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They also import Manitoba flour in Italy to make pizza. High gluten is a must or it will just fall apart if it is the right thickness / cooked correctly. 90 sec

by sgc 8y ago

They also import Manitoba flour in Italy to make pizza. High gluten is a must or it will just fall apart if it is the right thickness / cooked correctly. 90 seconds is faster than usual, but yes it is cooked fast. Neapolitan in Italy means thicker crust than other regions, but you are probably right that is what you are eating. Outside of Italy I am not sure many people would be able to recognize the difference.

Jedd 8y ago
The 90s maximum thing was told to me by the bread chef at River Cottage (woo!) ... I did subsequently check, and it seems to be legit in terms of being able to be called a Neapolitan style pizza [1] -- you need to have it cooked in under 90s. There's some other quite specific requirements, around thinness of dough, and flour type. I gather the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana is a bit like the Comité Champagne - eager to protect their good name, and for good reason. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza
- greggman 8y ago
  never had a napoletana pizza with a crisp crust unless we have a different definition of crisp they are all pretty chewy which I love.
- sgc 8y ago
  I can tell you straight up that in the real world that is not what happens most of the time. It's also not always Oak, many places use Beech or similar woods. It's virtually impossible to run an oven with 20 pizzas in it at that pace, and I have worked with some incredible Pizzaioli. I am also far from convinced that keeping it under 2 minutes makes the best pizza, and there were many times where we considered the oven too hot and had to damper it to cook properly. A lower temp--but very well heated for appropriate thermal mass--oven was the bee's knees.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    Yup, I'm sure there's a bit of licence exercised with some of those requirements. For example, making quite a small pizza would make it easier to get sufficient heat / rise in under 90s -- this is what we were doing on our bread-making course. The wood oven had been heating up all morning, I think reaching more than 500, but we were cooking with the fire completely removed, and the thermal mass holding the temperature around 350 ish from memory. More than sufficient.

by sgc 8y ago

Jedd 8y ago

The 90s maximum thing was told to me by the bread chef at River Cottage (woo!) ... I did subsequently check, and it seems to be legit in terms of being able to be called a Neapolitan style pizza [1] -- you need to have it cooked in under 90s. There's some other quite specific requirements, around thinness of dough, and flour type. I gather the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana is a bit like the Comité Champagne - eager to protect their good name, and for good reason. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza

greggman 8y ago
never had a napoletana pizza with a crisp crust unless we have a different definition of crisp they are all pretty chewy which I love.
sgc 8y ago
I can tell you straight up that in the real world that is not what happens most of the time. It's also not always Oak, many places use Beech or similar woods. It's virtually impossible to run an oven with 20 pizzas in it at that pace, and I have worked with some incredible Pizzaioli. I am also far from convinced that keeping it under 2 minutes makes the best pizza, and there were many times where we considered the oven too hot and had to damper it to cook properly. A lower temp--but very well heated for appropriate thermal mass--oven was the bee's knees.
- Jedd 8y ago
  Yup, I'm sure there's a bit of licence exercised with some of those requirements. For example, making quite a small pizza would make it easier to get sufficient heat / rise in under 90s -- this is what we were doing on our bread-making course. The wood oven had been heating up all morning, I think reaching more than 500, but we were cooking with the fire completely removed, and the thermal mass holding the temperature around 350 ish from memory. More than sufficient.