Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Roman Holiday

Following up on the last post, another beautifully simple Roman style dish: Pizza Bianca. It's not what we tend to think of here in the northeast as pizza. Almost more like a focaccia , just the dough topped with salt , olive oil and some rosemary.

Latest issue of Cooks Illustrated contains a great recipe/technique for making Pizza Bianca. Like many of their recipes, it takes some time, but the results are well worth it. It's got to be a great gig there in America's Test Kitchen: perfecting recipes for optimum results. Imagine going to work some day knowing you're going to make and taste twenty...thirty...sixty(?) variations of chocolate chip cookies until you find one that is juuuust right. There's a lot of science to food and cooking (hello, Harold McGee!) and the good folks at Cooks Illustrated are dedicated researchers studying reactions and perfecting each approach in their 'lab.' Often I find their methods require a lot of steps, but - to be fair - they're not a magazine geared towards 30 minute meals or the like. I don't think I've ever tried one of their recipes where following each detailed step hasn't resulted in exactly what they promise.

Their Pizza Bianca uses a very 'wet' dough unlike any kind of pizza dough I've ever worked with. Unlike the normal dough one sees tossed in the air and/or spread with a rolling pin at the local pizzeria, this one almost resembles what breadmakers call a sponge; it's poured into an oiled sheet pan and stretched. The results are a high, airy crust with a crisp, colorful exterior - more in line with what we (growing up in Belmont, Massachusetts at least) referred to as 'Greek' style pizza. (Actually, in Belmont, you called it 'Brothers' style pizza...as opposed to Dom's or Belmont Pizza...the three de facto 'types' of pizza we knew...)

Tried their more substantial version which added a topping of strained crushed tomatoes and shredded mozzarella and we were quite happy with the resulting pie. Pizza at home (and, sorry, I don't even consider those Boboli things much more than a step above frozen pizza) can be so good, but it can be tricky to get it as good as one you pick up from your local brick oven place. (Um...'cause we tend not to have brick ovens in our homes...) A pizza stone - also recommended for the Cooks Illustrated recipe definitely helps. (But, yeah, they require some extra forethought - preheating for an hour.)

You absolutely need a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook to try this. The dough has so much water in it in proportion to the dry ingredients that it takes a lot of mechanical action to get the gluten to develop. (Heed the recipe's warning to babysit your mixer as it has a tendency to wobble and wander the counter while kneading the dough on high speed.)

So, a lot of work? Not really, but you'll need time...a few hours for the dough to mix and rise. The pizza itself takes about a half hour to assemble and bake. Makes me want to go back to Rome and try the real thing. In the meantime, though...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent photo. Makes me want one.