pizza pt. 2 - wet dough

i went home to richmond for the weekend to hang out with some friends and the family. i spent some time at my best friend's apartment in downtown richmond, and he showed me some tips to improve my pizza game. this guy has been making pizza in his kitchen for several months now, and has the process down pretty well. he made four pizzas with dough that rose in his fridge for about 24hrs. the dough was soft and spread almost instantly; no dough wrestling that resulted in any pizzas shaped like africa (see my first pizza trial). he used cento brand italian plum tomatoes that were seeded, rinsed, and drained to minimize bitterness and "steel can flavor." when the pizzas came out of the oven, there were great gluten bubbles in the crust, although i felt the pizza could have been left in the oven for 30secs more or so to give the crust a little more structure (it was almost too soft). however, this pizza is more like the pizza that im aiming for. to better understand his pizza process, he introduced me to a link:

http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

this guy, jeff varasano, was a software engineer turned pizza obsessor. he has spent countless hours testing almost every conceivable ingredient and technique in making the perfect basic, neapolitan pizza in his home kitchen. his instructions are often too detailed and a little too risky for my student apartment (no thanks to clipping the safety handle off of my oven's clean cycle- id like to get the security deposit back on my apartment).  however, i feel like his site is very helpful and practical if you take some things with a grain of salt. 

jeff emphasizes 3 things: 1) heat, 2) kneading technique, 3) yeast type. of the three, i have the most control over #2). my buddy is planning on growing his own italian yeast culture, but i am sticking with the store bought stuff for now because it's easily available and i want other people to replicate my recipes on this blog whenever possible. traditional pizzas are usually cooked in brick ovens which burn well over 800-1000 degrees (F), while the normal kitchen can only bake around 500-550. my oven dial goes up to 525ish on the bake cycle, but could probably get higher if i then switch it to the broil cycle (which i think is how my friend made his pizzas). in theory, my oven could cook over 900 degress on the clean cycle if i did the "varasano" mod on my oven- but im not. anyway- jeff quotes a recipe in his site that is very similar to what i was doing, except he says it is WRONG. haha! ohhh well. cooking is a process, remember? the first few trials did give me a feel for handling the dough and gave me confidence with working with flour (not my favorite cooking ingredient to manipulate). i plan on making some more dough with the following modifications:

• using a MIXTURE of king arthur (KA) brand AP flour and KA brand bread flour, for added gluten and a better crust. this is similar to what jeff and my friend use. ill probably use a little less than a 50-50 ratio of bread to AP flour.
• AUTO-LYSE step of making the dough- this is something that is common in breadmaking. basically, you add all of your ingredients into the mixer with the paddle attachment (but reserve a little of the flour), and mix until it all of the ingredients are a wet dough. then let the wet dough rest in the mixer for about 20 minutes. apparently this is a more effective method of developing gluten in your dough/bread. after 20mins then you can knead.
• kneading a WET DOUGH for only 30 secs-1 minute. i dunno why this didnt make more sense to me earlier. good eats led me to believe that the dough should be a little drier and that it should spin in the mixer for 15mins. apparently not. think about pancake batter: you dont want to overwork/mix the batter or else your pancakes will not get fluffy and soft. jeff's page is really good on telling you what the consistency should be like (like a baby's bottom-ha!). quickly kneading a wet dough on some flour using a hand tuck and fold method (more on this in subsequent posts) will probably be more effective.
• using less olive oil when putting the dough in the fridge to rise. the oil burns at higher temperatures and can give off some funky tastes and blacken your pizza stone. 
• using uncooked tomatoes in the sauce, for a fresher sauce. theres no need to cook it twice. i cooked my marinara the first time to tweak the flavor of my kroger tomatoes of unknown taste and quality. next time, ill get something of a little better quality. 

unfortunately, i will be away from kitchen for the next few days and will be in winston-salem for a debate conference. the next few updates will be a mixture of describing some of my more classic recipes and reporting on the excellent food finds from NC. 

***UPDATE***

i made pizza from the last bit of dough leftover from the batch i made last thursday. this dough was rested for basically 5 days and it had an extremely soft texture, similar to the texture i felt at my friend's (or "baby bottom soft" as varasano would put it). this dough ball was super easy to stretch, and i got the pizza quite thin (as you can see from the pictures). i baked it at 550 degrees (the highest my oven does on "bake") since i was inspired by my findings on the effect of heat on the quality of pizza. it took a little more than 4mins to cook, whereas the pizzas i baked around 500-520 degrees took over 5-6 minutes. there was some decent puff on the crust but i still need to tweak the recipe. overall- dough that has rested for several days isnt too bad of a thing. 

im a fan of basil baked under the cheese as well as fresh basil after the pizza has cooled for 2-3 minutes (or else it will blacken). the baked basil is crispy and has a slightly sweet taste while the fresh basil is pungent and full of flavor. 

this cross section shows how thin the pizza was, and how part of the crust didnt rise and bubble too much. 

same slice of pizza from the other side- many more gluten bubbles. 

just a little bottom shot- a little bit of good charring around the top edge of the pizza. i credit this to the higher temp.