Dude, seriously...

"This f-ing bread is incredible."  -  The words I spoke when I tasted my first loaf out of a new book I picked up this weekend: Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson.  I came across it at the bookstore admits a few hundred other baking books.  The loaf on the cover caught my eye.  It looked legit, so I started flipping through.  First thing I noticed, TONS of step-by-step photography. To me, this is key in the success of repeating someone's process.  The next thing, the formulas are in grams instead of cups, which won me over immediately.  This dude and his wife's bakery have been around for some time now, so he's got cred.  I've never heard of the bakery before, then again, I don't live in San Francisco.  They have it good over there.  In CT we lack certain legit/authentic/doing-it-the-right-way type places.  Not to say there aren't, we just lack them.

So, I tried the country bread formula.  I have a good understanding of artisan bread baking, but this book opened up my eyes a bit more to traditional methods.  The "no knead" books out there that do use old-school methods always annoyed me.  Instead of marketing the book to be full of good formulas, it was marketed to be convenient.  This book does not knead either (minus the brioche recipe), but for better reason.  The final texture, or "crumb", is what I haven't ever gotten before in my own formulas.  I was so convinced that it was a mixing thing, when it was really just a method thing.  A series of folds rather than kneading and resting.  Gluten development is what gives bread its structure, so I always assumed that the bread wouldn't be able to hold onto as many gas bubbles without proper development.  The gas stayed in just fine.  So, no-knead seems to be a good idea for this style of bread.

Baking the bread is where I think people mess up the most and end up with shitty results.  I use a baking stone for everything.  In fact, it never leaves my oven.  For hearth baking it's awesome.  For promoting even temperature, it's reliable.  I figured that this book would be all about it.  I was wrong.  The methods suggest a combo cooker.  Pretty much an upside-down dutch oven.  The reason is to trap in steam, which is completely necessary for crunchy, well risen bread.  Professional deck ovens use steam injection for this, but we all don't have those, so we must improvise.  My previous method was to pour water into the bottom of the oven, but not much of it would stay in. Instead it would just spit out like a boiling tea kettle.  The combo cooker traps in the inherit steam coming off of the loaf... to say the least I was surprised, if not embarrassed.  I have seen this method in another book, but I passed it off as silly and too much trouble.  After 18 minutes, I removed the lid and baked it another 15-20 and it was pretty fucking awesome to see such a wonderfully baked loaf come out of my conventional electric oven.

My loaf, first attempt at this string of methods, came out perfect.  Impressively perfect.  I seriously need to start altering my formulas and not use my mixer so much.  My kitchen-aid is a work horse.  I use it constantly, but I think I should give it a break and have a go at hand mixing my doughs.

Check out the holes developed in this bread ("cell wall definition" ... I heard some douche judge say that on food network once).  It's from the slow, slow, slow... ( did I say slow? ) rising.  I started mixing the dough at 8:30 AM, it didn't go in the oven until 6:30 PM.  After mixing, resting, and folding the loaf is formed, and then it rises for 4 hours.  Why so long?  Well I didn't use any commercial yeast.  You absolutely could and get an OK loaf, but we're talking the real deal here.  The flavor developed over the long rise is borderline sourdough, but not as much acidity.  The time also allows for large pockets of gas to form in the dough, which contributes to the big ass holes in it.  This is characteristically desirable for some artisan loaf.

Dude, seriously, get the book.     TARTINE BREAD



What else can you make with bread once it's baked?


How 'bout a mac n' cheese sandwich with crispy prosciutto? Ok let's do it.

Take some prosciutto (bacon, tofurkey, slices of lamb testicles... whatever you want) and render out the fat until crispy and tasty looking.  Save the fat.

Take leftover mac n' cheese from the fridge (make sure it's wicked cold) and cut it into a shape that is relevant in size to the slices of bread you have.  Crispy artisan style loaf is key here.  Coat the noodle blocks in flour and pan fry in the reserved fat over medium-high heat on both sides (optionally you can bread these things like chicken and deep fry them.)

Place on the bread and top with more cheese.  Add crispies and proceed like making grilled cheese.  Use butter for this.  I like to brown one side, flip, then finish in a 450* oven.

Total mind-f!@k.  Cook-Eat-Live dudes.

Pizza is better than everything, still

[Photograph: Cameron Mattis]

I had a bit of a revelation a few weeks ago that I need to share with the web.  It's something that I don't know why I haven't realized before, and honestly, I feel like I should have.  I consider myself to be a lot of things: a total f-ing food nerd, a home-brewer, a coffee snob (I rather drink Sasquatch's piss than drink dunkin donuts' poor excuse for java) ... but one hell of a pizza slut I certainly am.  I'm not talking about fluff crust impostors or a cardboard flapping hoaxer, I'm talking about pizza the way it was meant to be. My revelation is how the crust-which-I-desire is produced. As if you didn't know all the makings a the perfect pie?  Okay, maybe you don't...  here's the criteria and the revelation I had -

"Relatively" thin crust
I guess it's debatable.  Thin could mean the crust is cracker-like, or that it is slightly thinner than the thickness than a pencil.  Here in New Haven, pizza crust is all the importance and cracker-like doesn't fly.  The big guys probably won't share with you the trade secrets, but I'll tell you what I know.  I have come to my conclusion through my own analysis and, of all things, a measuring accident (not proud of this).  Bottom line on this one, no fluff, mmm k?


Choice of tomato
Pizza does not necessarily need tomato on it to be considered a pizza.  I could easily rub olive oil on pizza dough and bake it, and still call it pizza (bianco that is).  When I came to my analysis, I figured out the key here is consistency.   If you use generic store brand crushed tomato or out of season "fresh" tomatoes, I think your steering yourself in the wrong direction.  You need to choose a product that you know for certain will not run off the pie.  At the same time, the sauce can't be pasty and concentrated. Tomato paste in a sauce makes it too sweet and depending on the brand of sauce you buy, it may have this in it.  Here are some brands in the store that I suggest using that fall into the range of consistency I am talking about.

*sorry for the amazon links*

Cento

Rienzi

San Marzano

Notice that I didn't suggest "sauce"  these are whole plum tomatoes of quality.  I also know that they are packed in tomato puree, which is important.  When you are ready to make your pie, just throw the contents of the can in the blender and give it a few millisecond zaps (1-2-3... maybe 4).  The tomatoes should be chunky, not watery.  Over processing will turn it into juice.  No salt, no pepper, no spices... add later if you desire, but not necessary.  Oh, and you don't need to cook it either.  Cooking the tomatoes will ruin the brightness of the sauce and make it sweeter.  Leave it be.  The acid balances out the fat from the cheese and possible meat toppings.  The tomatoes being packed in the puree helps with the consistency issue.  You could just use in-season tomatoes that are ripe as fuck.  That would be perfect, but remember to adjust for consistency.  Try this:

Peel the tomatoes by blanching them in boiling water for a few seconds and shocking them in cold water.  Use a paring knife and get rid of the skin.
Squeeze the seeds and gel out of the tomato and reserve.
Blitz the little dudes in the blender just as before, but if it looks too dry, add back some of the stuff you squeezed out.

The oven
Get that sh!t hot.  Does it go up to 600* ?  Then do it!  550* is ok too.  You need a Baking Stone to make this work BTW.  Put it on the lowest rack in your oven.  If you find that it is burning the pizza before the cheese is brown an bubbly, move it up a rack.  Hot-hot-heat is what you need.  No way around this.  If you are afraid that your oven is going to blow up or something, call Dominoes and settle for reassembled poo-matter.


The dough
Okay, one thing that all pizza lovers can agree on is the crust has to be crisp, not doughy. Dough in pizzerias can be made a bunch of different ways. Some add fat to the dough, some add sugar, some buy the sh!t in and run it though a conveyor-belt toaster oven.  When I am talking about New Haven style pizza, the dough needs to be a "lean & slack" dough.  That's pizza biz talk for a wet and fat-less dough.  You can put the fat on top for flavor, but in the crust, it works against your eventual crispiness. 
I don't know exact formulas to any of the top pizzerias in the area, again, this is speculation.  (despite my intelligence from inside sources on the use of fat and sugar in the dough.... I won't get into it)  I think I'm trailing off again....  ok, right, the dough.  So what make it crispy?



A wet dough
This is just general bread baking knowledge.  A wet dough makes for bigger holes (i.e. ciabatta) and a hard/crunchy crust.  It does the same for pizza dough.

No fats and no sugars
Why?  Well they do add flavor, but f@*k with the texture of the pie.  No need.  Keep it in the cookies.

Amount of salt **MY REVELATION***
So you got high blood pressure huh?  Deal with it.  This is what a stumbled upon a few weeks ago in my kitchen.  I was so concerned with all the other factors like oven temp, leanness of the dough, blah, blah, blah... So I accidentally hit the tare button on my scale prematurely while measuring the salt and I ended up adding in too much,4 grams too much.  After I made the dough, I tasted it and knew that I went over board with the salt.  No f!*ks did I give at that point because I was in a rush.  So I let it rise.  I shaped it, I put in the fridge overnight to slow rise and develop flavor (Don't you?).  The next day for lunch I made my pies as usual and sneaked a piece while my wife wasn't looking.  Bells went off in my head and I said to myself, "You f-ing idiot, how did you not figure this out before?"  The crust was wicked crispy. Before I had always blamed my electric oven for not getting hot enough, but this was it.  I had achieved my pizza destiny.  Salt.  Who knew? I believe it has to do with how moisture is absorbed into the starch of flour... or something....

Pizza slut or not, you know good pizza when you eat it.  Trying to reproduce New Haven style pizza at home is a virtue.  I set out many years ago and I thought that I had it as close as possible.  All the variables were considered, then by the slip of my hand I figured it out. 

Put down that phone and make some pizza

The revised formula

1       #        3    oz            High Gluten Flour (try the stuff labeled "for bread machines" if no avail)
1 1/2           tsp.                Instant Yeast
                   13  oz            Water
                   16 g               Kosher salt

-Mix for 6 minutes on medium speed (or kneed by hand for 10 minutes)
-Bulk rise for 2 hours (or more if you're busy)
-Shape into three equal sized balls and place onto a sheet pan sprayed with grease
-Place into the refrigerator for 8-24 hours
-Take out of the fridge 30 minutes or so before using