before I put it in the oven, and the toppings inevitably get shook up, and on the last one especially, a lot of cheese ended up on the counter, and I had to put some more on before it went in the oven.
I should've taken some pics of the final products, but I wasn't really thinking about documenting at the time. I think for my next experiment, I'm gonna go back to adding the gluten as well as using about 3/4 of the water. I also am gonna order some of the good flour from FB, just to see what that stuff is like, though I can't see ordering it habitually - the way I see it, when all those Italian immigrants came to New York, the only thing they had from the old country was the recipes, at least at first, and they made do with what was available locally. Similarly, in the long run I'm probably gonna go with local ingredients as much as possible, with the definite exception (obviously) of the olive oil... although those San Marzanos are gonna be a hard habit to kick, so we'll see about that.
Today, I hit a few Italian import shops for better ingredients - up to now I've been using the stuff you find at the grocery, with surprisingly good results in a couple of cases. But after reading the Forno Bravo site, I decided to seek out some of the "proper" stuff. Eventually I plan to order some of the stuff that Forno Bravo is hawking, but in the meantime, for those living here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, let this be your travelogue.
Real San Marzano tomatoes can be found at DeLuca's on Portage, under the Alba name (their house brand). They do have the proper bonafides, and are Choice grade with basil already added:
The added basil is not so good, as I prefer to add my own herbs, but the sauce I made was nonetheless fantastic, sweet and vivid, like the proverbial party in your mouth. They go for $3.75 a can, quite reasonable really. I did find one other brand of San Marzanos (forgot to check for the seal) at Piazza Di Nardi, which were a bit more pricey at $4.49 a can. I'll try them out at some point, though I can't see them being worth that much more.
I've always been a firm believer in the principle that it's a poor workman that blames his tools, but it's also gratifying when you get the right stuff to work with and things just seem to come together, as was the case with the sauce. Where the regular tomatoes you find at Safeway (any brand) come out watery and tasteless, these San Marzanos really are worth the extra coin, if you like to taste your food that is...
Less happy was the flour situation. I did, after much searching, find a few bags of 00 flour, on the bottom shelf at Piazza Di Nardi:
I was surprised, with the fairly large local Italian population, that nobody else was carrying it. I asked Tony at DeLuca about it, and he said that he had brought it in before, but he sold very little. I told him that if he brought some in I promised I would buy it, but considering that Forno Bravo appears to ship for free to Canada, I may just go with their brand, as it's not much more than the stuff around here.
I decided, in making the dough, to not add any gluten, just to see what this flour could do on its own. The first thing I noticed is that it seems to need a lot less water than the local all-purpose flour - with the same recipe I used last time, it sucked up at least an extra 1-1.5 cups of flour, and still stuck to the bowl. I ended up using one entire bag.
Forming the crusts was not as easy as with the domestic flour w/ added gluten - it stretched, but it also popped a few holes, and was generally a lot more temperamental than the last attempt. In the end, I had to resort to a rolling pin, at which point it behaved quite nicely, but still, it wasn't that nice stretchy dough that the guys in New York toss around.
Oh yeah, I also got some of DeLuca's own in-house Mozzarella, which was just freakin' amazing. Me and my girlfriend were both nibbling at it the whole time I was cooking, and I had to resort to some Safeway plastic stuff to finish up the last pizza. You could really see the difference between the two cheeses when the pizza was cooked - the rich, creamy looking DeLuca cheese vs. the washed-out, semi-transparent Lucerne stuff.
Anyways, I also adjusted the baking parameters - James suggested I turn the temperature up, which I did. I ended up with the opposite from problem from before - the crust, on the first couple of pizzas, cooked too fast, while the top just barely made it. I adjusted the temp down to about 450 or so, and the last pizza came out just about perfect. I'm thinking that next time I'll start by preheating at 550 for an hour or so, and then turn it down to 450 15 minutes or so before baking.
I'm also still working on the proper amount of flour to put on the peel - I always seem to have to shake the zza a little too hard to get it sliding before I put it in the oven, and the toppings inevitably get shook up, and on the last one especially, a lot of cheese ended up on the counter, and I had to put some more on before it went in the oven.
I should've taken some pics of the final products, but I wasn't really thinking about documenting at the time. I think for my next experiment, I'm gonna go back to adding the gluten as well as using about 3/4 of the water. I also am gonna order some of the good flour from FB, just to see what that stuff is like, though I can't see ordering it habitually - the way I see it, when all those Italian immigrants came to New York, the only thing they had from the old country was the recipes, at least at first, and they made do with what was available locally. Similarly, in the long run I'm probably gonna go with local ingredients as much as possible, with the definite exception (obviously) of the olive oil... although those San Marzanos are gonna be a hard habit to kick, so we'll see about that.
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