Pizza Night
Who doesn't like pizza, show of hands please?
That's what I thought. Yep, we all like pizza. I've been eating pizza pretty much my entire life and I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know.
I was wrong.
On my last trip to Rome I followed the advice of food writer/author extraordinaire, Elizabeth Minchilli and tried the wonder that is known as white pizza - Pizza Bianca, the amazing street food one sees everywhere in Rome as a walking lunch break. Rome is a city not unlike New York where everyone s busy and in a hurry and a luscious bite like Pizza Bianco is the perfect on-the-go lunch.
The key to success is with the dough.
Like all great Italian dishes its perfection lies in its simplicity. A perfect long cold-proofed dough slathered in EVOO and rock salt. Crisp to the first bite with a fluffy, soft and chewy interior. Basically, a warm loaf of bread with the tangy bite of oil and salt. Perfection.
I went, as instructed to the Northwest corner of Campo di Fiori to <Forno> and ordered due taglia (two slices) for Patty and I. It was so miraculously better than any pizza ingested in my longish life that I vowed I would learn to make the dough myself, as I certainly couldn't get anything approaching this back in California. As foodia a town as Berkeley is, and as serious many places are about their pizza, there is nothing at all that approaches Pizza Bianca on the street in Rome*
* Another contender is La Renella forno in the Trastevere - pizza bianco con patate. This slice is so good I could happily eat it every day for the rest of my life. No exaggeration.
And so my quest began. I got and tried half a dozen Roman style pizza dough recipes with good but not life-changing results, until I happened upon the following - which nailed it perfectly. This recipe is from the Pizzeria in Campo where I originally tried Pizza Bianco. It may seem a bit fiddly on the first try and it DOES take 24 hours to prepare, but as I've now made it countless times for our Friday night Pizza fest, it's really just as simple as can be and I make it while prepping Thursday night's dinner almost without thinking.
Ingredienti
Pizza Bianca (this recipe makes 3 good sized personal pizzas)
18 oz Tipo OO flour
(It absolutely must be tipo OO. There is no substitution. My fav brand is Caputo, but there are many available here in the states)
1.75 tsp active yeast
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 cups of water (err on the + side)
1.5 tbsp evoo
Istruzioni
1. In a large bowl place the flour and yeast, and mix well with a wooden spoon
2. Add the water slowly and work it until it is thoroughly mixed
3. Add the salt and the EVOO and work it by hand until you have a large sticky blob of dough. Cover with a tea-towel and let sit for 1 hour at room temperature.
4. After an hour, gently remove it from the bowl onto a well floured workspace. With floury hands mold t into a ball and then stretch it far to the right and then fold it back in. Then to the left, folding it again. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and repeat.
4.b Repeat this for three times total, then cover with the tea-towel and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Repeat step 4 and 4b twice more. The dough should still feel slightly sticky, but be smooth as a baby's behind and very pliable.
5. lightly oil a bowl and place your ball of dough into it, rotating so the entire ball gets a light coating of olive oil.
6. Cover the bowl tightly with clear wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight.
Sleep the night through dreaming of a perfect pizza.
The next evening
1. Remove and uncover your fully proofed dough from the refrigerator an hour or so before you're ready to bake.
Preheat your oven to 450 - 500 degrees (depends on how well sealed your oven is. All ovens heat differently)
2. Gently (you don't want to rough up all the gluten and air you've worked so hard to get into the dough) move the dough to your well-floured workspace.
3. Cut the dough in thirds and cover the unused two chunks while working the first.
4. Using your hands only (no rollers - see notes on step 2) press with fingertips, pull, twirl, cajole and shape into a roughly 12" circle.
Load your pizza up with qualsiasi fa galleggiare la tua barca*. For Pizza Bianco, that would be heavily brushed on EVOO and rock salt. Done and done. My second fav is Pizza bianca con patate --> razor thin slices of golden potato with some equally thin slices of white onion.
*...Whatever floats your boat
Bake on a stone on the lowest rack in your oven for 10-12 minutes - start checking for doneness at 8 minutes.
Presto!! pizza bianca
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