DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum A Slice of Heaven: The Perfect Ingredients

Now I love pizza! I could eat it everyday. I came across this and thought it was good. Made me very hungry too hehe.


We've teamed up with food writer Ed Levine to bring you excerpts from his book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven. Today, Ed gives us a bit of a pizza primer. And now, here's Ed. ?The Mgmt.

What goes into a perfect pizza? The tangible elements are as follows:

THE FUEL SOURCE
In my opinion, coal-fired and wood-fired ovens produce the best pizza. The high heat given off by both charcoal and wood can char a pizza crust to perfection, and when coal or wood is piled directly into the oven it imparts a smoky flavor to the pizza. Christophe Hille, chef at San Francisco's A16, told me he believes that the flames, and not the wood itself, flavor the pie. Gas-fired ovens can also create a great pizza. Nick Angelis of Nick's gets a fantastic char on his crusts from his Wood Stone gas-fired ovens. As he points out, pizza crust gets its char from high heat consistently applied to the dough, and his gas ovens can easily maintain 800°F heat. Conventional gas ovens, such as those made by Bakers Pride and Bari, can maintain temperatures of only around 600°F.

THE OVEN
How do you get an oven to reach eight hundred degrees and stay there? There's no way around it: You line the floor and top with bricks and/or stones to help maintain heat. I am sickened by all of the awful pizza places that tout their "brick" ovens, just because they have a couple of bricks somewhere in the vicinity of the restaurant. So next time you see brick-oven pizza advertised, investigate. Become a "Pizza P.I." Are those real bricks you see-or a faux-brick façade? Is the oven encased in brick, or are the bricks positioned only at the corners? It's the brick and stone acting in concert with the fuel source that imparts flavor. If you have an oven that doesn't maintain high heat, the pizza is going to be inferior, no matter how you slice it.

THE CRUST
I like my crust puffy, chewy, and pliant. A great pizza crust should be like a great football defense. It should bend but never break. The superior pizza crust is neither cracker-thin nor thick as bread. It should have a veneer of crispness and be softer and more tender on the inside. A great pizza crust should have browned and blackened charred spots. They lend a needed bit of smoky flavor. I love a pizza crust with a few of those raised blisters. They lighten the overall effect of eating pizza. The interior of the crust should have the hole structure of well-made and well-baked bread.

Pizza is as simple a great food as there is. But a pizza crust becomes great not just because of the quality of the ingredients, but also because of the skill of the "pizzaiolo," the person who makes it (in New York and New Haven the pizzaiolo is more commonly known as the pie man). It's all in the hands.

THE MOZZARELLA
I love the clean, milky taste of fresh cow's-milk mozzarella (fior di latte, in Italian) on my pizza. It's easy to tell if a pizzeria uses fresh mozzarella: It's white. Aged mozzarella, used by the great majority of pizza makers in this country, is that color I call pizza yellow. Because it's aged, it has a certain tanginess. A few pizzerias across the country, including Salvatore's in Port Washington, New York, and Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona, make their own whole-milk mozzarella fresh every day. Most good by-the-slice pizzerias use a commercial aged mozzarella made by Grande, a large cheese purveyor in Wisconsin. Mozzarella made from the milk of water buffaloes is called mozzarella di bufala. True mozzarella di bufala is produced mostly in Italy, although there is one farm in Vermont that makes it domestically. It's tangy, very creamy (it's actually wet and quite oily when it melts), slightly tart, and unbelievably delicious. It's also quite expensive (even in Italy). In Naples you can get a pizza made with mozzarella di bufala called a DOC for a slight premium. In the States, only a few pizzerias with the Vera Pizzeria Napoletana designation offer it as an option, and only Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana uses it exclusively on his pizza. The only slice I've ever seen made with mozzarella di bufala is baked in Midwood, Brooklyn, at Di Fara Pizza. Unbelievably, Domenico DeMarco uses a blend of fresh mozzarella di bufala and fresh cow's-milk mozzarella on slices that are an absolute steal at $2.50.

OTHER CHEESES
Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco goes to the trouble of smoking his own mozzarella in his wood-burning pizza oven using pecan wood. The result is the best smoked mozzarella I have ever tasted, which he uses on his Wiseguy pie along with roasted onions and sweet fennel-laced sausage. Many first-rate pizzerias use a judicious sprinkling of freshly grated Romano and/or Parmigiano-Reggiano to flavor their pizzas. DeMarco and Lawrence Ciminieri of Totonno's both use freshly grated Romano to lend a little saltiness and tang to their pies. La Pizza Fresca uses a dusting of Parmigiano-Reggiano on its pizza, which lends it a slightly nutty flavor. As Dan Young notes , pizzerias in the south of France use Cantal (a mild Cheddar) and Gruyère on their pizza instead of mozzarella. Chefs like Todd English, Mario Batali, and Alice Waters use goat cheese and Gorgonzola on particular pizzas.

THE SAUCE
The best pizza sauces are made with uncooked canned tomatoes, from either California or Italy, that have been strained and seasoned with salt and maybe some oregano. Pizza sauce should not be slow-cooked. It should not taste like pasta sauce or marinara sauce. Some people think you have to use San Marzano tomatoes, grown in that town in Italy, that have been designated DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta). They are very expensive, and I have found wonderful pizza sauces made with other Italian tomatoes or even high-quality California tomatoes. Some people doctor their sauce with sugar, giving it an excessive sweetness that I don't care for. If the tomatoes used are good enough, they will be plenty sweet on their own. Fresh tomatoes are generally not used to make the sauce for pizza, though fresh cherry tomatoes are used to make the pie the Neapolitans call Al Fileto.

THE TOPPINGS
I love the taste of fresh, meaty, fennel sausage on pizza. Unfortunately, many places use what I call sausage pellets or sausage droppings, which are not worth the calories or the fat grams. Chris Bianco makes his own sweet sausage to use as a topping. But even if your local pizzeria doesn't make its own sausage, it can buy it locally from a butcher. I find the best sausage is irregularly shaped and chunked. Small rounds can be okay, as can long oblong pieces of sausage, but avoid the pellets. The best pizzerias also use fresh mushrooms and roast their own peppers. Before you order, ask if the mushrooms are fresh and if the peppers are roasted in house. All pepperonis are not created equal. Hormel's Grande pepperoni has a much cleaner taste than regular pepperoni. Mario Batali makes his own pepperoni at Otto, and it's the best pepperoni pizza I have ever tasted. Clams are a fantastic topping for pizza, as long as they're fresh and used judiciously.

BALANCE
The best pizzas achieve a kind of harmonic and textural balance. It's a balance shared by all great dishes. What contributes to that balance? The right combination of tastes and textures. The puffy, chewy and just salty enough crust should play off the oozy, creamy mozzarella and the acidic sweetness of the tomato sauce. I like all my toppings to be used in moderation. This means I like discrete areas of sauce and cheese on my pizza. I like my mozzarella fresh and my sausage chunked and sweet and fennelly. I like my pizza sauce made with uncooked fresh tomatoes and a little salt.

Ed Levine is the founder of SeriousEats.com, is a regular contributor to the New York Times Dining section, and is author of New York Eats and New York Eats More.

There's nothing like sweet sausage and roasted red peppers on a pie with extra sauce.

roasted red peppers are great with some good sauce, none of that real sweet stuff.

The problem is that nobody puts roasted red peppers on pizza around here. We make them at home.

One place here does but they aren't just strictly pizza. It's real good stuff, their sauce is great!

Also lots of mushrooms!

Mama Santa's is GREAT for cheap eats and pasta. Never tried their pizza though.

Best pizza is at Luigi's in Akron anyway... In NE Ohio at least. Best pizza I've ever had was Blue Moose in Beaver Creek, CO.

A question out there to all Columbus dawgs. Anyone got an opinion on Adriatico's pizza? I've heard it is the best pizza ever from just about everyone I know and yet I don't understand why. I've had it about 10 times and it tastes like bad college pizza which I can get a lot cheaper at any of the other places on High St. I heard it won best pizza in Columbus, but I really don't get it.

dawgfood~I like Adriatico's (or at least I did when I lived in Columbus 8 years ago). Is it the best in Columbus? Probably not. I always liked Hound Dogs.

Have you ever had Catfish Biff's? I've never been there yet but have heard good things. btw, how do you cheat at uno?

Quote:

---

Mama Santa's is GREAT for cheap eats and pasta. Never tried their pizza though.

---

I'll have to try the pasta next time I'm out that way. It cannot be any less average than the pizza they serve.

Nah, never had Catfish Biff's.

Yould have to ask Jules how I cheat at UNO. She's the accuser. LOL!

Beer~First, forgot to say that pizza you described (bison/red peppers) sounds good, I'll have to try it. Next, Mama's has a very good pasta sauce. Yummy! And don't forget to ask for meatballs. And if you're into it, get the Sangria. Good stuff. I fed myself and Couch Girl a pasta lunch and a half carafe of Sangria and with tip it was $25.00.

I used to live in Columbus and Adriatico's was always my favorite. You are getting the right pizza aren't you, they don't have some thin crust junk or anything out now, do they? Different people have different tastes though, I always used to argue with my friends who thought Catfish Biff's was the best.