Neapolitan Pizza from Keste's Roberto Caporuscio // Nesté - New York City
Ingredients
3.75 pounds Tipo "00" flour
1 liter warm water
0.1 ounce fresh yeast
2.1 ounces salt
0.7 ounce sugar (optional)
Procedure
1. Split up the liter of water, using half to dissolve the salt, and the other half to dissolve the yeast. In a perfect world, Caporuscio thinks everyone should use fresh yeast, but he realizes it's not easy to come by. Dry is fine. Most people dissolve the salt and yeast in the same water, but Caporuscio keeps them separate.
2. Combine the flour and sugar. Many flours already have traces of sugar, but the Caputo brand doesn't, so throw a little in yourself. Then add the wet goods, and start working the dough.
3. Caporuscio learned how to mix by hand, but realizes that machines are helpful. If you have a KitchenAid, put it on the lowest speed possible. "One is fine. But if zero was a speed, that'd be better." However you decide to mix the dough, stop after ten minutes, or when it isn't sticky anymore. The key here is s l o o o w.
4. Let dough sit for an hour, covered under plastic.
5. Form into balls, about 20 to 25 ounces each. Store balls in a cool spot, either the fridge or counterspace, for at least five hours to let the dough rise.
6. Preheat oven to 500°F, or however high you can blast that heat up. Spread dough on a baking pan or stone, gently stretching the edges. Scoop tomato sauce on top (take it easy, not too much) and spread around.
You probably don't have one of these pizza infernos, custom-built by two guys from Naples with volcanic stone, but you want one, huh?
7. Bake the dough for ten minutes before any toppings come into play. Now add the tomato sauce and cheese, etc. If you baked the whole shabang at once, the cheese would turn to water and the meats would dry out. So don't. At Kesté, each pie only bakes for about 55 seconds because it's so fracking hot in there. The dude on pizza peel duty boasted his PR: "45 seconds!"
Comments [0]