How to Make Pizza

How to Make Pizza

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Pizza - How to Make Dough By Hand Part One

Pizza - How to Make Dough by Hand Part Two

Pizza - How to Make Dough by Hand Part Two

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Pizza - How to Shape Dough Into Pizza by Tossing it in the Air

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Pizza Toppings

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Margherita Pizza

Vegetable Pizza

Vegetable Pizza

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Meat Lover's Pizza

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Pizza - How to Achieve a Wood Burning Oven Effect at Home

Pizza - How to Achieve a Wood Burning Oven Effect at Home

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Ruth Gresser

Pizzeria Paradiso Georgetown

www.eatyourpizza.com  

Owner and chef Ruth Gresser grew up cooking with her mother, who owned a catering business in Baltimore, Md. Ms. Gresser cooked her way through Grinnell College in Iowa before moving to San Francisco, where she cooked for several years at Friends a Cafe and at Le Trou Robert. In 1987, she graduated summa cum laude from Madeleine Kamman's Classical and Modern French Cooking School in Glen, NH. She then moved to Washington, DC, where she has helped open four popular restaurants: Pizzeria Paradiso Dupont Circle, Pizzeria Paradiso Georgetown, Blue Plate and Obelisk. Ms. Gresser has been the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including the Women's Chefs and Restaurateurs Madeleine Kamman Scholarship and a guest chef appearance at Alice Waters' renowned Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA. She has also been profiled in The Washington Post Magazine, The Washington Business Journal and by Georgetown University Television. Ms. Gresser has been a chef demonstrator, contributor and panelist for The Smithsonian Institution and for FreshFarm Markets in Washington, DC. She is a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier and Women Chefs and Restaurateurs.

Pizza - How to Achieve a Wood Burning Oven Effect at Home

Pizza expert Ruth Gresser demonstrates how to make a pizza at home with a wood burning oven effect.

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Pizza - How to Achieve a Wood Burning Oven Effect at Home

Ingredients

1 lb Flour
10 oz Water
1 tsp Yeast
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Oil
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Garlic
1/2 tsp Oregano
5 Tomatoes
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Parsley

1 tsp Honey (optional)

Instructions

1. Dump the flour on the counter and create a well in the center. Pour in water that is 100 degrees F.


2. Sprinkle the yeast on top and mix the yeast into the water. Let it sit for a few minutes.


3. Add the oil and salt and mix them into the water and the yeast.


4. Gently mix the flour into the yeast mixture.


5. Start kneading the dough. Take a portion of the dough that's farthest away, and fold it over the front portion and then push away with the heel of your hand. Knead for about 10 minutes or until you have a nice smooth dough.


6. Put the dough to rise in a bowl, cover it with a little plastic or a tea towel and leave it out to rise. It will take about two to three hours or you can refrigerate the dough and let it go overnight.


7. When the dough has finished rising, put some flour down on the counter and take the dough out of the bowl. Knead the dough and then cut pieces of the pizza dough into even size pieces and shape it into balls.


8. Put the dough balls onto a floured flat surface, like a plate, and then cover it and let it rise for another hour or so.


9.  Flatten the dough and press all of the air out of the pizza and then take a rolling pin and roll it and turn it and roll it again until the dough is flattened.


10. For the tomato sauce, cook the oregano and the garlic for a minute. Dice five medium size peeled and seeded tomatoes. Add them to the pan and let the sauce cook for 5 minutes. Add the salt and parsley to finish the sauce.


11. Put the tomato sauce onto the pizza dough as well as any additional toppings.


12. Turn your oven to its highest setting and place the pizza on a pizza stone or preheated pan to simulate a wood-burning oven.
 

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Transcripts

Hi, I am Ruth Gresser from Pizzeria Paradiso, we have been making pizza today, and now it's time to put them in the oven. I am going to show you how to bake the pizza in our wood burning oven here at the restaurant. Obviously, not everyone has a wood burning oven at home, so, let me just talk about the difference between the two ovens. First of all, to stimulate the wood burning oven what I would suggest you do is turn your oven and make it as hot as you can get it. If it goes to 450, put it at 450, if it goes to 550, put it at 550. The closest thing that I have done to replicate the wood burning oven at home is I have a gas oven that has a broiler below the oven itself, and I actually turn my oven to broil. Because the broiler setting keeps the gas fire on the entire time that the pizza is cooked, the oven gets even hotter than it might if you were to set it at a particular temperature, because your oven will naturally turn off when it reaches that temperature. The temperature in the wood burning oven is -- we try to keep it around 650, so the pizza is cooked very quickly, because the fire is actually right in the oven, next to the pizzas as they're cooking, and the oven itself gets very hot. We cook it right on the surface of the oven where the fire is also sitting. So, the pizza in this oven is cooked from below, from being on the floor of the oven, and also cooked from the heat thats maintained within the oven. To replicate that at home, I would take a flat baking pan and put it in your oven and preheat the oven with the pan in it. If you have a pizza stone, you can use a pizza stone as well. Thats why I have had you make your pizza on the peel, so that when you are putting the pizza into the oven, you are actually putting it onto the surface, onto the baking surface, rather than making the pizza on the pan, which is then cold, and putting a cold pan into the oven. So, that's as I said the best way to replicate this kind of cooking atmosphere. So, the thing to keep in mind when you are putting the pizza in the oven is that you want it to come off of this peel. So, you need to make sure that the pizza isn't stuck. We have put flour on the peel, underneath the dough, and again, if you just shake the peel slightly to make sure that the pizza itself moves, then you know that when you go to put it in the oven it will stay in the oven and the peel will come out. So, what you are going to do is you are going to take the tip of your peel and put the tip of your peel just past where you want the pizza to land, because what you are going to do is you are going to pull out the peel, and the pizza is basically going to drop onto the surface, of either your cooking pan in your oven, or the floor of my oven right here. So, I am going to put the pizza peel just inside the oven. I have the tip of the pizza peel on the floor of the oven, and I am going to make sure my pizza is loose, and then I am just going to pull the peel out, and as I said, the pizza stays in the oven.

Broiling Hot Pizza Tip by PizzaHomeChef at 10/15/10 11:55AM Flag

Can't wait to try broiling. My broiler flame is at the top of my oven. Will that work as well? Another way to boost and stabilize oven heat is by placing 2 stones on two shelves and baking the pizza on the bottom stone to get enhanced heat above and below the pizza. Looking forward to sampling Pizzaria Paradiso's pizza! PizzaHomneChef, www.pizzahomechef.com

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