Pizza and Focaccia (-sigh-)

I've been looking forward to 'pizza day' at culinary school for a while, but in the end it wasn't nearly exciting as I thought it would be -- as with anything worthwhile, appreciation has to be acquired with experience. The 'sushi day' at school was ridiculous for the same reason: people have to study and train in the world of sushi for 10-20 years before becoming a full fledged sushi chef, and one day of "creatively" assembling fish on rice doesn't really do it justice. Likewise, one day of "creatively" assembling a line of standardized toppings on dough left me feeling somewhat bereft.

That's not to say I didn't learn anything -- Chef G is clearly not only a master baker, but passionate about pizza and knows more about it than any snooty blogger-culinary student. The dough we made yesterday sat in the refrigerator overnight. The dough was scaled out into 8 ounce balls. The dough had to be rounded by hand on the metal tables. I tried several times and the seams kept on popping up, while Chef G's came out in perfect orbs. She showed me the specific motions, and how important it was not to have the dough too dry -- it needs to catch on the surface a little to round it without kneading it. I never bothered rounding my dough too much at home because in the end, it's going to be shaped into a disk, but this is the professional, traditional way to do it, and is one of many small details that'll help deliver an even, uniform product.

At first, the dough was left to rise at room temperature on the speedracks. Chef G had instructed us to place all the dough into the proofing box, which has a slightly elevated temperature and higher moister. She could judge the speed and volume of the yeast's activity just by looking at the dough, and by placing it in the proofer made it speed up a little. Again, one only learns that kind of judgement from experience.

When the dough was properly risen, Chef G did a demo on how to roll and assemble the pizza. She used cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking to the table, something I'd avoided because I don't like the gritty feeling in my mouth. She said she doesn't like to use flour because it's too easy to use too much, and can potentially dry out the dough (which would alter the whole texture profile in the final product). She artfully spread the cornmeal to minimize its presence -- the exact opposite of, say, Two Boots style, a NYC pizzeria which uses a thick layer of cornmeal on the bottom of the crust as a calling-card (yuck!)...

After pushing the ball of dough down into a disk, she stretched the dough by hand, not bothering with a rolling pin at all. By holding the edge of the disk and gently tugging it while turning it in a circle, the familiar pie shape emerged. She laid the disc on a gently-corn-floured pizza peal (a large wooden paddle with a long handle) and pushed the dough out a bit further to give a slightly raised handle to the crust. The dough was put at the edge of the peel; in this way, when it came time to place it on a heated stone in the oven, it wouldn't have too far to go to be slid off.

Then she topped it. First thing she did was brush a layer of olive oil on the dough. She said this would create a hydrophobic barrier between the toppings and the dough -- any water released from the toppings would be prevented from soaking the dough, creating that most horrible of things, the flibbidy-flobbidy slice. It also encourages browning, which in our vastly inappropriate ovens, would not get anywhere near the 900+ degrees needed to make a properly blistered and charred pie.

She topped hers with some delicate combination of goat cheese and onion, and when it came out after a good 12 minutes, added prosciutto, arugula, and extra virgin olive oil. She said all toppings on a pie go on before baking, EXCEPT for greens (including basil) and delicate cured meats, all of which should be placed on a pie as soon as it comes out of the oven. Thus, the radiant heat of the pie will gently wilt these ingredients, while the full blast of a pizza oven will carbonize them.

Then everyone went and did their pies. I did three: a simple margherita (chopped whole canned San Marzano tomatoes, moz, and finished with torn basil, olive oil, and salt); mushroom (cooked sauce, moz, and sautéed mushrooms); and roasted pepper (cooked sauce with radially-laid out roasted peppers covered generously with parmesan, finished with arugula and oil). The flavor of the crust was pretty good, and indeed treating it with oil helped firm it. But the quality of the ingredients (particularly the flavorless, oily moz) plus the low temp of the ovens prevented any hope of pizza nirvana.

Dirty Kim did bust out a fabulous Mornay-sauced pie, and Natasha mistook some herbs with mint, creating a very odd flavor profile. Dora the Explorer clumsily threw her pie into the oven above mine, and a good portion of her toppings fell onto my margherita. Pizzacrime!

I also brought in my own dough. But, after sitting on the proofing rack for 3 hours, it become a loose, shapeless, liquidy mess. I look forward to experimenting with the ratios of the school dough and the double-0 flour crossed with the recipes I've been using.

Oh yeah, we did breadsticks and focaccia, too. Sicilian pizza is just focaccia treated like pizza, an American invention. Whatevah!

ADDENDA:
Went out to deep NJ to visit a friend and her kid. Unfortunately, there was some problems with the buses and had to wangle a train, putting me home close to midnight.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, god granola with good milk, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM TASTINGS: 11-11:30am, various small tastes of pizzas, a bite of breadstick, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, 1 piece of school made focaccia, 1 breadstick, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 5:30pm, roast beef sandwich, Thai chocolate gelato, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 11:45pm, big spoonful of peanut butter, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5