Pizza?
I mentioned a few months ago that I have been slowly working on this project
since I first read about it back in December.
Sunday was the day.
We fired up that portable pizza oven,
and here is what happened:
I scrambled Saturday night to create a Neopolitan style dough.
Having never made one, I was a bit nervous,
and waited until the last minute to go and purchase flour.
By 11 pm I had managed to throw together
2 double batches using a mix of all purpose,
whole wheat, and bread flours.
I tried to keep the hydration high,
as this is essential for this type of pizza
to be cooked at high temps.
I wasn't too sure about the amount of yeast needed
but I did document the exact weights for each ingredient
and set the doughs aside to rise.
Brett and I took off to drink a few brews
and throw darts at my cousin's house.
Well, not
at her house
but we did throw them
at a dart board inside her house.
By 2 am I was home witnessing with alarm
the blob that ate my kitchen....
2
extremely full bowls of dough.
I needed to transfer these into larger receptacles,
so out came the really big bowls.
The growth of this dough really surprised me,
and I was sure I had erred somewhere in my calculations.
Well, that's okay...this is a learning process
which I intend to master over time.
Maybe a little less yeast...who knows?
8 am and I hear Brett's concerned voice in my ear--
the bowl you stuck in the microwave for safe-keeping has
overflown.
Oh hell, I don't care...let me go back to sleep...
3 minutes later and I was jumping up to view the chaos.
I spent about 5 seconds pondering
over whether to take a picture of that mess.
We had just purchased a new camera
and I hadn't taken it out of the box yet.
In the end, I decided it just didn't matter.
I was surprised this dough had expanded
almost beyond control;
although it was messy, it was not a disaster.
Grabbing all that dough, punching it down
and giving it a gentle few kneads
transformed it from a bubbling experiment into
a gorgeous silky orb of sweet-smelling succulence.
Whooooo baby!
I got my game face back on!
I separated it into 200 gram portions,
placing each blob into a sandwich bag; setting them aside
to begin that incredible bulking process once again.
27 dough balls later, and we were ready!
We had planned for this day at the Raisch home,
with their refreshing pool and hottub
available to relieve stress if needed.
We had the Dallas Cowboys to divert our attention,
and 17 witnesses to the mayhem that would ensue.
I am seldom nervous, but I began flailing my arms
and causing my friends to wonder if this was a good idea.
Here we were in unknown territory,
and I had no idea how it would all turn out.
Brett had cautioned me several times,
(damn why does he do that?)
to just try this at home first,
but I wanted to see all the reactions, good or bad.
I am not afraid of failure.
It was gonna be interesting no matter what,
and we had back up food plans if needed.
At halftime, Dallas led the game and we lit up the grill.
While Paul and Brett monitored the heat,
Jon declared it was never going to get hot enough
due to lack of oxygen. Yeah, thanks, bro.
I nervously went inside and tried my hand
at rolling out the pizza dough.
Not the simplest thing to do with that wet stretchiness,
but I could see that I may actually have a decent mix
since the dough was acting just like it should.
I managed to build the first pizza onto the heavily floured peel.
We were beginning to get real heat on the pizza stones,
the top stone was getting over 500 degrees,
and the bottom stone had just hit over 400.
Once we acheived 500 on the bottom stone,
I opted to get that first pizza on,
knowing the top stone would be much hotter.
It looked good after just 90 seconds of baking,
but it was burning on one side--
too much flame coming up around the fire brick on that side,
and no charring on the bottom yet.
I panicked and took off that first pizza at just over 2 minutes.
Everyone was amazed because this really looked promising.
Jon stayed off to the side, with his doubtful eye on things.
Virginia wanted to try her hand at tossing the next pie
(she worked at Domino's when she was a teenager)
and it was her skills that literally saved the day for me.
She's a pro, I tell you.
We began to crank them out, and began calling out
to each kid and kid-at-heart for their "special orders"...
The stones began to smoke and burn red (exaggeration),
we were beginning to get into the high 600's and the hot spot was hotter!
We tried spinning the lid every 30 seconds to force the overdraft
but the hot spot was caused from my not cutting that firebrick to fit.
I'll fix that and eliminate the problem.
The pizzas were cooking beautifully
with a decent rise to the crust edge,
beautiful charring (leoparding) on the bottom,
and nice browning on the top.
The pies were cooking through within 2 to 2-1/2 minutes.
Wow!
After about the 6th pie, I sensed we had lost heat,
and sure enough the flame had gone out.
We thought it might have been the wind's fault,
but it turned out to be....
the lack of oxygen my brother kept warning me about.
I'll need to modify the cutout on the bottom of the grill
where the flame element enters, and leave a larger gap around there.
At the moment it has maybe a 1/4" gap all around
and most of that is taken up by the foil liner.
I also need to cut the firebricks so they set flat,
and hopefully eliminate that hot spot flaming up around one edge.
We had to get the heat back up, so we had a lull at this time.
Enter my cousin the "Michilada Queen".
With our tasty red spicy beers in hand
we resumed the process and lifted the lid
sporadically to keep the flow of oxygen going.
By now, Virginia was literally tossing and spinning dough!
The look on her face was magic.
I was maneuvering the peel and sometimes fighting
to release the pizzas onto the stone
without flopping everything right off the dough.
I did fold one before it got all the way off the peel
but we just made that one into a calzone.
Some of those pizzas were literally flying off the grill.
We had many toppings to choose from.
Pepperoni, canadian bacon, cheap red sauce,
mushrooms, black olives, sausage, jalapenos,
green chiles, onions, pineapple, mozarella...
I was going to bring some other toppings:
roasted red peppers, fresh basil from my garden,
white or garlic sauces, a variety of cheeses (feta, parmesan, asadero)....
but this day was sort of overwhelming already.
I've got to give kudos!
Props to all those who inspired me at Pizzamaking.com.
If it weren't for all their modifications,
and their exuberance and helpful tips
I would not have reaped the reward
of high fives, broad smiles,
and the virtual shock and awe
of fantastic made-to-order personal pizza
anywhere we want to make it!
This one is a keeper.
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