Steve's and Bob's Project!!! Way Cool!!!! :) 10/1/2011

This is Steve's and Bob's Project!  It looks great to me! :)  Love that old Airstream!!!

Norma

Introducing ‘Ask Paulie’ on sliceseriouseats.com by Meredith Smith

Meredith Smith posted on Slice if you have pizza questions, concerns, and curiosities, now Paulie Gee, an accomplished pizzaiolo and a heck of a nice guy, will be answering questions. http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/09/introducing-ask-paulie-20110928.html


There also was an article on Slice about Paulie Gee’s ‘Egyptian Move” Pizza-Dough-Stretching Technique on Slice at http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-piemans-craft-paulie-gees-egyptian-move-pizza-dough-stretching-technique.html There is a video on the ‘Egyptian Move’ on Slice for to show how to do that.

A slideshow of Paulie Gee’s WFO pies can be seen at this link on Slice http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/06/paulie-gees-pizza-greenpoint-brooklyn-nyc-review.html 

There also other posts on Slice like the Pieman’s Craft at http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/09/the-piemans-craft-making-the-rooftop-red-pizza-with-paulie-gee.html  by the Serious Eats team. And Video: “Food Curated’ Points Its Lens at Paulie Gee by Adam Kuban at: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/04/video-food-curated-on-paulie-gees-greenpoint-pizza.html   The video is titled, ‘It’s Never Too Late to Make Pizza.

Should be very interesting to see what questions Slicers have for Paulie Gee.  He must be a super nice man to agree to answer questions.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/ 

Norma

Scott’s Pizza Chronicles: Ray’s Pizza Demystified on Slice

An article was posted on Slice by Scott Wiener about Ray’s Pizza Demystified.  If anyone is interested it is at http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/09/scotts-pizza-chronicles-a-look-at-rays.html 
Scott Wiener runs tours of NYC pizzerias with an emphasis on the history, science, technology, economics and deliciousness.

Norma

Preferment Lehmann pizza that was overbaked 9/27/2011

One pizza was left in the oven too long yesterday and it turned too brown on the rim and bottom crust to sell to customers, but Steve thought it didn’t look to bad and took it home to eat later.  The pie that was baked too long did have a definite crunch when cut.

Norma

something new made out of preferment Lehmann dough ball 9/27/2011

I had a few extra dough balls that were frozen and defrosted yesterday morning, so I decided to try something different with one dough ball.  I just stretched out the dough ball, rolled a little, then added just a blend of mozzarellas and mild white cheddar on the skin, then folded it over and over, pushed the ends together, then cut two holes in the skin, then baked.  The top of the skin was brushed with garlic herb infused olive oil before the bake. I don’t know what to call what product was made, but it was served with sauce.  It was another use for the preferment Lehmann dough.

Norma

Mellow Mushroom Pizza 2nd Attempt with MM #2 Formula 9/27/2011

The MM#2 experiment went well yesterday, but I think the effective hydration was either to high with the molasses added, or either the way I mixed the dough (with the oil in the water) made the hydration seem higher, or maybe another possibility is the ground toasted wheat germ did help hydrate the flour better than last week.  This week the dough felt like it had a much higher hydration than last week.  I can’t figure out why the hydration seemed higher than my attempt last week.

Steve and I had to get ready to make the MM experiment today.  We figured we had to dress the part of a MM operation, and also try to make my small pizza stand look a little like a MM real pizza business.  I went to the variety store right near where my pizza stand is and bought some “hippy” tattoos, and some decorations that looked “hippy” to me.  All for the price of 2.50 we could make ourselves look somewhat like a “hippy” and also decorated our stand to look something like a MM pizza business does.  That sure was a lot cheaper than it costs a real MM pizza operation to decorate.

The dough was dipped in coarse cornmeal today.  The dough seemed somewhat sticky, and the dough was almost too easy to open.  It reminded me somewhat like a Reinhart dough when opening it.  There wasn’t any trouble opening the dough, but there was no way I could have tossed the dough.

I did put the pepperoni in the oven to take the grease off again, and used part-skim mozzarella for the cheese.  We used 7.5 oz. of part-skim mozzarella, 6 ounces of sauce, and 22 pepperoni on the pizza for the dressings.

The pie baked well, and didn’t need a screen.  The bottom crust did browned well.  The finished pizza rim was brushed with melted butter with added garlic powder, than sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.  The pizza did have a crunch when cut, but not a lot. As the pie started to cool, it developed a droop.  Steve, my taste testers, and I enjoyed this pizza very much.  It sure was a different pizza.  There was one slice left, and my granddaughter and great-granddaughter did come to market later,  and my granddaughter and great-granddaughter did have the last slice. The last slice was reheated. They also enjoyed this MM attempt. They also got into the “hippy” mood and also applied tattoos to themselves.

I don’t think this attempt must have tasted like a real MM pizza, because the crumb did seem to moist to me, (almost like a Reinhart much higher hydration dough) but we all did like the moist crumb.

The MM dough ball had about 48 total time cold fermentation.

Norma

Dueling Two Greek Pizzas 9/27/2011

I wanted to compare how a preferment Lehmann dough ball and a MA#2 dough ball would compare when making a Greek pizza in how the final pizza tasted and also how both bottoms browned, if the same amount of dough was used, both pies were baked at the same time, both were dressed the same, the same amount of manteca was added to the 10” steel pans, and the bake times were both the same.

I thought there were some interesting results from this experiment.  The bottom crusts did brown differently when the same amount of manteca was used, the bake times were both the same, and both pies were baked simultaneously.  The preferment Lehmann Greek pizza bottom crust didn’t brown as much as the MA#2 Greek pizza crust bottom.  My taste testers, Steve and I all tasted both pies and our favorite was the preferment Lehmann Greek pizza.

Another interesting thing came out of this experiment, and a subsequent experiment for an emergency Greek pizza made by Steve.  I try to control how much cheese I used on any pizzas made for market, because it costs money for the cheeses applied.  If I had made this same pizza at home I probably would have added more cheese like Steve always does for his Greek pizzas.  I applied the same kinds blend of cheeses that Steve applied in his emergency Greek pizza, but didn’t apply near as much cheese that Steve did.  Steve’s pie had much better browning and crispness at the edges than my two experimental pies did.

The dressings used on both of my experimental pizzas was my regular sauce, spinach, cauliflower, and 3 blends of cheeses, being the mild cheddar the predominate cheese.

Norma

Steve's Experimental Emergency Greek pizza with the Stretch-out product 9/27/2011

I didn’t know Steve was going to make an emergency dough for a Greek pizza yesterday, but he made an emergency dough for a Greek pizza using the Stretch-Out product I had given him.  Steve had made the emergency dough in the mid-morning before he came to market.  Steve emergency dough pizza turned out better than both of my Greek pizzas experiments yesterday. Steve’s whole Greek pizza turned out better in the taste of the crust and had much better crispness at the edges of the pizza.  Steve only wiped a very small amount of manteca on his 10” steel pan with a paper towel for his experiment.   Steve did apply the same blend of cheeses I had used in my experiments, but used a lot more cheese than I did.

Steve did add rosemary to his emergency dough.

Norma